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Keith

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Everything posted by Keith

  1. Cerise, Cerise, Cerise I don’t know where you are or your B&B and yes, it is possible that you have just bought in the wrong place, but I am sure you would be able to earn more money if you were just more positive. Firstly, I can count on one hand the number of guests that stay with us each year who have walked in off the street and I seriously hope that no-one reading this relies on passing trade to earn a living. Our guests come here because we bring them here, or should I say, entice them here. Ask yourself these questions: Why did you buy in your area? What do you love about it? What kind of client are you aiming your B&B at? How much do you want to earn? Are you doing it make money or as a hobby? I know the old adage that says when you are buying property it’s all about location, location, location and that’s true if you want to make profit from the resale of the building, but it’s not necessarily true when you’re building a business. If it was we would have gone bust in the first year. Oh, our mini-bars don’t contain alcoholic drinks.
  2. Cheers darnsarf for all the info. I think you're right, that an IP system is going to be the way to go. [:)]
  3. Okay, just some basics – perhaps this should be a new thread, and it’s not getting my question answered. We have 4 suites with rates of €60 - €150 per night depending on the time of year. Doing the maths will tell you that income for 12 weeks in the summer gives us €40k. However, room rates (as you all know) only make a bread and butter income, the real money and profit is in the extras. I am not going to go into any detail here, but I will tell you that it has nothing to do with location or the size of your place. Our aim is to earn a minimum of the room rate as extras. Did that make sense? What I mean is, if a room is €100 per night, we would expect to earn a minimum of €100 per day in extras for that room. Obviously, this is just an aim we set ourselves. Sometimes people come and have no extras, other times people can spend €500 per day in a €100 room (especially the Americans). This is where the services you offer are important. Not just the services the guests pay extra for, but also the things you offer for free, like the toiletries in the bathrooms and the bedroom slippers. The freebies get you the quality of guests who will pay for the extras, if your room rates are set correctly and the more choice you have for guest to spend their money on the more extra income your B&B will make. If we only earned the money which we get in room rates then we wouldn’t bother. The B&B business is tough enough without slaving for nothing. Last year we managed to average almost 1.5 x room rate in extras and were fully booked for 20 weeks, hence €120k. We never add extras that won’t generate cash – even the freebies as mentioned earlier. Everything we offer has a reason which can be attributed to profit. Let me explain a bit clearer: All our suites have mini-bars. I hate the things and we certainly didn’t put them in to win a star or an ear of corn. Here’s the reason:                 4 x mini-bar at €120 each = €480                 Last year profits from mini-bars = €965 Here end’th the lesson.   Just for Cerise: Our property cost us less than €60k three years ago and we don’t have any land, it’s just a building in the middle of a village. The point is, identifying and targeting your required clients and offering what they want. None of our guests come to sit in our garden – just as well. Getting the right clients is all down to marketing – and that’s another lesson. PS. The business is now worth €400k.
  4. Thanks cooperlola, but for electrics, standard telecoms and IT, I am the local chappie - hence my original post. I can see this is going to be harder than I thought - as usual! Cathy - we have 4 suites. There is space for another but we haven't developed that area yet.
  5. Thank you jon, cooperlola and darnsarf, a little decorum at last. Amazing isn’t it. I asked what was seemingly a straight forward and innocent question, to firstly be told how ridiculous I was, and then to be told how to run a B&B. True, I am new to this forum and have lived here in France for only four years, but with the years of business management and hospitality experience I have, telling me to do my homework makes me feel like a child again. Also, as our B&B grossed just shy of €120k last year maybe I could give (some of you) some business lessons. darnsarf, thanks for all your advice. I would have no reservations of buying such a system as you mentioned, but I haven’t got the knowledge to install a second hand system myself or know whether a UK system would work here in France. I do know that ordinary telephones from the UK don’t work properly here. You can use them but they won’t ring.
  6. Yes, I can sense the hostilities. [:(] I can also take a hint. [:)] I was hoping that there may be an ex-BT engineer or similar out there who could give a sensible answer to my question, but I now realise the type of site this is. Sorry to have bothered you all, I try elsewhere. [:P]
  7. I can’t answer your questions regarding the websites you’ve come across already, but I can tell you what works for us and how we have found people tend to find us. Firstly, people from the UK, by and large, search for B&B rather than CdH. Secondly, a typical search would include the region and possibly some specific keywords. For instance: “B&B Burgundy, Wine” or “B&B Auvergne, Walking” I don’t know which area you are in and what the main activities are around you, but we have found that this type of search is how our guests find us. To then find the best website I would put the search into Google or MSN and see which site comes out on top. I did a quick Google on: “B&B Burgundy” and top of the list was: www.stopoverconnections.com. Hope this helps – well, it works for us.
  8. We’re looking to install a new telephone system at our B&B and were wondering if any of you have already been down this route and if so, what your experiences and findings were. We are looking for a telephone system which will allow direct calls to come in to each guest room, without the need to go through the reception. We also want guests to be able to make direct external calls. The system must be able to handle separate billing for each room/number and we need to be able to setup our own internal numbers for various services (ie. “0” for reception, “4” for maintenance, “5” for room service, “6” for chamber maid, etc). I know we could just go to France Telecom and they would provide such a system with no problems but, we were hoping someone had some better ideas or suggestions, as France Telecom would be a last resort.
  9. I had been looking for a company/builder to replace the roof on my garage - I'm sure some of you have been there too. This is for a property I have in the Morvan, Burgundy. First problem, getting quotes. I contacted lots of people, some came and quoted, some never turned up and others said they would turn up when they were next passing. Okay, I guess you could say that is the same everywhere, even in the UK. Secondly, when the quotes did come - the first one more than two weeks after they'd been to see the job, the prices were astronomical. Where talking nearly €40,000 for a 6.5 metre garage roof with no under felt. Thirdly, time scales for starting the work varied from 4 months to 9 months. Has anyone else got a similar story? Then, EUREKA? I found an English guy who quoted me less than €20,000 to re-do the roof in the French style (ie. using local slates and hooks, rather than nails) and a start date of three weeks. I would be interested in your stories/thoughts along these lines.
  10. Yes, sometimes grants are available. Depends on your region and schemes at the time. Grants are generally for any buildings, not specifically B&Bs or businesses. The only place you can find the exact information for your building is at the Mairie where the building is located. From what I uderstand, grant schemes are local affairs rather than national. When we renovated our B&B the Mairie offered us a grant. However, we declined because of all the rules we would have been bound by. Most importantly was the fact that no grant was available for work done by ourselves, only on work which was carried out be registered French tradesman.
  11. Hi Lilac Firstly, life in Burgundy couldn't be better - some Brits but not too many, not like the over populated west side of France. Dijon and Auxerre are more cities rather than towns, so it depends on what kind of life you want when you move here. If the hussle and bussle of city life is what you are looking for then Dijion or Auxerre would probably suite you fine. If you are looking for a town rather than a city then I can highly recommend looking at Avallon(89) or Autun(71). On the other hand, if you are looking to escape to the country then look no further than the Morvan Regional Natural Park. The French locals in this region are very friendly and are largely welcoming towards expats. Speaking from my personal experence, in our area we have families from England, Australia, South Africa, Holland, Polland and more. What can I say about the housing market? There's plenty of properties for sale, it's a buyers market. I would never advise anyone to buy a property through a realestate agent (immobilier), but that's your choice. As for the weather, the summers are hot and long, but not too hot (May-September with a max of approx. 38C) the winters are short and predicable (November-March with a min of approx. -7C) you can convert to F. Hope this helps and hope to see you in the area soon.  [:)]
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