Direct Booking Business Principles That Took Her B&B from €10K to €100K with Yvonne Halling

By / March 12, 2026

What if the key to more direct bookings had nothing to do with algorithms, dynamic pricing, or paid ads — and everything to do with who you are and who you want to serve?

That’s exactly what Yvonne Halling discovered when she transformed her four-room bed and breakfast in the Champagne region of France from a €10,000-a-year hobby into a €100,000-a-year business — without a single listing on Booking.com or Airbnb. On this episode of Booked Solid, Yvonne breaks down the direct booking business principles she developed over years of trial, error, and award-winning results — and why they’re just as relevant today as they were when she first built the system.

Whether you’re just getting your first property off the ground or you’ve been in the game for years and feel stuck, this conversation will challenge how you think about hospitality, pricing, and your relationship with your guests.

Summary and Highlights

👤 Meet Yvonne Halling

Yvonne Halling is the founder of BedAndBreakfastCoach.com and the creator of the B&B Money Maker Business Transformation Program, where clients typically grow their revenue by at least 25% in a single season — while paying fewer commissions, working less, and genuinely enjoying the process.

She ran her own B&B in the Champagne region of France for 17 years. She started as a hobbyist, making less than €10,000 a year. By applying a set of timeless business principles and building a direct booking ecosystem from scratch, she grew to over €100,000 annually with just four rooms and no OTA listings whatsoever. She’s won multiple hospitality and marketing awards and now coaches independent hospitality owners worldwide to do the same.

Her mission is straightforward: return power to independent hosts, restore them to the heart of their communities, and equip them to run their businesses on their own terms.

🧭 What You’ll Discover in This Episode

  • The “three-circle framework” for finding your sweet spot and ideal guest
  • Why being a generalist is the most dangerous place to operate from
  • How the Value Pyramid separates hobbyists from specialists — and how to climb it
  • The guest communication system that turns strangers into loyal, repeat bookers
  • Why Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs matters more than your thread count
  • Kiyosaki’s Cashflow Quadrant and the “great divide” every host must cross
  • Real client stories of transformation — including one who tripled her revenue

🎯 Principle #1 — Know Exactly Who You’re Welcoming

The first and most foundational principle Yvonne teaches is deceptively simple: decide who your guest is. When you try to market yourself to everyone, you become a commodity. And the only point of differentiation for a commodity is price, which is, as Yvonne puts it, “a really bad place to be.”

To find your ideal guest, she offers a three-circle framework. Draw three interconnected circles on a piece of paper. The first circle represents your location — where you operate. The second represents why people visit your area. The third represents you — your passions, your interests, what you love to talk about. Where those three circles overlap is your sweet spot — and that’s where your value lives.

This isn’t just a marketing exercise. It’s the foundation for everything that follows. Without clarity here, you’ll keep competing on price with hundreds of other hosts who look exactly like you. With it, you start building something nobody else can replicate. This connects deeply with what we’ve explored in Building a Direct Booking Niche That Fills Your Calendar Year-Round and Niche Marketing Strategies for Short-Term Rental Hosts with Nihal Salah.

📊 The Value Pyramid — From Hobbyist to Expert

Once you know who you’re serving, the next step is positioning yourself in a way that commands respect and premium pricing. Yvonne maps this out through what she calls the Value Pyramid.

At the base are the hobbyists — hosts who treat their property like a side hustle, often reluctant to meet guests, relying on anonymous key entry, and booking whenever it suits them. There’s nothing wrong with being here, but know where you stand.

One level up are the generalists — professional hosts running their properties for profit, but without a defined guest. They market to everyone, compete on price, and often feel frustrated that guests always seem to want a discount. This is the most crowded and most dangerous tier, and dynamic pricing — while popular — can actually reinforce this problem by training guests to book late for better deals.

Above that are the specialists — hosts who’ve identified a specific type of traveler and built their entire experience around them. They’re not waiting for guests to arrive; they’re actively going after the people they most want to welcome. They know where to watch the sunset, which producer makes the best champagne in the region, and which trail is best for a morning hike. That knowledge has value, and guests will pay for it.

At the very top sits the expert — someone who becomes the definitive voice on a specific topic or experience in their area. Getting there takes time. But Yvonne makes a compelling promise: wherever you are, nobody in your area is doing this. The specialist and expert categories are wide open.

🧠 The Mindset Shift That Makes It All Work

Here’s what separates this framework from most marketing advice: it starts in your head before it shows up in your marketing. Yvonne is clear that the journey from generalist to specialist is first a mindset journey. There’s imposter syndrome to overcome — the voice that says “I don’t know enough,” or “what if they don’t like me?” Especially, she notes, for women.

Gil drew a parallel to Psycho-Cybernetics — the classic book on reprogramming the mental image you hold of yourself before your behavior can change. Yvonne agreed: you have to see yourself as the specialist before anyone else will. This isn’t motivational fluff. It’s the prerequisite.

As she put it — and this is worth sitting with: “It is really a leadership thing. Leading your guests.”

💬 The Guest Communication System — From Stranger to Loyal Guest 🤝

Once you’ve positioned yourself and know who you’re serving, the next framework Yvonne introduces is the guest communication system — a series of intentional touchpoints that guide a guest from the moment they book through to their next stay.

Most hosts drop the ball here. They wait for guests to arrive. They send a check-in message. They hope for a good review. That’s passive. Yvonne’s model is the opposite.

She challenges hosts to stop assuming guests don’t want to hear from you. The assumption that people ignore emails or don’t want communication is, she says, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Guests are looking for leadership. They want to feel like someone has them covered — that they’ve chosen right, that you’ve thought about them, that they can’t wait to arrive.

This is where Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs becomes practical. Most hosts appeal to the bottom of the hierarchy — shelter, comfort, food. But guests who travel have those needs covered. What they’re looking for is higher up: belonging, emotional connection, the feeling of being led by someone who genuinely cares. The hosts who speak to those needs in their communications — before, during, and after the stay — are the ones guests return to.

For more on building this kind of guest-first relationship, check out How to Build a Direct Booking Brand That Guests Remember and Simplify Direct Booking Experience with Abby Grous from Hospitable.

💼 The Cashflow Quadrant — Crossing the Great Divide

Yvonne is one of the few hospitality coaches who teaches Robert Kiyosaki’s Cashflow Quadrant as a foundational concept for hosts. On the left side: employee and self-employed. On the right: business owner and investor. Most hosts who transition from their day jobs end up self-employed — but in a business with a terrible boss: themselves.

The “great divide,” as Yvonne calls it, is the crossing from self-employed to business owner. It requires delegation, leadership, and a willingness to step back from the $10-an-hour tasks — the laundry, the yard work, the endless tinkering — so you can focus on what actually moves the needle.

Gil echoed this from his own experience at CraftedStays, where he’s currently building delegation systems and trusting his team to own the hiring process — guided not by a checklist of technical skills, but by two qualities that can’t be trained: reliability and genuine care for customers. As Richard Branson put it, and as Yvonne quoted perfectly, “Hire for attitude, train for skill.”

The lesson for hosts is the same. Until you make that crossing, you’ll spin your wheels. Your energy will go toward busywork that feels productive but doesn’t build the business. And the thousand-dollar-an-hour work — the guest experience design, the marketing, the brand positioning — will never get done.

🌍 Real Transformations — What Happens When the System Works

Yvonne shared two client stories that illustrate exactly how this framework plays out in the real world.

The first was a Canadian host with a three-room log cabin in the wilderness. She and her husband were passionate about wildlife photography — and their walls were covered in stunning prints of local bears, eagles, and other creatures. Yvonne’s team helped her lean into that passion fully. She repositioned her property exclusively for guests interested in wildlife and wildlife photography, added an on-site photography experience, and priced herself accordingly. She tripled her revenue in one season. And then? Her passion kept evolving. She turned her photographs into printed fabric, launched a clothing line, and eventually stepped back from hosting entirely. The B&B became the launchpad for something bigger.

The second story was Yvonne’s own husband, who took their Champagne tour business and evolved it into a service that creates custom private champagne brands for clients worldwide. A passion, a niche, and a willingness to follow where it leads — that’s the pattern.

These aren’t outliers. They’re what happens when hosts stop marketing outward and start building from the inside.

🏨 The Opportunity in the Middle of Hospitality

One of the most thought-provoking moments in this episode is when Yvonne describes the industry as fragmented — and the opportunity that fragmentation has created.

On one end, you have the big hotel chains: high volume, OTA-dependent, all about heads in beds. On the other end, you have the Airbnb economy: anonymous, side-hustle-driven, and largely disconnected from real hospitality. And stuck in the middle is the heart of the industry — independent hosts who got swept up in dynamic pricing and keyless entry because it seemed easier.

That middle space, Yvonne says, is a massive opportunity. Not for hosts who are competing on price or cutting back on connection, but for those willing to come back to center — to be true to who they are, to create experiences rooted in what they love, and to build what she calls sacred hospitality: businesses that are holistic, genuine, and irreplaceable.

Nobody in your area is doing this. That’s the point.

📚 Book Recommendations from Yvonne

  • Rich Dad, Poor Dad / Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki
  • The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
  • The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scoville Shinn (Yvonne’s personal bedside book)
  • Yvonne’s own books — including her latest, a PDF with an AI tool that lets you ask questions directly about her system. Find them at BedAndBreakfastCoach.com

⚡ Rapid Fire with Yvonne Halling

One book that changed your life? The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz — and she highlighted one agreement in particular: don’t make assumptions. Don’t assume guests won’t pay your price. There are customers for every price point. One client raised his pricing from $140 per person to $140 per night to $140 per person per night — five times more — and people still booked.

One mindset tip for someone starting something new? Get into the business owner mindset from day one. Don’t wait until you can afford to delegate — delegate early. And before any of that, get crystal clear on your value proposition: who you are, what you offer, and exactly who it’s for.

One tactical takeaway for direct bookings? Map your customer journey from total stranger to loyal guest. Count every touch point — email, text, video, in-person moments. Then ask: what can I add that will fill their emotional bank account so completely that they can’t wait to come back?

🔗 Connect with Yvonne Halling

🎧 Ready to Build Something Guests Can’t Stop Talking About?

Listen to the full episode with Yvonne Halling on the Booked Solid podcast — and then take a hard look at what you’re building. Are you a generalist competing on price, or a specialist building something nobody else can offer?

If your website isn’t reflecting the level of host you’re becoming, CraftedStays.co is built to change that. Start your free trial and create a direct booking site that actually converts — fast, mobile-first, and built for hosts who are serious about owning their guest journey.

You can also explore more on building a business that attracts the right guests at Leveraging Your Niche for Direct Bookings with Mark Mancini, Boost Direct Bookings by Going Niche, and Increase Direct Bookings by Unleveling Quality with Chris Petzy.

Join thousands of hosts who are building direct booking businesses they’re proud of — start here.

Transcription

Yvonne: So the first thing, you have to decide who your customer is. It’s really important that you niche yourself for a particular group or groups of people. When you try to market yourself to anybody and everybody, you turn yourself into a commodity. And then the only point of differentiation is price. And that’s a really.

Bad place to be you. You have to look for your intrinsic value in who you are and what you offer to a particular group of guests, a niche if you like. So principle number one is be absolutely clear on who you want to welcome and why they will choose you.

Gil: Before we bring on my guest, I wanted to talk just a little bit about something that I’ve been hearing a lot from Host. I keep on hearing the same thing. I know my website isn’t converting, but I can’t afford $8,000 on an agency to rebuild it. Here’s the thing, you’re letting all these marketing strategies, you’re driving traffic and you’re putting it all to work.

But if your site isn’t really built to convert, you’re basically lighting your energy and money on fire. And even if you could afford an agency build, every time you want to test something or make a change, you’re having to pay them again. You can’t iterate, you can’t test, and you really can improve on things.

You don’t need a custom $10,000 website to get the conversion rates that really matter. You just need the right platform. That’s why I build CraftedStays. It’s purpose built for short term rentals and design from the ground up to help you drive more direct bookings. You can finally turn that traffic into bookings and you can keep on testing and improving as you learn, you can make changes all on the platform.

You don’t need to learn something new. So if you need some help or you wanna get started, go ahead and go to Craftedstays.co and start your free trial. Now let’s bring on our guests and dive deep into hospitality and marketing.

 Gil: Hey folks. Welcome back to the Booked Solid Show, the podcast where we’re bringing top operators to discuss hospitality, operations, and direct bookings. On today’s show, I have Yvonne Halling on the show. She is the bed and breakfast coach. She started off as a hobbyist host. Back in 2010, she was making about 10 K that first year, and within a few short years, she not only doubled, but she 10 XD her revenues with the same four keys and doors.

She, over that period, learned specific frameworks that allowed her to grow her business, and she did all of this without relying on any OTAs. So she developed a marketing platform or set of frameworks. She now coaches this to others. On today’s show, you’ll get a sense of some of the fundamental things that applies not just in hospitality and building out a short-term rental business, but some of the business practices that she now teaches to her students that are widely avail, widely applicable.

She is. Just amazing to talk to. Um, so I’m really excited to bring her in. So without further ado, let’s start the show.

Gil : Hey, Yvonne, welcome to the show.

Yvonne : Hi Gil.

Gil : It’s great to meet you. I had a , great pleasure of getting to know you right before the show and really understanding your journey. I was, we were joking just a little bit about how, I wish we were already hitting the record button because I learned so much about you and your journey and just how you approach things.

But maybe to kind of kick us off, Yvonne, do you mind giving folks an introduction on who you are?

Yvonne : Sure, my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me onto the podcast. It’s such a pleasure to be here. So my name’s Yvonne Halling and I run a business called Bed and Breakfast coach.com, which is in the, what I would call the traditional professional hospitality space. Um, I ran a bed and breakfast business myself in the champagne region of France for many, many years.

We opened in 2000 before the internet, and I was running a, running it like a hobby business because in back, back then, we used to hang a sign outside and hope and pray that somebody knocked on the door. Everything changed in about 2009, 2010, where we got online and, uh, I became a, uh, I I became professional.

I turned pro and I grew my revenue from making just around 10,000 euros a year to making a hundred thousand euros a year with just four rooms. And without booking.com or any OTAs whatsoever, I developed and mastered a system, um, that was then transferrable to any, any hospitality business, in fact, any business at all.

But, but I concentrate on hospitality businesses. Whether that’s short term rental, whether it’s property management, whether it’s professional, uh, hosting, uh, when you are on site, like a bed and breakfast or if it is, or even, uh, small boutique hotels. So, um, I developed my system and, um, I won an award for it, um, in 2013.

And, um, the company that awarded me this award for my system, uh, made a video of me, which went a little bit viral online at the time. And then other people started asking me for help. Well, what are you doing? How are you, how did you grow your revenue without booking.com, without Airbnb? And, you know, how did you do it without online travel agencies?

So I put my program together with all of the knowledge that I, that I had gained over this time, and I now take people through my system, um, which they implement step by step. And, uh, some of them have. Doubled. Some of them have even tripled their revenue in the space of just one season, or even two seasons.

Um, and got, you know, reduced, dramatically reduced dependency on online travel agents. So that’s where I am today.

Gil : Wow. Um, I wanna ask a pointed question to sort of start it off, off. You’ve started many, many years ago and you developed the system back in, I remember 2013. It was,

Yvonne : 2010. 2010 I started. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of trial and error and, um, yeah, by, by 2000 and yeah, it took me two seasons to get to a hundred thousand from making 10,000 a year. Right. So it took me two seasons because I had nobody to teach me the system. Um, but, but it is a system. It, it is a system and it’s a repeatable system that you customize for your particular situation.

Gil : And, and we will get into specifically, and I, I want you to share with us kind of the, the framework and how you think about it and maybe kind of the learnings along the way, but maybe to start us off, has that evolved over time now, like past the decade? Has it changed much at all or has it really been rooted so much in some of the foundations that like a lot of the main core concepts didn’t really change and maybe some parts on technology may have changed, but the core principles are, are remaining the same?

Yvonne : the core principles remain the same. I didn’t invent them. Right? These are timeless business principles, um, that are, are applicable to any business, not just hospitality. Like, like, and, and I’ll, if you like, I’ll explain what they are.

Gil : Yeah, please.

Yvonne : Okay? So the first thing, you have to decide who your customer is. It’s really important that you, that you.

Niche yourself for a particular group or groups of people. When you mark, try to market yourself to anybody and everybody, you turn yourself into a commodity. And then the only point of differentiation is price. And that’s a really bad place to be. You. You have to look for your intrinsic value in, in who you are and what you offer to a particular group of guests.

A ni, a niche if you like. So principle number one is be absolutely clear on who you want to welcome and why they would choose you. And I have a little, um, framework for this, and it consists of three circles. You can take your pen and paper out if you want, if you’re listening to this now, and you can draw three circles.

Interconnected, right? So you’ve got one circle on the right, you’ve got another one on the left, you’ve got another one below. And that piece in the middle. Is what you need to be looking at, be focusing on. The first circle is your location, where you are operating from. The second circle is why the reasons why people come to your area.

And the third circle is you, your passions and your interests. What do you like to talk about? What are the things that interest you the most about your area that is relevant to the reasons that people come? Right? And when you’ve got all of those three things lined up, you’ve got what I call in the middle, your sweet spot, which is your, your point of differentiation, not on price, on value.

So in order to, uh, if you like, move up the value pyramid. My other framework for this is, is moving yourself up the value pyramid. So if you draw a, like a pyramid on your paper and across the bottom of the pyramid, you’ve got the hobbyists. And this is where I started out, right? All those years ago in 2000 where I didn’t really need the money.

I was doing it like on the side. It was a side hustle for me. I did it when I felt like it, and when I didn’t want to open, I would just not take anybody. I just say, no, I’m full. Uh, and, and the, the, a lot of people operating in the Airbnb space are doing that because Airbnb has been very clever in giving anybody and everybody the opportunity to create a side income.

Right? And there are many, many hosts on Airbnb who are just doing it for the side income and who can blame them, right? But they’re not really what I would call professional hosts. They don’t like to meet the guests. It’s often key entry. There’s an anonymous experience, right? I class them in the hobbyist category.

There’s nothing wrong with being there, but just know where you’re at. If you want a direct bookings business that makes you, you know, a good amount of money that you can, that can support your lifestyle and, and supports your growth, then you need to move yourself up the value pyramid. So the next bit, the next layer, if you like in the pyramid, uh, up from the hobbyist is what I call the generalist category.

And, and there’s a good many people in this category, right? These are the people who are professional, they are running it for profit, uh, you know, to, to sustain themselves financially, but they don’t know who their client is. They don’t know who their ideal guest is. And so they market themselves to anybody and everybody.

And the only point of differentiation for those people is price. And that’s a really dangerous place to be because how low can you go? There’s always somebody who can go lower. And, and I, I, I don’t subscribe to the dynamic pricing model either because you are teaching your guests to book late to get better prices.

You are not teaching your guests to look for the value that you offer, right? So moving up the pyramid, then you’ve got the third rung of the pyramid. The third chunk up the pyramid is, is this is where you need to aim for, which is the specialist. Now, anybody can be a specialist because anybody can be a specialist on their area.

Anybody can do this by using the framework that I just gave you with the three circles is to determine the people that are coming, who do you most want to welcome and then go after those people online Instead of sitting waiting for bookings to come in, you actively market to the people. So the specialist is somebody who, who, who is.

Adding value to the people that they want to welcome in terms of what they know, their knowledge about the area. Where’s the best place to watch the sunset? Where’s the best place to go hiking? What time of day should I go to the museum? Where’s the best place to eat? All of that is presented to the guest to make them feel like they are safe with you, and you have got them covered for any eventuality in terms of the value on your area.

And the last piece of the pyramid, the the top piece, which is I call the cherry on the top, is when you become an expert on a particular topic of your area. And this is where we got to now. This isn’t an easy process. It doesn’t happen overnight. You have to work at it and it starts first in your mind.

You have to like prime yourself to position yourself in the marketplace as this expert or the specialist. It doesn’t matter whether you go for the expert or the specialist. You just want to get out of the generalist category basically because it’s really crowded down there and it’s not crowded in the specialist and expert categories so you can clean up basically, I guarantee you, wherever you are, nobody in your area is doing this.

I can practically guarantee.

Gil : That’s interesting. And, and so how does that manifest itself? Like what does that mean once you do become a specialist and a gen and, and an expert,

Yvonne : you take yourself out of the commodity market. You take yourself out of the price driven commodity market, and you start pricing your services, your rooms, and your experiences at a higher rate. And when I say this is a, this is a work in progress, it starts in your mind first because you’re gonna have to convince yourself that you are that person first before anybody else can recognize you.

And this is mindset work. And I, I know from my own experience of going through this process myself and taking many, many clients through this process, there’s a lot of imposter syndrome where, you know, I don’t know enough and I’ve only, I don’t live there and, and I don’t know this and I can’t say this.

And what if somebody doesn’t like me? And all of those things that go through our heads, particularly for women. This is mostly for women, right? This is very prevalent. Um, so you have to kind of get really like clear in your own self of your value as the specialist or the expert?

Gil : So you’re saying even before you kind of get yourself and put yourself out there, you need to then first internalize, picture yourself in that expert position. And it doesn’t matter if it’s expert or specialist, but put yourself in a place where you have a level of expertise, a level of knowledge that is beyond.

General public, and you can guide others. And when you put yourself in that position where you can guide others, then you will start to lead in that direction.

Yvonne : Exactly. It, it is really a leadership thing. Yes. Leading your guests.

Gil : Yeah. And, and so from a guest experience

Yvonne : Mm-hmm.

Gil : how do you know when you’ve gotten this right? When you’re taking the right steps, how do you show up for your guest when you become that specialist? And maybe in contrast compared to a generalist or a hobbyist?

Yvonne : Right. Great question. Right? So, um, if you think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right? Most people are appealing, trying to appeal or trying to attract guests from the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy, which is basic needs, right? Shelter, food, warmth. People who travel have already got those needs met, right?

So if you are talking about on your website, if you’re talking about your, your linen, your bed linen, your delicious breakfast, and your comfortable rooms, you are not really positioning yourself. As that specialist, you, you are appealing to the basic needs of people when they’ve already got them met. You know, so what?

Your breakfast is delicious. Great. You know, but you know, people eat well generally, particularly if they’re traveling. You need to be appealing to the psychological needs of people, which is further up Maslow’s hierarchy. The next bit, if you like, you can look this up online. It’s, it’s everywhere. But if you think about Maslow’s hierarchy, the psychological needs are where you need to be positioning yourself.

So people need a sense of belonging. They, they want to feel like you’ve got them, like you are the leader that you are. They’re going on a journey with you. They haven’t just booked a room with you. You are taking them on an experience. And that starts from the minute they book. Right. We’ll come onto that in a second, but, but as soon as they have booked with you, you have to imagine that you are leading them through a series of communications that is going to enhance their state to the point where they’ll never cancel and they can’t wait to meet you, or they can’t wait to arrive at your property.

Even if you don’t meet them in person.

Gil : Mm-hmm.

Yvonne : to feel you. They have to feel you, which meets their psychological needs of wanting to belong. Emotional intimacy, and friendship and like being on the inside.

Gil : How do you, how do you cross that, that, that bridge, for someone that hasn’t kind of gone through that process, like how do you get, create that empathy or that connection there with someone that. Maybe just spoke with you. You never have spoken a single word with you, and how do you start that relationship?

Yvonne : Okay, so this is, this is the next framework, right? Your guest communication system is crucial. This is the system for which, uh, which I created, and I say, it took me two years. Everything that I’m teaching you here, everything I’m talking about here is part of my system. But the guest communication system is key from the moment that they book to the moment that they leave and beyond.

You have to kind of see your guest, assume that they want, assume that they want your information, make assumptions that support the value that you offer. Rather than making assumptions, like, and I hear this a lot, they don’t wanna hear from me. No one opens any emails. Um, I, I, they, they’re not reading my stuff anyway.

You know, if you are making those assumptions, it’s not gonna work. And, and like I said earlier, you’ve gotta get into your head that they want to hear from you that, that they want you to lead them like they are crying out for leadership and connection. Right? It’s really, really easy to create that if you know what you are about right?

If you, if you’re clear in yourself that you know what you offer, you know it’s valuable and you know your guests are gonna have an amazing time with you because you’ve got some proof, right? And that take, it’s a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. So in my guest communication system, I have a, a series of touch points from the moment they book to the moment they arrive, and then when they stay and then when they leave and when they leave, you have to assume again that they’re gonna want to come back.

I hear this all the time in this industry, you know, oh, but that I’m a one-time destination and, um, and people don’t come back here, but you have to give them a chance, right? You are making an assumption that isn’t going to be, it isn’t going to support you or them. You have to make an assumption that they want to hear from you.

That you are the leader. You are going to lead them on a journey. This is what they want, and that they will want to come back if you do this well.

Gil : a lot of what you’re, you’re saying reminds me. I don’t, I don’t know if you’ve ever come across the book Psycho-Cybernetics

Yvonne : Yes, yes,

Gil : it reminds me a lot about that because in Psycho-Cybernetics it talks about trying to rewire your brain to, to act the way that you want to behave. And we talked a little bit about the before the show of like putting yourself in that position, but it’s interesting to see. you see that as a fundamental piece very early on, and actually you mentioned as the first step is before you do anything else, is actually put yourself in that role there. And I can tell now that this is not an, an addition to the framework. It’s a core principle to the framework. Because if you don’t put yourself in that position, you don’t, you don’t approach the problems where you’re creating value, that you’re thinking about things in that manner.

So it makes a whole lot of sense and it’s almost artfully put together. Uh, and I’m, and I’m, maybe I’m seeing this after the 13 years of you working on this or, or many years more of working on the system. But I can tell that as you’re explaining things, you have a very archetyped mindset, like the way that you think about problems, the way you’re breaking it down. And I can tell kind of throughout the years as you’re building this, you’re like, ugh. Something is missing there. Something, there is this one piece, and it probably took you years to chase through to find those missing pieces of the puzzle. Let me know if I’m wrong on that, but I’m, I’m trying to like, get into your mind and like figure out how did you come up with the system because it’s like, again, it’s, it’s so artfully put together.

Yvonne : It is, it, it is a work of art, actually, uh, because there are so many variables. And of course, this system is customizable to anybody’s business, right? And, and some, I’ll, I’ll give you some examples of clients that I’ve worked with of how they’ve used this system, and in fact, how they’ve taken this system and used it in another business as well, because it’s fundamental.

I, you know, these are timeless business principles that all successful businesses have. Who do you sell to? Right? Who is your, who is your ideal customer? And then. What, you know, what else can you add that’s going to really wow them and delight them, that’s gonna make it so exciting that they can’t wait to, they, they can’t wait to meet you.

They can’t wait to stay at your property, and then they can’t wait to leave a five star review view, and then they can’t wait to hear from you because you’ve got something juicy and exciting for them to come back and experience. And they want to go through that, that whole process, that whole system with you again because it was so delightful the first time.

Right? You have to get into that sort of mindset that what you are doing. It’s what I, I mean, it’s almost a spiritual experience, to be honest with you. It really is. And, and it didn’t take me, I mean, it took me a while to come up with a system and then it, it’s always evolving. It’s not static, right? It’s always evolving.

You change situations, change, you know. Life is a moving object, right? It’s not static. You, you, you can’t just like build it once. It’s all, you are always tweaking it, you are always adding to it. You are always like changing it because it, it’s what, it’s what entrepreneurs do, right? It’s what business owners do.

They don’t just build something and then just leave it. The delight is tweaking it. The delight is in tweaking it. And when you delight in it, your guests pick up that energy, which is, you know, you clearly thought about your guests because you’ve got all of these touch points. You clearly thought about their experience and you, you want them to feel you, you want them to feel you for that connection.

That all important connection, right? And then once you’ve done that, what you know, you, you keep, you keep going. You keep them going through this system by keeping in touch with them. And before too long you’ve got a core customer list. This is crucial. Absolutely crucial to have your own customer list.

Why would you need to use online travel agencies when you’ve got your own customer list

Gil : Mm-hmm.

Yvonne : and you treat that customer list like it’s a piece of treasure?

Gil : I, I can empathize a lot with this and I, I don’t know about any of our, our listeners here, our craft to sales users. I, I carry a lot of these principles. I can kind of tell why you say that these are applicable, even outside hospitality. These are timeless principles. If. Actually, I wanna step back a little bit.

You mentioned something I think is super important, which is early on you, you mentioned that Venn diagram of the, the, the location, why people are visiting. I actually think the, the last piece that you mentioned is probably one of the most critical parts are like, what are you passionate

Yvonne : Yeah.

Gil : Because I think that when you do that, it creates this one sense of like intimacy, like this is you.

Yvonne : yes,

Gil : But I think two, it also creates and feeds off of passion. And I think that that is like one of the biggest recipes of success in business is passion. And there’s a lot of school thoughts of like, don’t chase your dreams or don’t chase your virgin, or, or don’t just go through that. Like there’s, it’s, it’s polar, like a lot of people either believe it or don’t.

For me, I do think that like I, I do want people that are. Really passionate about what they do and how they think about things and the visions of them. When you get into the zone of passion, then you think about how do I serve that in any way? Because business is not linear.

Yvonne : No.

Gil : You’ll have your ups, you’ll have your downs, you’ll have your tired days.

But if you’re passionate about what you’re doing, it gives you this almost perpetual energy. And you may have to be reminded every so often of that passion. You might need a guest to remind you. You may need a client to remind you, or a notepad that you leave by your desk. But I do think that the most successful entrepreneurs are the ones that are really passionate.

They’re not necessarily chasing the revenue, the dollars, the growth. They have this like serving need there. And I just think that just so, so important. Like I, at crafted days, I still, again, people have heard this on the show. I still onboard every single one of our customers. Again, I might not be able to do this indefinitely.

I, my times are limited now, like this week, if you were to book time with me, it’s probably not gonna be the next few days or even next week. So it’s harder. But I, I care so much about our customers. I care about understanding what they’ve tried, what resources are they looking for, how can I help them in that journey.

And again, like I might not have the indefinite time in the world and, and I might not be able to meet with everybody as, especially as we continue to grow. me having that passion, that root there of serving others in my community that want to work with us. I’ll figure out some other way. It’s maybe lengthening this podcast or it’s more blog posts or having office hours or whatever it is.

When you have that unrivaled passion there, you will find any way to serve you want to serve the best.

Yvonne : You will, you will. And, and, and the energy of that will transmit, it will transmute to your customers, to your guests, to, to, to the people around you, to your team. You know, I, I I often say to people, don’t, if you don’t like, people, don’t get into hospitality. Right? It’s a people business. It’s a people. I am fascinated by people.

Right. Uh, and I, I just love to see how people react towards me. It was such a, it’s a psychological thing. I think it’s, like I said earlier, it is almost a spiritual experience. You know, some of the stories that you get when you, when you are a hands-on host are incredible. And the things that people share with you are just, it’s like they’ve, they’re entrusting you with their life story.

And it’s, it’s so, it’s so joyous, you know, in a kind of spiritual way. It’s, um, you’ve gotta love what you’re doing. You’ve gotta love what you’re doing. Otherwise, you know, if you’re just doing it for the money. And, and I know, you know, the money’s important. You must be paid, you must be paid well for the value that you bring.

Um, but you’ve gotta love it as well. You, you’ve gotta love it as well.

Gil : yeah. Before our call, um. You mentioned a, another framework, you’re, you’re riddled with many, many different frameworks. I, I definitely wanna keep on, keep on continuing this conversation even after this podcast. Um, but you mentioned one that I haven’t heard all that much on this show, uh, which is you mentioned Robert Kiyosaki and most people that know Robert Kawasaki probably knows of him as Rich Dad, poor Dad.

Yvonne : Sure.

Gil : had many other books. Now the more recent ones are a little bit more, oh, not, I don’t know if controversial is the right, the right term, but a little bit more binary in terms of people like it or not. Um, but I would love for you to share, um, the cashflow Quadrant example that you had and kind of taking that leap to the other side there.

Yvonne : Yes, I, uh, this is one of the fundamentals, I think, excuse me. One of the first things that we teach our clients when they start to work with us is that you must get into the right mindset. Because if you and I, I reference, I use his, uh, Robert Kiyosaki’s Cashflow Quadrant, and on the right, again, on a bit of paper, if you’ve got a bit of paper, if you’re listening on the left hand side of the page, you are at the top left.

You’re gonna put employee, and at the bottom left, you’re gonna put self-employed. And then over on the right hand side of the paper, you at the top right. You’re gonna put business owner at the bottom right. You’re gonna put investor. Now, investor is. Let’s leave that aside for now. But what I say to people is you have to find, you have to experience the growth of, of leaping from self-employed to business owner.

I call it the great divide because if you, we all start off as you know, employees. That’s what we’re trained to do. If you’ve been through the Western education system, you’re trained to be an employee to get a good job,

Gil : Yes, we are. Yes,

Yvonne : Even to this day. Even to this day, right? But then we get fed up with the job and we end up being self-employed.

If you’re anything like me, this is what happened to me, right? But then I realize that self-employed is, is a bit like having a job, but with a terrible boss, which is you. So, so you have to make that distinction between being self-employed, where you’re doing everything yourself to business owner, where you delegate and, and that journey across the Great divide is a personal growth.

Journey and there is pain. Accept the pain, accept there will be pain and it will be smoother. Because when you get to the other side, you are able to delegate. You are able to get people to do things for you with your guidance and leadership, and that is the growth. You have to become that leader for your team, not just for your guests, but for your team as well.

Because your job in this business is to attract the guests that you want to welcome and create and curate an exceptional experience for them, right? That is your job. It isn’t doing the laundry, it isn’t doing the yard work. It isn’t tinkering about with the website, although there may be a bit of that in there because though all of that can be done delegated out to somebody else.

There’s a great, um, I think it’s um, Steven Covey, or it might be Dan

Gil : Yeah. Covey.

Yvonne : Is it cover or Dan Sullivan? Dan Sullivan talks about this. The $10 an hour tasks versus the thousand dollars an hour tasks decide.

Gil : I think that’s Dan,

Yvonne : I think it’s Dan Sullivan. And you have to be doing the thousand dollar an hour tasks because when you are doing the $10 an hour tasks, which is busy work, it feels productive because you are busy Who’s doing the thousand dollars an hour tasks?

And the answer is nobody. Right? And you will find that you’ll be going round in circles, spinning your wheels, unable to grow, unable to get out of the commodity market, unable to lift yourself into the specialist or expert arena, unable to, to think of creative ways to wow and delight your guests. All of that will be taken from you if you don’t lift yourself, if you don’t make that journey.

From the self-employed side of the quadrant to the business owner side of the quadrant, which I’m doing it the other way around if you’re watching on video. Um, but you’ve gotta move from the left to the right hand side. In Kiyosaki’s book, he tells you all about this. It’s, he lays it out really well.

This is a fundamental principle that we have to master if we are going to become that leader for our guests and build a business that sustains us and delights our customers.

Gil : Yeah, and I, I think, hmm. The feeling that you get when you do it right is, is just a amazing, we we’re having a, a team meeting internally at, at k Crafted stays the other day, and we’ve gone through a lot of growth. Um, and my team at, they’re listening here, they know that I have a pretty high bar in terms of quality.

Um, I to, and maybe this is the hosting side of me, when someone messages me, I’m trying to get back to them right away. Same thing goes for a lot of our customers. I try to, I have, um, our customer support tool on my phone, so I get wrong too. Um, but I all to say is like, I try to keep a pretty high quality bar and I’m starting to feel that over the next two or three months we’re gonna start to hit our capacity again in terms of the amount of people that we can serve with, the amount of team members that we have.

And we’re starting to hire our next set of team members and. This time, the first few times I was doing the hiring and this time I took a slightly different approach and I said that we have these opportunities that are coming up ahead. I anticipate that we’re gonna be growing or we need to grow our, our, our, our, our human resources and we need to hire.

And I gave them two criteria. I told them, one, I want anyone that we’re bringing in here will uphold the quality that we have. They have to be reliable, they have to be dependable, we have to be able to trust them with our customers. And that’s two, have to care deeply about our customers. They have to have that innate sense of hospitality, customer service, serving people.

And that’s all I gave them. And I had our team come together and we’re, we’re on a, like a slack thread on, on this. And. I had this really amazing moment where I just was reading the chats back and forth with our team members of like what they wanted, and we were talking about do they need to have technical skills and do they need to have X, Y, or Z?

And they’re like, no. Like all of those things can be taught if we stick to these core things. These are the things that we cannot teach. These are the things that we cannot change.

Yvonne : Right

Gil : Whether or not they have the ability or experience in working on websites before, or whether or not they have experience in specific short term rentals, like finding all those Venn diagrams of super, super technical, super X, Y, or Z.

It’s really, really hard. What’s really easy is if you really focus on the core things that really matters to you and your business and think about all different things that you can train for and put those systems in place, it makes it much easier to scale the team to find that right person there. It was just, it was so amazing to

Yvonne : Richard Branson says, hire for attitude, train for skill.

Gil : Yeah. Yeah. And hearing that come from my team.

Yvonne : Yeah. Amazing. Right? They get it as well.

Gil : Yeah. And so I’m, I’m really looking forward to them finding our next few hi hires there. And, also like on the other side, like empowerment of the team, choosing who they get to be colleagues with.

Yvonne : Right,

Gil : Like, I, I didn’t wanna rob them from, from that, like, I had to hire them because there was no one else to make that decision previously.

But my team knows me so much, so much better than almost anyone else outside of my wife and our family. But our team knows my ticks. They know what I’m sensitive to, uh, what I’m more relaxed on. Um, and so they know me quite well and they’ve ingrained the values I put in them. So I, when you start talking about the values and. Delegation and what’s important to you and the passion. Like, all those things come together and I think like the people that do those things really, really well are the people that are successful and get to build businesses that people really care to be a part of.

Yvonne : Right. Yes. Yes. That’s really important.

Gil : I wanted you to share some of the anecdotes or stories or transformations that you’ve heard from your clients that you’ve worked with. I’m sure you have many, many, many that you, you, you, you’ve worked with, but I wanna put this all into practice and kind of hear from you what some of those transformations were like.

Yvonne : Yeah. I just wanna, I’m just gonna give you another framework, if you don’t mind, before I do

Gil : Yeah, please. Yeah,

Yvonne : yeah. So one of the things that you have to be aware of is your business model, right? What model are you using to run your business? And again, this is a, um, um, a movable feast, right? If you, most people, right?

Again, if you’ve got a bit of paper, you can do a bit of drawing here. Most people in this industry are running the model of listing with an on online travel agent, waiting for the guest to arrive and giving them a great experience to the best of their ability, and then waiting for a review. Right? That’s passive.

It’s a passive model, right? It, I know it works. I’m not saying it doesn’t work, it’s just one way of doing it, right? And then what happens is, oh, I, I’m a bit fed up paying commissions to booking.com or Airbnb. Um, I’d like to build a direct bookings business, right? So they get themselves a website. They’re still listed with the OTAs because too dangerous at this point to cut off the revenue.

You know, the guests, the bookings. So they get themselves a website and they get on social media and it all becomes quite complex because it’s not joined up. It’s like they’ve added more complexity with a website and social media and online reservation system and PMS and all of that, but they still are relying primarily on platforms to bring them bookings and consequently making commission payments.

Right? That’s the kind of second model, if you like, that I see a lot. The third model is the one that we use, right? The model that I developed in my own b and b, that took me from making 10,000 a year to making, uh, a hundred thousand a year with just four rooms and no platforms, no online travel agents.

And the model is this, number one, and again, you can draw this in circles if you want to on your pad. Number one, you must, you must. Decide who you want to welcome and then create an experience around what they want and everything that you do from there, from there on in. And this is a process. It’s not an overnight thing.

It’s an, uh, it is a process. And you must decide on a particular group of guests or groups of guests. And again, going back to what, what we talked about before with the circles, where you’re located, why people are coming, and you, right? When you’ve got those together, you’ve got a sweet spot. So that’s the first thing.

The second thing, and then everything about your online presence, that’s website, social media, it’s all about that guest. It’s not about you. It’s all about what you offer those guests. So that, and the branding carries across all of the internet, all of your internet properties, so that everywhere we look it, we know it’s you, we recognize you.

Right? And that includes putting your picture out there. And a lot of people are resistant to this, but you know, we can’t have a relationship with a property. We can only have a relationship with another human, right? So it doesn’t matter whether you are welcoming guests in person or you are welcoming them, you know, with a a, a remotely, you, they still need to connect with somebody, not your, they can’t connect with a, a picture of the beach or a picture of your property.

They can’t connect with that. So everything has to be branded and, uh, and consistent across your platforms. And then this, the next part of the part of the puzzle is putting in that essential guest communication system. And that takes people, that whole system that I developed takes people from total stranger all the way through, booked in guests, buying more from you before they arrive, having a great stay with you.

And then having them in your list to market to with your next offer to get them back. And when I say offer, I don’t mean discount. Right? Do not discount. And when you, when you do that enough times, when you, when you work on that customer journey from start to finish, you’ll find that you’ll have a pool of loyal guests that you can rely on to market to.

And then you can, you can gradually reduce your dependency on online travel agents. So then the, the o maybe you won’t give them up entirely, but you will, you, they will become just a channel rather than your sole provider.

Gil : Mm-hmm.

Yvonne : Right? Which is different. It feels different psychologically to you, the owner. And then the final piece of the puzzle is what I call the cherry on the top, which is adding more revenue streams to your business.

Which aren’t wholly dependent on having bookings, they’re still in alignment with what you’re doing. But they’re not wholly, you’re not wholly dependent on reservations. And this, this is an exciting part to do and I’ll give you some examples of how, and this is why I wanted to share this model with you.

’cause it leads on to how this works, right. For, for other people. So for us, we were in the champagne region. I developed this model for me first, and we, we decided that we would only welcome international guests who wanted to discover the hidden gems of champagne. That meant we priced ourselves out of the local French market.

Right? I couldn’t add any value to the French guests. We could add a lot more value to international guests who needed a guide to introduce them to those small producers that we knew so well. We had a big network of them. Right.

And then we added a tour business onto that. We added a tour business because it was natural to do that, right? So that that meant that we could do tours from other people who we could do other tours where people were staying in other locations. So my husband still runs that tour business to this day.

Isn’t that amazing?

Gil : Yeah,

Yvonne : And then he, he took that, right? And I’ll give you some more examples of, of clients, I dunno why it’s gone dark, but there we go. We’ll carry on. He, he took that idea of tours because then people started asking them, oh, I’d love to create my own champagne brand. Can you help me? And now he has a business creating private brands for clients around the world.

Do you see that evolution? So I went into coaching and training and mentoring. Other people on my model. And he took his tour business and has turned that into a, a business where he helps individual private clients create their own champagne brand. Another story. Right? Isn’t that cool?

Gil : I, I would say like before we move on to, to, to to, to your next story, I can see kind of why you said earlier on in the show life is ever evolving and you constantly have to be and not changing necessarily on the outside world, but also changing on the you internally, inside and discovering.

All the places that you could be adding value to.

Yvonne : Exactly. Exactly. And that, and that’s a move, a movable feast, right? It moves, it, it’s, it’s an evolution. It’s an evolutionary process. So we, we, we had a client, um, a couple of years ago in Canada, and she had a small property in the, in the, in the woods, in the Outback, right. Beautiful log cabin type property.

And her and her husband were passionate about wildlife and wildlife photography and hanging in their BB, they only had three rooms, but hanging in their B were these beautiful pictures of the local wildlife, you know, bears and ti, not tigers, but snow leopards and um, and, and amazing eagles and, um, all kinds of creatures, you know, that inhabit the wilderness.

And so the first thing we did was we turned that photography, that, that love of photography and the love of wildlife conservation, we turn that into an experience for guests. So now she’s only focused on the people who are interested in wildlife and wildlife photography. So she added on a photography experience.

For her guests, right? So she’s already exclusive. She’s already taken herself out of the commodity market and priced herself above because of the experience and then the cool thing that she did. So that’s, that was really successful. She tripled her revenue while working with us. And then what she did is she wanted to do more for wildlife conservation.

So she took her photography and she turned it into printed fabric and turned it into a clothing line,

Gil : Hmm.

Yvonne : which she still runs to this day. She’s no longer running her BB because she has evolved and her passion took over for wildlife conservation, wildlife photography, and she now has a clothing line using the wildlife print.

I have some yoga pants that she sent me with, with a, I think it’s, um, I think it’s an owl. I think it’s an owl on a, it’s just a gorgeous, big owl. So, yeah, I mean that, it’s just, it’s like a transformative experience of bringing out your own, your own passions, bringing them to the fore, bringing them front and center, and giving your guests a unique experience that they can only get with you.

Gil : I love how this conversation, oftentimes within the marketing, we think about the outside in, we, we, we think about what do they care about, and understanding the ethnographics of someone that might be visiting, or the ideal guest avatar into defining that. But what we’re talking about here is actually the flip side of like really thinking about what you wanna deliver, how you wanna do, what experience you wanna do, and attracting the people towards you rather than the other way around.

Yvonne : Yes. Yes. If you do that, you will have, you, you’ll, you will have created something that nobody can compete, compete with. There’s no competition when you do that.

Gil : Yvonne, anything else that you want to share with us before I move on to the last leg where I ask you a few questions before we wrap up the show?

Yvonne : hospitality’s a bit of a crossroads right now. I

Gil : Mm-hmm.

Yvonne : think it’s fragmented. I see that it’s, it has fragmented Again, if you want to make a diagram here on the left hand side of your page, you can write down the big hotel chains, right? The big hotel chains. They have large budgets, they use OTAs. It’s all about the price, it’s all about heads in beds and volume.

Right? On the other end of the spectrum, on the right hand side of your page, you’ve got the Airbnb crowd. And these are people primarily, not all of them, but primarily, um, it’s a side hustle, right? It’s an, it’s a way of creating extra income. And then in the middle you’ve got this, the lost souls, if you like.

You’ve got the real heart of hospitality and what’s happened is that that heart of hospitality has, has drifted into the dynamic pricing of the big. Chains and then they’ve also drifted into the Airbnb model where they’re not really, people aren’t really interested in hospitality, like they’ve cut back on their services and they don’t meet their guests anymore.

This place in the middle is a huge opportunity right now. It needs reclaiming by those of us who are in it because we love the people. We love hospitality. We love sharing our gifts with people. That place in the middle is, is a huge opportunity in hospitality right now.

Gil : Yeah. you have any brands that have scaled. In that middle zone, or do you see that that is actually an area where operators are, have the opportunity to dominate that middle section?

Yvonne : The independent operators have the opportunity to dominate that middle section, but it’s no good. If you are trying to run your business on price, or you’re trying to run your business without any connection with the guests, it won’t work. Even if you don’t meet them in person, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a connection with them.

You must establish a connection, an emotional connection with them, and that place in the middle is where they can really win. You can really win in that place in the middle, as long as you don’t stray into those two extremes. I think many people have strayed, but now they need to come back. Come back to center, be true to yourself who you are.

Create that experience around you, around what you love, about what you love about your area, what you love to talk about, and build a business. That is holistic and spiritual. It’s almost sacred that, that that type of business is like sacred hospitality and it’s wide open. That opportunity right now.

Gil : I can see that being a trademarked, uh, that is, that is very strong set of words, a sacred hospitality there. I

Yvonne : Hmm.

Gil : that captures it quite well.

Yvonne : Yeah.

Gil : Awesome. Y Yvonne, I typically end the show with three questions, starting with the first one. I get the sense that you read a lot of books, um, and a lot of the books that you mentioned.

I remember back in my like MBA days or, and they’re timeless books and that’s what I appreciate. Um, books that have been around for over a decade, because I feel like nowadays with a lot of books that are coming out, the regurgitations of existing frameworks or a bit of hype here and there, but you mentioned Covey, you mentioned Robert Kiyosaki.

Those are all really good authors that have spent a long time understanding the craft. I’m interested in hearing from you, what’s one book that you always love to recommend or one book that has changed your life?

Yvonne : Well, I wrote a book as well. I wrote a book with my hot milk, my entire system in it. And in fact, I’ve written three books. Um, my latest one is A PDF with an AI tool, so you can ask it questions. Um, so I always recommend my book to people just to get the system basically. But the books that have had the most influence on me, I think are Kiyosaki.

I read Rich Dad, poor Dad in the mid two thousands before we had the internet. And um, I, it, it really struck a chord with me. The whole concepts, the concept of. Value for money versus time for money. We’re all taught to trade our time for money through the educational system. But what you really need to get into, and that’s getting onto the right hand side of the Cashflow Quadrant, is value for money value.

You can, you can never get more time, but you can always create more value. So the Cashflow co. Another one that’s had a big influence on me is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Re It’s a fantastic book about the four agreements. Uh, and I’ve been writing them down and they are, don’t take anything personally, right?

Don’t take anything personally. Everyone’s got their opinions, everyone’s got their, their ideas, you know, and you are allowed to have yours as well.

Do always do your best. If your best will always be good enough, as long as you’re doing your best. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be the best in the world. It just has to be your best. Always give the best of yourself. Don’t make assumptions about what people will or will not buy, or what people will or will not pay for.

There are customers for every price point, you just have to put position yourself at the price level that will sustain you and your lifestyle and that will attract the guests that you want to attract. Quick story, before I just, we had a, we had a client a couple of years ago and he was, he had a beautiful oceanfront property and he was charging $140 a night for a property that sleeps five people.

And the first thing we did was we, we changed that to $140 per. So he increased his prices five times and you know what shocked him. People still booked. He was absolutely blown away. You know, there are pre, there are customers for every price point. You don’t have to charge what other people are charging.

You set your own level and people will find you because of your, your value, your energy is, is paramount. You must, you must be in, in Integris with your energy. You know, so that you come across. ’cause your energy comes before you, before you say anything, but you come across as a genuine, authentic person who’s really doing this because they love it.

And it’s not just a money making a get rich quick scheme. Right? It’s not that it’s hard work, hospitality. It always has been and it always will be. Anything where you deal with people. Is gonna be hard work, but you, you don’t, you don’t have to suffer for it. So four Agreements. Don Miguel Ez, cashflow Quadrant and Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiosaki.

Um, and also a really unusual book by Florence Scoville Shin called The Game of Life and How to Play It. It is so good, so good. This lady wrote this book in the 1940s or thirties. And again, like you were saying, a lot of the stuff out nowadays, the modern stuff is just a regurgitation of old stuff. But Florence’s book, I love it.

I have it by my bed and you can just pick it up. Um, it, it’s, it’s fantastic. It, it’s about the game of life and how to play it because no one gets out alive, right? None of us get out alive. Right.

Gil : what’s, what’s the premise of that book?

Yvonne : It’s a game. It’s all a game. Lighten up.

Gil : Awesome. I love the recommendations. Uh, our second question. We have a lot of entrepreneur entrepreneurs that listen to the show. A lot of self-starters. We have a lot of folks coming into industry from different walks of life. one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new?

It could be getting into hosting for the first time, getting into building out their team and scaling it, but what do you, what do you, what’s that one mindset advice that you would give to someone starting something new?

Yvonne : Yeah, it, it’s the thing that I tell everybody who, that I speak to, who’s just starting out, is getting into that mindset of being a business owner from the start. Don’t wait until you have the money before you hire a cleaner, because that will ne, that day will never come, so you must, you must get your team in place.

Um, from the word goers, or as soon as you possibly can. It is a mindset shift that is, you know, hiring people and the guilt that comes with that. You know, I’m not doing enough. I, you know, I had somebody on the phone, um, on a call recently who said that she had a part-time housekeeper to help with her eight rooms.

Um, and, and when, and, and, um, and when they were really busy, like when they were full, she would go down and help the housekeeper. You know, it’s so easy to slip into that employee mindset. You’ve gotta, you’ve gotta be very vigilant about being that business owner. But the main thing is, if you’re just starting out, is to get clear on your value proposition.

Get, get clear on who you are, what you are offering, and who it’s for. Spend some time on that. And when you, if you haven’t bought a property or you don’t have a property yet, and you’re just starting, think about. The people that are going to come to that area and whether you can relate to that. So if you are really into mountain hiking or skiing or winter sports, you don’t wanna buy beachfront properties because that’s not what you enjoy sharing.

You enjoy talking about mountain stuff, winter sports, skiing, whatever, hiking. You don’t enjoy fishing. You know, you’re not it, it’s incongruous. It’s out of integrity. That is out of whack. So get really clear on your value proposition and who it’s for is my, is the starting point, really. And then your team.

Your team, right.

Gil : I love that. Last question. What’s, we talked a lot about how to build your marketing, how to niche down, how to get clear on your value, probably like you said, um, for yourself. What’s one tactical takeaway that you want our listeners to walk away with, um, to help them either get started in direct bookings or amplify their direct bookings?

Yvonne : Elevate your proposition, right? Think about that guest experience and what else you can add to it that is going to elevate it. If you are already established and you are already already running, that connection that you have with your guests is paramount. It will allow you to sell more things to them that will enhance their stay, right?

That will make them more excited. To stay with you. That will stop them from canceling and that will have them write you a five star review. Think about that customer journey. Map it out. How many touch points can you make on the journey from total stranger to loyal guest? How many touch points? And then what?

What can you do? Is it email? Is it text? What? We’ll use it. Video. What are you doing? We map this out for our clients, right? We have a A template to do this, and they add to it because everybody’s situation is different. So spend some time thinking about that customer journey and how much more value you can add to them that will absolutely fill up their emotional bank account.

Gil : I love that. Love that. Yvonne, thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge. All the book recommendations, all the frameworks, the stories. I really, I really enjoyed this show. folks that want to get in touch with you, wanna reach out to you, perhaps work with you, where can people find you?

Yvonne : So you can get me on my website, which is bed and breakfast coach.com. Um, you can find me on Facebook, which is Yvonne Haling, bed and Breakfast Coach. Um, I’m on LinkedIn. I’m on um, YouTube. I have YouTube channel. There is tons of resources on video, video resources on my YouTube channel. Um, my testimonials are all on my website.

I’ve helped many people over the years through various, various products and services that I, that I offer. Uh, and if you’d like to book a call with me, there’s a button on my website to do that. If just wanna have a quick chat to chat, chat some things through or then, then do that. I’m open for a chat.

Gil : Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Yvonne, for your time and your energy today. I really enjoyed it

Yvonne : Thank you.

Gil : forward to chatting with you again in the future.

Yvonne : Thank you for allowing me to share my wisdom. Thank you.

Gil : Yeah, bye.

Yvonne : Bye.

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