Innkeeping

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Response to prior post about an ex- Bed and Breakfast owner

 The following from City Gourmet came to me as a comment on one of my posts about ex-innkeeper Frania Shelly-Grielen. It's actually a rebuttal and defends her position, saying that the Wall Street Journal got a lot wrong. I thought it was so interesting, I decided to put it up as a post instead of a comment........Nancy


 City Gourmet has left a new comment on your post "The Dream and the Reality of Running a Bed and Bre...":

And now for the other side of the story Part 1

Confessions of a Bed and Breakfast Diva is quoted extensively in The Wall Street Journal of November 2011 but the author says the paper refuses to credit her for her written work. Shelley-Grielen said a writer for the paper contacted her about her memoir/cookbook, promising to promote it in an article he was writing about conflicting experiences owning B&Bs, telephone interviews ensued. When the article appeared she was dismayed to find only content from her book used “without attribution” and practically nothing she had actually said.She wrote to the WSJ saying the piece contained mainly “paraphrased select quotes from my book” "spun wildly out of context". With key points overlooked:

“So many of my wonderful guests believed that owning a Bed and Breakfast was the answer to everything, it is a business, with ups and downs, pros and cons and operating costs. It is also a business that partly runs on a mystique.

It is this mystique that no operating Bed and Breakfast owner will reveal. I write honestly about what is behind the curtain. These "trade secrets" are what has made Confessions of a Bed and Breakfast Diva, such an insider success in the hospitality inner circle.”

The WSJ responded with a request for clarification:“Can you be more specific about which quotes you are referring to, which ones you say are inaccurate?…the reporter assures us that his notes show that all of the quotes are direct quotes from you, and nothing was paraphrased from the book.”

She wrote back with a quote by quote comparison (see sample below).

The WSJ said she said:

"When I saw the golden sunsets, the pelicans and herons, the century-old oaks dripping Spanish moss and all kinds of palms, I thought, 'I have to live there. I can run this wonderful property. I can make it work.”

Published in Confessions of a Bed and Breakfast Diva

“..the Bay on the corner with all their golden sunsets, when we saw the pelicans, egrets, ibises, herons and osprey, all right there around us, when we walked in the garden and saw the century old oaks dripping Spanish moss…all kinds of palms…I thought one thing –“I could do this, run the place, if that’s what it takes to live here. I can make it work.”

The WSJ said she said:

"I hope you'll be joining us." She came to view such offers as "command performances" from which "I didn't have the option to bow out."

Published in Confessions of a Bed and Breakfast Diva

“When someone utters the phrase “I hope you’ll be joining us” I’m not sure what to say anymore. I always take it as a command performance one in which I never have the option of bowing out.”

Part 2 of the other side of the story

The WSJ replied: “I am confident that the article we printed is accurate. The notes reflect that while many of the anecdotes may have been in your book (and your book supports their accuracy), they were also anecdotes that you discussed… often using much the same language.”

Shelley-Grielen says she “was floored by the response,” “It was hard for me to believe that a newspaper like the Wall Street Journal was going to take the position that I had read my own book out loud for an interview.It was as if when they saw the proof they decided to take a position that no matter how much evidence there was they were not willing to admit they had done anything wrong. They would say it over and over- that what they had done was not wrong, but it was.”Part of the WSJ's response was an invitation to her to write a letter to the editor adding “However, please be aware that the letter can not allege that we made errors, since we don’t believe that is true.”

The letter she wrote she said, she believed to be true and pointed out that along with her rights as an author being impacted, the paper’s readers were shortchanged.

The paper declined to publish the letter and wrote: “the passages were not taken from your book.” Shelley-Grielen has offered to be the subject of an “honest” interview: "I would like to close the loop; it’s scary knowing that people are reading that article and believing it without knowing the facts.” 


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What is relationship marketing?

Check out this video of an interview the Social Media Examiner does with Mari Smith, author of New Relationship Marketing and Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day




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Do you know what a Linkster is?

I found this article while surfing the interesting posts on my Twitter page. I love the sarcasm and the spot on perception and suggested remedies for dealing with the Face Book generation, which has sprung up and almost overtaken us with their zeal. Thought I'd go ahead and post a link like a Linkster would do.

In fact, if I weren't so old, I would say that I was part of this generation, as I have succumbed to the Face Book mentality, process, and game. I have a strong presence there. Maybe not 2000 followers...more like 200...but it's increasing every day. I have fallen under the Face Book spell. Go ahead and find me.

Here's one characterization of the group: "They are the WWW Generation; the kids who never played with toys if they are not on 99.9’ monitor...who can’t play baseball if it is not on Wii...Who have 2000 friends on Facebook but only 5 in real life. They are the kids who are only listening to commercial songs but never heard of Beatles...who are crying that Michael Jackson is dead but never heard a song he played till he died. And, finally, they are the kids who are making XXX websites rich… and McDonalds even richer… These are the kids these days. This is the WWW Generation! (The Daily Telegraph, United Kingdom, 2012)"

Opening a Bed and Breakfast: Have you got what it takes?

The bed and breakfast business a very personal one,  personal because innkeeper hosts spend a lot of time with their guests and must be very involved with making them feel welcome and comfortable

It's almost impossible to describe the typical person who operates a bed and breakfast.They come from all walks of life, from professionals to laborers. Artists, craftsman, farmers, insurance agents, teachers and anyone else you can think of have opened and run successful B&Bs.

Singles, couples and families have all been involved. Their reasons for opening a bed and breakfast? Just as varied. Perhaps children have grown and moved away and there are empty rooms in a large home. Some people just have more rooms than they need. Widowed or divorced people have opened B&Bs.

While they are run for a source of income, most people do not depend on them solely for their livelihood. People retired from other professions -- such as professionals or farmers who have a separate primary source of income often operate bed and breakfasts.

All successful bed and breakfasts have one thing in common: owners who like people!
They also like to entertain people in their homes. Many of these owners also have skills they want to use, such as cooking, to please their guests. Others may have historically significant homes they want to share with others.

Anyone seriously thinking about opening a bed and breakfast must like people and be able to deal with all types of people. This is a people business! You must also be willing to sacrifice a big part of your personal life since guests will be living with you.

Many skills are needed to run a successful bed and breakfast. Do you have what it takes?
Before spending a lot of time and money, use this personal assessment survey to help determine if you and your partner (if you have one) have the skills needed.

Answer honestly by writing yes or no to each statement below. (Remember, this survey is for you -- if you're not completely honest with your answers, it won't do you any good!)
Complete the survey for both yourself and for your partner. Have your partner do the same. (So you both fill out the survey twice.)

Personal Assessment Survey

• I enjoy getting up early and preparing meals.
• I'm highly organized and manage my time well.
• I'm self-motivated and a self-starter.
• I can do several tasks at one time.
• I enjoy entertaining.
• I find it easy to get along with most people.
• I'm tolerant and patient.
• I can handle conflict without alienation. 
• I work well under pressure. 

• I can work long hours and face a variety of interruptions.
• I learn from mistakes and make changes as needed.
• I keep my home neat and clean at all times.
• I enjoy performing home maintenance.
• I'm cheerful.
• I enjoy interior decorating and remodeling. 
• I enjoy gardening and landscaping. 
  
• I have a regular income.
•  I communicate well on the phone.

• I write well and regularly.
• I'm persistent.
• I consider myself a risk-taker.
• I have a high energy level.
• I enjoy serving others.
• I consider myself flexible.
• I have a good business sense.
• I can handle the business end of a B&B.
• I handle emergencies well.

Compare your answers with your partner's. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Did any of your answers -- or your partner's answers -- surprise you?
Now identify, in writing, your strengths and weaknesses. If you plan to become an innkeeper, your strengths should outweigh your weaknesses and you need to determine ways to compensate for the weak areas.

This series of worksheets and information was originally written by Eleanor Ames, a Certified Family Consumer Sciences professional and a faculty member at Ohio State University for 28 years. With her husband, she ran the Bluemont Bed and Breakfast in Luray, Virginia, until they retired from innkeeping. Many thanks to Eleanor for her gracious permission to reprint them here. Some content has been edited, and links to related features on this site have been added to Eleanor's original text.



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The Bread Baker and The Village......a modern fairy tale with a happy ending

(This post was taken from an article by Sonia Simone, senior editor for Copyblogger)

The village is your customer
Once upon a time, the bread baker and his village were stuck with one another. If he baked lousy bread, he had to look his neighbors in the eye and face their scorn. The fact that his customers were his neighbors kept him on the straight and narrow. There was no difference between his professional reputation and his personal one. Huge 20th-century industrialism made that seem irrelevant and quaint. We had no idea what kind of person made the toy or car or loaf of bread we just bought, and we forgot to even wonder.

Now the village is back
If we blow it, customers publicly rap on our window (with social media, blogs or Twitter) and give us a piece of their mind. Once again, our reputation and our products are one and the same. What we create doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to show that we give a damn. The inconvenient part is that the village isn’t stuck with you. If your baguette isn’t great, your customer can FedEx something from an artisanal bakery in Napa or Madison or Boca Raton.

They will find you
The cool part, though, is that if you make something handmade (even if it’s delivered in pixels), personal, and/or magnificently useful, your village can and will find you. Whether you make homespun yarn or an interactive course on how to start a dog-walking business, your product can find its own profitable village of happy customers.

It’s in your DNA
The human being is an inherently creative, flexible, resilient creature. You are an inherently creative, flexible, resilient creature. The times may well get worse before they get better. But compared with a lot of history’s darker moments, this one’s pretty comfortable And the opportunities that have opened up because of technology and communication are nothing short of breathtaking. No, not everyone’s going to become an information entrepreneur. But you can.

Embrace the entrepreneurship
that’s in your DNA. Keep your eyes open for problems to solve and markets to serve. And buckle up. Like every exciting ride, this one’s got a few hairpin curves.

(About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.)
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The Dream and the Reality of Running a Bed and Breakfast: PART II

Excerpts from an article by Rob Johnson 

for the Wall Street Journal

PART II - The Reality

A Rude Wake-Up Call

Frania Shelley-Grielen wanted to get out of New York. Commuting. Traffic jams. The hectic life of a real-estate title closer. She'd had enough.

A B&B in a remote location seemed to be the perfect ticket out of the city. She started hunting for spots in travel magazines, and in the summer of 2004, she and her husband, Olivier, fell in love with a 100-year-old four-bedroom, four-bath house near Clearwater, Fla., that had once been a bed-and-breakfast.

The place and the plan seemed beyond perfect, says the 52-year-old Shelley-Grielen. "When I saw the golden sunsets, the pelicans and herons, the century-old oaks dripping Spanish moss and all kinds of palms, I thought, 'I have to live there. I can run this wonderful property. I can make it work.' "

She envisioned weary travelers trekking to the bucolic location at the edge of an estuary and marveling at the inn, which the couple named Green Gables. Ms. Shelley-Grielen calls it "sort of a Norman Rockwell and Maxwell House coffee on Sunday morning model," with her playing a worldly wise Martha Stewart role as the ultimate hostess.

The couple sold their $418,000 house in West New York, N.J., and bought Green Gables, which came with a rental cottage next door, for $575,000. But the inn quickly became an ordeal for Ms. Shelley-Grielen. For starters, she found that the guests invaded her privacy.

When one family rented all three guest bedrooms, Ms. Shelley-Grielen and her husband decided to celebrate by going out to dinner. Before leaving, she took the lodgers on a tour of the house and showed them the off-limits area where she and her husband slept and watched television. But when the couple returned that night, one of the guests was "sitting there in our room, watching one of my husband's DVDs," says Ms. Shelley-Grielen. She politely explained the living arrangements again, and the embarrassed vacationer left. But when the family checked out, one member left a sarcastic message in the guest book: "Don't watch the DVDs."

Unlike Mr. Werner at his Scarborough Fair B&B in Baltimore, Ms. Shelley-Grielen thought that many of her guests were oversharing their lives. She began to see their innocent travel questions as tedious inquisitions, she says. And hated the fake intimacy and feeling like a maid. She realized that B&B management often required her to be more friendly than she felt: "There was an artificial instant intimacy to be affected when my paying guests arrived."

Burned out by what she saw as guests' demands for her company, Ms. Shelley-Grielen began to avoid them when possible. "I would retreat to the kitchen and close the door, with its sign that spelled out, 'Private.' "
But some guests just wouldn't leave her alone, Ms. Shelley-Grielen says. Too often, she heard the invitation: "I hope you'll be joining us." She came to view such offers as "command performances" from which "I didn't have the option to bow out."

Beyond that, chores that she envisioned as routine proved more daunting. For instance, when laundering sheets and towels, she donned disposable gloves. "This is the part of the business I hated most," she says. "I tried not to think about who had sex and who didn't."

Just as she saw the guests intruding on her privacy, she felt she was encroaching to clean bedrooms and baths. Worse, she felt demeaned. "No matter how many times I reminded myself that I owned the place, I still felt like a maid," she says.

Even her aspirations to culinary creativity turned sour. She was disappointed when a guest mistook her homemade Frittata for a Quiche. Her dismay turned to antagonism when some of her favorite dishes weren't welcomed by a vacationing woman who didn't eat eggs. "I felt almost personally offended and would insist on putting an unwanted 'eggy' concoction in front of her every morning," Ms. Shelley-Grielen says.
Not only was the guest annoyed, but so was her husband, who, in a show of solidarity, informed Ms. Shelley-Grielen that he didn't like eggs either. Nor did he want the suggested alternative: grits.

The inn failed to show an operating profit in the three years before the couple sold it in 2007. The house is now a private home. Ms. Shelley-Grielen says, "We did everything we could to stay afloat: drained our savings, plundered IRAs and borrowed." Mr. Grielen, now 55, kept working as a physical therapist in Florida to help make ends meet.

Would the B&B have thrived if Ms. Shelley-Grielen's temperament had been more in tune with running the place? No, she says. "I gave it my professional best," and the guest book had numerous visitors' testaments to their satisfaction.

The couple are now in a Manhattan apartment. Mr. Grielen is still a therapist, while Ms. Shelley-Grielen trained for and started a business as an animal behaviorist. It's not exactly a dream field for her, but she's no longer holding career expectations to the high standard she sought at Green Gables. "Falling in love with the idea of what owning a B&B will be like is like getting a crush on a picture of someone you've never met," she says. "You're just projecting."

Mr. Johnson is a writer in Roanoke County, Va. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com


Read Part I : A Dream Come True


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