Entering Innkeeping, Part 2. Goals

Last week I shared thoughts on bed and breakfast or Innkeeping as a lifestyle choice. Have you considered your own lifestyle needs and how they may, or may not match that of an innkeeper?

As I said, enthusiasm for a project is a wonderful thing. Any of us can get caught up in that enthusiasm and find ourselves involved at a different level than initially planned. Define your goals. Don't casually allow yourself to deviate from those goals. If you decide to change your goals, do so consciously, keep them handy, and refer to them. Let’s look at defining specific goals and what the industry has discovered are the motivators for those who have entered innkeeping and found success. Remember, you’re looking for a return on your investment of your time, your energy, your money.

We’ve been able to define four general categories of motivations. They include:
• Lifestyle. It's a place you want to live, an environment you enjoy, and you hope to have the occasional guest in an effort to expand your cultural experiences. Some people with this motivation or goal, choose to participate in house swapping with fellow home owners from around the world. If you live in a highly desirable location i.e. major international city or resort area, you find house swapping a better choice than operating a B&B or Inn.
• Supplemental Income. While cultural experiences are all well and good, you'd like to make a little supplemental income. Airbnb has become very popular with this group. They can rent available space to travelers on a casual basis, making a little cash sharing space they don’t necessarily use in their existing homes.
• Career. This is a career, your primary financial source. Just you might consider a career in law, teaching, retail, health care, innkeeping could be your career of choice, either by owning and operating your own business, or work as a general manager for someone else. Either way, as your primary source of income, there are higher financial stakes in this goal than in the prior more casual motivations.
• Real Estate investment for substantial return on investment. Real estate continues to provide substantial return on investment for the shrewd business person. Buying distressed property or businesses, using business, design, operational skills and experiences to increase their value and then reselling them can provide good returns given proper timing, patience, and economic climate.
Goals run a continuum of possibilities. While yours may not fit exactly into one or these categories, most can clearly identify with one or more of these categories.

Once you’re able to identify your goals, you can then begin to do the research that will help you reach them. Are you looking for a home in a destination location that you can share with others to broaden your life experiences? Do want to make a little extra cash selling space in your current home on a somewhat limited casual basis? Are you exploring career choices? Are you searching for an existing business, or developable real estate to be used for your new exterprise? Clearly set your goal. A good friend kept this quote on his desk: “A man without a plan is planning to fail”.

Next week we’re going to explore the research that will help you refine your goals, gain perspective on the lifestyle, help you find your comfort levels, and narrow your choices, as you pursue your enterprise.