Tactics inspired by - La Belle Vue

Tactics inspired by - La Belle Vue

I received several good ideas, tactics and inspiration today during a call with Yvonne Tenninge host at La belle vue in France. The situation there is that they are in “lock down” and are only allowed to be outside of home for one hour per day. Everytime they leave home they need to fill in a form stating the purpose of the leave. It is a struggle keeping the mood up during such circumstances. Still, Yvonnne keeps the spirit up and stays productive. Here are some of the ideas and tactics that I got inspired to share with you today:

Work together with your local community:

Neffiés is a small village with just a bit over 1000 people living there. Yvonne told me the village works beautifully as a small community used to, and should. Everyone looks after each other and the local mayor announces in the speaker the opening of the village market and other events during the day. At the market the villagers can pick up groceries from local producers, fishermen and farms and the fact it being an outside market lowers the risk of infection these days. Elderly or sick can get growseries, wine, milk and other things to their door by other villagers.

Move existing bookings, if possible:

Contact all guests that have bookings in the near future personally and explain your situation and ask them to move dates of their visit rather than cancelling. These bookings will be very important if you have to talk to a bank or find other ways to bridge the gap in cash-flow. You show that you have engaged supporters out there willing to spend money with you.

Continue to communicate:

It can be easy to fall trap to being unproductive due to the uncertainty. But you have to keep up the communication with your followers, guests and potential guests. It will help you keep your spot in their mind for when the dust settles. Also if they get the opportunity to follow you both in good times and in times of struggle they will get to know you and your brand better and feel even more connected to you.

Plan for different scenarios:

We don't know how long this virus will keep us on hold. Calculate and plan for different scenarios so that you can be more prepared for whatever happens. Keep calm even if you have to plan for the worst scenarios. If you have a plan for the worst, it is easier to handle everything else. Just do it and then get into the brighter scenarios.

Start working on expanding brand into other areas:

One thing a crisis like this shows us is that it is good to have more than one type of revenue stream. Think or what you like and what you are good at. Think of what would fit your brand, personality, location etc. Can you package something together with other people in your local community? I will expand on these ideas in a coming post to give more inspiration and examples on how this could be done.

Take care,

Per from Hostlife

Photos by La Belle Vue
and: Agnes Maltesdotter @undaflykter