3 ways to make your boutique hotel STAND OUT

Doing what everyone does brings results that everyone has.

Same strategies and same trade-offs result in similar supply. Why would you expect your guests to be loyal to you? How are you different?

What you should do is innovate in a way that provides value to your guests. Not in your business model, not in the departments and processes, but in a way your guests can directly feel this new value, be surprised and grateful.

Here are three ways to accomplish this:

• Implementing values,

• Providing consistency and

• Creating personal experience.

This is how I see it.

Moral of the story: If you loved tree house as a child, turn one into a hotel. To create a buzz around your hotel, continue reading.

But first, where did you get stuck?

This blog post was inspired by the strategy of blue and red oceans. Red oceans are the ones where everyone on the market already are. Everybody swims well here meaning they all do the same stuff, try out the same strategies and give similar offers. On the other side, blue oceans is a space where there is no competition. Everyone provides specific value in a specific way even if it seems like an identical offer, it is not. The biggest flaw with red oceans is the value-profit trade off.

It is widely expected that creating more value comes with higher costs therefore lower profits. You can not have it both, and while this makes perfect sense in many situations, it is not the only way to run business. In fact, this is the wrong way to scale it.

Your business creates the value for people who are aware of the problem you are solving and are ready to pay for it. But when there are more providers all offering the same, you need be the one they choose so that you can sustain. You need to differentiate. The strategy of making your process more efficient in order to lower the costs and offer more competitive price is fine, in red oceans. Here, we are talking about competitive offer. How can you provide more direct value to your customers so that they are ready to pay more?

This is where you should innovate and think a lot more about the essence of the problem you are solving and your actual buyers. What would make their lives easer connected to that problem and that offer, what benefits are they willing to pay for extra, can you make the process faster, easier or better? All these would never come as a natural costs because they have not been part of an offer but now when they are, because that is what your buyers need, they increase the value you can charge for.

Now that I have you swimming in the blue oceans, let's move on to the three concrete ways to stand out: implementing values, providing consistency and creating personal experience.

Implementing values

Listen, values are not just a list of words you pretend you operate by.

Every company has values today, but they do not put them in practice. I invite you to take them step further and think about implementing them.

Instead of writing a list of fancy sounding words that should be your company’s values, think about activities, things, situations, etc. that you stop by and worship in some way.

It might be architecture, cooking, art, fitness, travelling, helping others in need, animals, making jewellery, raising children, hedonism in everyday life, photography, portrays, ocean waves, flowers, fashion, cars, hand painted ceramics, watching animated movies, reading, etc. It can be really anything. It can look frivolous for the moment but I promise you, this is where your true values come from.

Now, what is it in these things that moves you? Is it creativity, being mysterious, dreamy, undefined, feeling freedom, peace or action, trying out different things, combining stuff and experimenting, someone's facial expressions, emotions, allowing pleasure, finding out more about something, etc.?

Now, think about visuals in your hotel (colours, shapes, lightning), smells, sounds and textures. How can you take elements from activities and things that inspire you and implement them in your business? How can you create a story that provokes the same emotions you have when involving yourself in that stuff?

What is the general atmosphere in your hotel? What kind of thoughts do you inspire your guests to think? You can implement the values in many ways and this will influence people to behave differently, you can direct their inspiration, shape the way they communicate in that space, etc. This is powerful.

This is how implementing values starts and what the values are for! Now, you can go further and embrace them in the way you provide service and train your employees to work by them.

Providing consistency

What do you promise to your guests? Can they rely on you and trust you?

Everyone is promising something. Everyone is convincing their customers they are the best. I invite you to show your guests why you are the perfect choice for them.

For a moment, go back to that sentence stating your business promise from the business plan at the very beginning. Or think about that promise you proudly state at your website or social networks. Is it just a statement or do you take it seriously?

What would you promise today? What goes along with the values you thought about in the previous point? Is it local food, personal chef, nanny to entertain but also teach your children, crazy sea adventures, dance classes or making artisanal cheese classes, relaxing place to work from, etc.?

Write one simple sentence promising one thing to your guests. The one that is dominant and comes naturally to you and your property. It should be the result your guests can always get whenever they come. The result that really matters to your hotel's identity.

It is not about the accommodation but the kind of homelike feeling they are getting with your accommodation. So, what does homelike feel for your hotel? Is it relaxing or fun, calm or dynamic? Describe this promise with another sentence or two developing this feeling with means of how you do it (e.g., everything is automated and there is not a lot of stuff, your guest will literally feel the silence OR there is lots of stuff and everyone knows your name).

Communicating this clearly will make your guests feel safe and have clear expectations which you will make sure will be met.

The stay will be predictable and this will make them excited to come back.

They will feel taken care of.

They will trust you because they know they will always get what they came for when staying with you.

Creating personal experience

Once you hit previous two points, you can start thinking about personalised experience. It is not any breakthrough but way too many hotels think about this before thinking about values and consistency so they get lost and guests are confused and feel the chaos.

Personal experience has no point alone. It comes after creating a strong brand's personality and character. That is when you can concentrate on your guest because your guests will then be your ideal ones.

There are literally countless ideas how to customise someone’s experience. Yet, not increasing your resources but going above and beyond the story you already tell as a hotel. These ideas pop up naturally as you have foundation such as clear concept and established systems.

Not all good ideas will fit your hotel and your guests well.

Start with building and auditing your guest database. Collect and process information you have about your ideal guests. Conclude what their common characteristics are but also their unique routines and preferences. What are their everyday non-negotiables, how can you make their day easier, what would they like to have but cannot afford at home for some reason, etc.?

Arrange the things that are easy and natural for your property and let them be surprised and feel special. But don’t forget you are setting new standards for yourself!

To avoid making your business complicated while getting it more well known, always provide what you promised first and let the systems help you. Once you do this with ease, spice it up with going above and beyond but be clear that is not regular service but your wish to make their stay special. Read more about having no guest feel neglected here.

Remember this. The secret to stand out on the market is for sure to forget about competition and focus on who you are. Demand will follow. Stand out and run remarkable business.

I invite you to share your business wisdom! Tell us, what do you think your unique selling point is or what could it be? Comment bellow.

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