New! Inns for Sale on iLoveInns
Is your inn on the market?
Now you can advertise where Inn Lovers gather. We have met many, many innkeepers who were former guests of the very property they purchased. 50% of guests wonder what it would be like if they ran an inn.
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Don't Let This Happen to Your Inn - Selling at 1/2 Price - Losing the Inn
This past week we've heard 2 sad stories - Could both have been avoided?
1. First we heard about several inns more than 3 hours from population centers being sold at almost half the listing price.
2. In the same week, we learned of an inn being taken back by the original owners because the new innkeepers couldn't get guests but didn't believe in advertising on inn directories.
The Solution to a Remote Location
Inns that are more remotely located are the ones that are really suffering these days. They are not in an easy getaway location. The "sold at 1/2 price" inns were more than 3 hours out from a major city. We know from 29 years of working with innkeepers that inns that are remote have to spend much more effort in marketing than others - in fact, the inns we've seen that succeed SPEND 20 HOURS A WEEK marketing. Their inns are on the first page of Google, they are getting articles placed about their destination, calling on local businesses and government offices and working on their Website and Search Engine Optimization. It can be done - but it is a huge committment to marketing!
How to Prepare for a Sale of Your B&B - 2 Years, 5 Years from Now
The number one thing you need according to Mariette Gagne of
Innmarketing.com is to have very good record keeping. Many innkeepers of beautiful and successful inns are lax at keeping good records.They don't know their real profits. Then when the inn is listed for sale they don't have the documentation that will allow them to add a value to the business part of the sale." Innmarketing.com has more than 15 years of experience in selling inns. They recommend that you make a decision today to start using a good program such as Quick Books. "Quick Books is very easy to operate and a good way to keep track of any small business."
Return the Highest Value for All Your hard Work and Keep Your Listings in Inn Directories Current
In the second case, the new innkeepers were saving money by no longer listing in B&B directories. Little by little they lost their visibility on the search engines because they no longer had the powerful links coming into their website. This caused them to drop their positions on search pages because by losing these relevant links, they lost credibility with Google.
The worse part of letting go of directories is losing your inn's website postion. This could almost be construed as an unethical business practice should you be transferring your property over to a new owner. That is because once you lose your Google position it may take months and months to regain it. Search Engines "read" the links coming into your site. High ranking directories that are specifically in your field strongly support your position on the search engines.
This is how Google works:Search engines recognize and rate and position an inn website as more authentic and more important when they have several backlinks coming from large directories. These almost invisible links to your Website are worth their weight in gold.
Whitestone Marketing recommends inns at least be on 10 large inn directories$99 is all it takes to post your inn for sale. This price is good for as long as it takes for your inn to sell. So if it's still for sale in June of 2011 you don't need to pay any thing more. Your inn will still be up on the Inns for Sale site.
All you have to do is:
1. Log in to the Innkeeper control panel.
2. Go to the 5th banner down and you will see Detailed Information. Click on the first tab under Detailed Information - Inns for Sale
3. Click "Add an inn" then once you are done, click on "inactive". This will take you to the payment processing page.
4. Complete payment info and your inn will be up and running on the Inns for Sale page.
You can add photos, change price, change description 24/7.
You can also print out this page for your very own flyer to hand out to certain guests you might suspect to be potential buyers.
Tips to Maximise Exposure
Consider printing out your For Sale listing on www.iLoveInns.com to give to any guests who are thinking about becoming innkeepers.
Think about ways to reach guests of other inns. Can you have another inn that is for sale, send the info about your inn to their guest list and you do the same for them? Perhaps pick an inn in another region/state so that the chances of overlapped guests will be minimal.
