Bed, Breakfast & Business

About Bed, Breakfast & Business

Beds, Breakfast & Business is the practical podcast for current and aspiring B&B owners who want to build a successful bed and breakfast without becoming overwhelmed by the business behind it. Hosted by hospitality professional Gerry MacPherson, each episode answers a real question faced by people running or starting a bed and breakfast. You'll discover practical strategies for bed and breakfast management, B&B marketing, pricing, direct bookings, guest experience, daily operations, reviews, housekeeping, technology, profitability and growing your B&B business. If you're already a B&B owner, you'll learn how to improve your systems, attract more of the right guests, increase revenue, strengthen your guest experience and make the day-to-day operation of your property easier to manage. If you're dreaming about opening a B&B, planning your property or getting ready to welcome your first guests, you'll learn what to consider before opening the doors—from choosing your concept and understanding your ideal guest to pricing, marketing, operations and avoiding expensive mistakes. Because running a great B&B takes more than comfortable beds and a memorable breakfast. It takes heart and systems. Beds, Breakfast & Business brings the two together with straightforward, practical advice you can adapt to your own property. No corporate theory. No unnecessary jargon. Just useful B&B advice from someone who understands independent hospitality. New episodes each week. Follow Beds, Breakfast & Business and start building a more profitable, organised and guest-focused B&B—without the chaos.

Publisher

Gerry MacPherson

Category

business · business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

23 Oct 2023

Latest episode

20 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

145 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   20 Oct 2026

   Bed and Breakfast Pricing: Are Your Room Rates Too High, Too Low, or Just Right?

   Bed and Breakfast Pricing: How to Tell If Your Room Rates Are Too High, Too Low, or Just Right Bed and breakfast pricing can make you question yourself in both directions. An empty room makes you wonder if you’re charging too much. A weekend that sells out quickly makes you wonder if you charged too little. Neither result tells the whole story, especially when you have only a few rooms to sell. In this episode, Gerry MacPherson helps you look beyond a competitor’s headline price or a gap in your calendar. You’ll learn how to consider the cost of serving a guest, what a comparable stay actually includes, and how bookings are coming in for a particular date. You’ll also hear why the amount you keep from a reservation matters more than the rate a guest sees. The aim is a calmer pricing decision you can explain. Instead of changing every rate at once, you’ll choose one room and one upcoming date, check the evidence, and decide whether to keep the price or take another look. You can use this week’s Pricing Confidence Worksheet to put that decision on paper. Four key takeaways An empty room is a reason to investigate, not automatic proof that your price is high. A fast sell-out may be a sign to review similar future dates. Compare stays with similar rooms, inclusions and booking terms. Check what you keep after costs and channel fees. One practical action: Review one uncertain room rate for one upcoming date. Record why you decide to keep or change it. Free resource: The Bed & Breakfast Pricing Calculator helps you put your own figures around a room-rate decision. Get the resource here: https://bedsbreakfastsbusiness.com/free-resources (https://bedsbreakfastsbusiness.com/free-resources) Direct calculator link: https://bedsbreakfastsbusiness.com/bed-breakfast-pricing-calculator (https://bedsbreakfastsbusiness.com/bed-breakfast-pricing-calculator) This week’s Pricing Confidence Worksheet is available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/BedsBreakfastBusiness (https://www.patreon.com/cw/BedsBreakfastBusiness) Keep listening What Are the 3 Numbers Every B&B Owner Must Track to Stay Profitable? https://bedbreakfastbusiness.transistor.fm/episodes/what-are-the-3-numbers-every-b-b-owner-must-track-to-stay-profitable-132 (https://bedbreakfastbusiness.transistor.fm/episodes/what-are-the-3-numbers-every-b-b-owner-must-track-to-stay-profitable-132) How to Handle Low Bookings in Your B&B: What to Do When Rooms Sit Empty https://bedbreakfastbusiness.transistor.fm/episodes/how-to-handle-low-bookings-in-your-b-b-what-to-do-when-rooms-sit-empty-128 (https://bedbreakfastbusiness.transistor.fm/episodes/how-to-handle-low-bookings-in-your-b-b-what-to-do-when-rooms-sit-empty-128) Next episode: Seasonality Made Simple — how should you adjust prices throughout the year?

2. 

   13 Oct 2026

   B&B Operations Checklist: Save Time Without Losing Hospitality

   Practical advice for current and aspiring B&B owners. Save Time Through Better B&B Systems — Without Losing the Personal Touch What if the biggest thing stealing your time isn't your guests—but all the little jobs you're doing over and over again? In this episode of Beds, Breakfast & Business, Gerry MacPherson looks at the B&B management systems and daily operations that can save independent bed and breakfast owners hours of repeated work—without turning personal hospitality into an automated experience. Because the goal isn't to automate your personality. It's to: Automate the repetition. Protect the relationship. What You'll Learn Running a bed and breakfast means wearing a remarkable number of hats. Breakfast. Check-outs. Housekeeping. Guest emails. Arrivals. Bookings. Maintenance. Stock. And, occasionally, explaining the Wi-Fi password to someone standing beside the Wi-Fi password. The problem isn't always the amount of work. Sometimes it's the amount of repeated work. In this solo episode, Gerry explains how simple operational systems can help you reduce repeated decisions, keep important information in one place, and create more time for genuine hospitality. You'll discover: Why working faster won't necessarily solve an overloaded day How to identify repetitive work worth systemising How scheduled guest communication can reduce routine questions Why your memory shouldn't become your B&B management system How to use a simple Daily Operations Dashboard The six areas worth checking every day How to use the Repeat, Predict, Relate test Which jobs can be automated safely Which guest interactions should remain personal How to identify one hour of work you could start reclaiming Most importantly, you'll discover why good systems don't have to reduce hospitality. They can give you more time to provide it. The Daily Operations Dashboard A useful B&B operations dashboard doesn't need dozens of charts and reports. It needs to answer one question: What needs my attention today? Gerry recommends bringing six areas into one daily view: Arrivals Departures Housekeeping Breakfast notes Guest requests Operational jobs Instead of searching through emails, booking platforms, notebooks, scraps of paper, and your memory, you create one reliable view of the day. The result? Less searching. Fewer repeated decisions. Fewer things bouncing around inside your head. And more attention available for your guests. Who Is This Episode For? This episode is for current and aspiring B&B owners, innkeepers, independent accommodation owners, and small hospitality operators who want a calmer and more organised business without sacrificing the personal service that makes an independent property special. If you find yourself answering the same questions, checking the same information, or wondering at the end of the day where all your time went, start here. You don't need to systemise your entire business overnight. Find one repeated task. Fix it. Then find the next. ABOUT BEDS, BREAKFAST & BUSINESS Beds, Breakfast & Business is the practical podcast for current and aspiring B&B owners who want more bookings, stronger profits, better systems and memorable guest experiences—without the chaos. Hosted by hospitality professional Gerry MacPherson, each episode offers straightforward advice you can put to work in your B&B. FOLLOW THE PODCAST Follow Beds, Breakfast & Business in your favourite podcast app so you don't miss the next practical B&B management episode. And if you know another b&b owner who could use this episode, please share it with them. MORE PRACTICAL BED & BREAKFAST HELP Visit Beds, Breakfast & Business for free tools, guides, articles, videos, and resources for bed & breakfast owners: https://bedsbreakfastsbusiness.com/ NEXT EPISODE Next episode, we're talking about Pricing with Confidence. We'll answer: How do I know if my prices are too high, too low, or just right? CHAPTERS

3. 

   6 Oct 2026

   B&B Standard Operating Procedures: 5 SOPs Every B&B Needs-143

   Practical advice for current and aspiring B&B owners. Hotel Standard Operating Procedures: Which 5 SOPs Does Your B&B Really Need? How much of your B&B is currently stored inside your head? If room inspections, breakfast requirements, check-ins, guest problems, and emergency procedures all depend on you remembering what happens next, this episode will help you turn that knowledge into simple B&B standard operating procedures that make your property easier to run. This week on Beds, Breakfast & Business, Gerry MacPherson answers our cornerstone question: Which SOPs create the biggest impact in an independent hospitality business? And no, the answer isn't to write a 300-page operations manual and place it on a shelf where it can enjoy a peaceful retirement. The goal is much simpler. Create procedures people actually use. What You'll Learn In this solo episode, Gerry looks at five high-impact areas where a clear SOP can make a significant difference: Housekeeping and room inspection Guest arrival and check-in Breakfast and dietary requirements Guest complaints and service recovery Safety and emergency response You'll hear why a room being “cleaned” isn't necessarily the same as being guest ready, why arrival information should be standardised without making your welcome sound scripted, and why difficult guest situations become easier when you've already decided how they'll be handled. You'll also learn a simple structure for writing an SOP: Purpose → When → Owner → Steps → Exceptions Then Gerry shares the Three-Test Rule for deciding which procedures deserve your attention first: Does the task happen repeatedly? Does inconsistency create a problem? Would your B&B struggle if the one person who knows how to do it wasn't there? Three yeses? Write the SOP. Because you don't need fifty procedures nobody reads. You need a handful of good systems that protect your guests, standards, time, and sanity. YOUR NEXT STEP [Insert this week's most relevant free  Beds, Breakfast & Business resource and explain in one sentence how it helps.] Get the resource here: [DIRECT RESOURCE LINK] ABOUT BEDS, BREAKFAST & BUSINESS Beds, Breakfast & Business is the practical podcast for current and aspiring B&B owners who want more bookings, stronger profits, better systems and memorable guest experiences—without the chaos. Hosted by hospitality professional Gerry MacPherson, each episode offers straightforward advice you can put to work in your B&B. FOLLOW THE PODCAST Follow Beds, Breakfast & Business in your favourite podcast app so you don't miss the next practical B&B management episode. And if you know another b&b owner who could use this episode, please share it with them. MORE PRACTICAL BED & BREAKFAST HELP Visit Beds, Breakfast & Business for free tools, guides, articles, videos, and resources for bed & breakfast owners: https://bedsbreakfastsbusiness.com/ NEXT EPISODE Next episode, we'll talk about Saving Time Through Systems. We'll answer the cornerstone question: What systems save the most time without reducing hospitality? CHAPTERS

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

1,151

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 38 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

38

Social presence

0

YouTube

68

Engagement

27

Contact Bed, Breakfast & Business

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.