Bed and Breakfast Update

We are really starting to make progress now with the quest for a Bed and Breakfast.  Since our last post we have actually viewed a couple of businesses for sale in the Midlands almost as a sort of practice run for the real thing when we get up to Scotland.  Stepping inside a going concern was a big step towards making it feel like it is really going to happen and it also convinced us that we could definitely do it!

The first place we looked at was called Black Firs in Marston Green.  http://www.b-firs.co.uk/
It was a fantastic business with a lovely host and we almost fell in love with the first place we saw.  Thankfully, we were soon able to view it rationally in the context of our business plan and remind ourselves that it did not really fit with our criteria on a number of points namely location, budget and customer types.  This was essentially a Bed and Breakfast for business customers using the NEC or doing business in the Birmingham area.  However, it was very encouraging and actually quite exciting to imagine ourselves running a place like it on a day to day basis.  What was even more encouraging was the feedback from the owner who said she could see us running her business or one like it,

We went on to see another business further in to Birmingham and, while it was not the right place for us on a number of levels, again the owners were friendly and helpful and we could see that we had the right attitude and skill mix as a couple to easily run a similar business.   I hope we are not deceiving ourselves as we get so many negative comments from people when we tell them what we are planning to do in terms of what hard work it is with early mornings, physical hard work and being available 24/7.  We think that we have thought though all of these points but we are not afraid of hard work and we don't mind early mornings.  We are sociable and we enjoy entertaining.  We want and possibly need to work for ourselves for the next 10 years as we are certain that we don't want to continue to work as hard as we have been doing for someone else only to be cast aside without a second thought when we are no longer required!

The diary of viewings for the Scotland trip is pretty much full now so the only additional preparation to do for this is to familiarise ourselves with the details of the different business and their own web-sites and Trip Adviser ratings and comments.  We have also developed a template for the financial side of each business that we will view as a way of comparing the expected P&L for each one and looking at that in the context of our own expectations for income and expenditure.

Our house is well and truly for sale now with all the formalities attended to and our first viewing booked for tomorrow!

I think that's about it as far as the B&B is concerned.  The Business Plan is almost written - just a matter of pulling it all together now.

We had another meeting with our DBM consultant and as a result of that conversation, our detailed look at the expected revenues and the current economic environment we have reconsidered our decisions to avoid taking on any loans or finance and may consider as a option for the right business.