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WBBA's 21st Annual Meeting, Conference & Trade show
will be November 8, 9,&10, 2009.
It will be held at the Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells.
Our key note speaker this year will be
Jay Karen, CEO of PAII
with the AUCTION by Jerry Phillips!
Back by popular demand will be our Innkeeper Cook-Off.
More details will be posted as soon as they are finalized.
For your reference, here is the 2008 event information!
| We'll Boost Your Business Advantage | WBBA 20th Annual Meeting Conference & Trade Show November 16-18, Sunday thru Tuesday Tagalong Resort, Birchwood WI |
Sunday
1-3 pm Board of Directors’ Meeting 3 pm Conference Registration Opens; Resort Check-in Opens 4 pm B&B Tour: hot mulled cider & hors d’oeurves at the Cobblestone B&B in Birchwood 6:00 Dinner on your own at Tagalong Resort Evening Social, “The Standard Players” Monday 7:00 Conference Registration Continues 8:00 Breakfast Buffet 9:00 General Session: Jerry Phillips – Old Rittenhouse Inn 10-1 WBBA ANNUAL Membership MEETING + luncheon 1:00 Cook-off contestants: prepare your entry in your suite 1:30 Breakout Sessions Selling Your Inn: Asset Preservation. Dottenwhy Financial Group & Corporate Resources Group Hear how you can benefit from utilizing an Innkeeping Exit Strategy through a Wealth Management Structure. The ‘nuts & bolts’ of the Wealth Utilization Analysis, approved by the IRS will be presented. This plan provides client control with maxium flexiblility, tax efficiency, and incorporates asset protection features. Get Going with Google: New features & Technologies Hiking Your Occupancy with the Ice Age Trail Don Erickson, Ice Age Park & Trail Foundation, will portray how B&B guests can see some of Wisconsin’s most beautiful places on the Ice Age Trail while combining healthy exercise with a comfortable 2:30 Cook-Off Judging! We’ll all get together for the presentation of entries. 3:30-4:30 Breakout Sessions 5 Keys to Email Marketing: Create & deliver professional emails. Steve Robinson - Constant Contact How does email marketing help your business grow? Effective, affordable, and easy to use, email marketing is designed specifically to your customers and prospects to build relationships that lead to increased profitability and occupancy. This overview covers: permission-based marketing, list building, tips on getting your emails opened, best practices, tracking results and what to do with this information … and more!! Selling Your Inn: Asset Preservation Dottenwhy Financial Group (repeat) Hear how you can benefit from utilizing an Innkeeping Exit Strategy through a Wealth Management Structure. The ‘nuts & bolts’ of the Wealth Utilization Analysis, approved by the IRS will be presented. This plan provides client control with maxium flexiblility, tax efficiency, and incorporates asset protection features. Financing the Sale of your Inn – Options Sellers should know. Inlanta – Harlan Arccola Collateral, Cash flow, and Credit: how can these be used to properly prepare a lending package before you apply for financing? Half of the presentation applies to thinking outside the box in looking at options besides traditional banking. Self directed retirement accounts, investors, hard money, life insurance and other scenarios are often better and faster than traditional financing. 4:45-5:30 Breakout sessions Financing the Sale of your Inn-Options Sellers should know. Inlanta – Harlan Arccola Collateral, Cash flow, and Credit: how can these be used to properly prepare a lending package before you apply for financing? Half of the presentation applies to thinking outside the box in looking at options besides traditional banking. Self directed retirement accounts, investors, hard money, life insurance and other scenarios are often better and faster than traditional financing. Give more / get more: boost your bottom line by boosting the guest’s experience! Is the experience you currently offer your guest a step up or a step down from their expectations? How can providing Red Carpet Service to your guests increase your bottom line? Learn how to identify your guest’s expectations and how to exceed them. To blog or not to blog: is that the question? Steven Dunston, InsideOut Solutions From ‘what is a blog’ to ‘why should I blog’, innkeepers will learn real-world tips on creating and maintaining a blog as a successful marketing and communication tool. If you’ve thought blogs take too much time or require lots of tech savvy, feedback from innkeepers and other hospitality industry bloggers may change your outlook. Plus … the #1 blogging secret, never revealed until now! 6:00 Social – cash bar 6:30 BANQUET 8:00 Cook-Off Winners ANNOUNCED! Monday Night at the Movies with Ken Flisak of Carpe Diem Film Production Tuesday 7:30 Conference Registration continues 8:00 Breakfast: Howard Helmer Flash in the Pan Omelets! (world’s fastest omelet maker!) Sponsor: American Egg Board and WI Poultry & Egg Industry Assoc. 9:30-1:00 TRADE SHOW / Lasagna lunch buffet Visit the vendors who have the expertise, products, and services to promote your B&B, enhance your guests’ experience, and help you run your business! (see details below) Johnson Litho Graphics – quality printing from concept to completion Paramount Pixels – fabulous photos to promote your inn ResNexus – online booking / guest management / marketing software Discover Cranberries – WI is the #1 producer! InsideOut Solutions – successful websites for B&Bs, lodging associations, and destinations Dottenwhy Financial Group, LLC – strategies & proven concepts for asset management Ice Age Trail – Inn to Inn hiking & more Butter It Up – transforming preserves into a secret indulgence Mary Bergin – syndicated travel writer BedandBreakfast.com – worldwide B&B website Constant Contact – build business thru email marketing Deneen Pottery – custom handmade logo stoneware TRICOR Insurance – B&B property / liability insurance Carpe Diem – film production services Shaklee – green cleaning products Webervations – online availability & reservations Silk Petal Soaps – single-use silk soap petals MGM Lighting - lighting Inlanta Mortgage - financial services Ultimate Perfection Painting - "Starscapes" and faux painting Velocity Payment Systems - Credit Card Processing 1:15-2:15 Breakout Sessions Get Started with Constant Contact: Create & Manage Contacts, Analyze reports Steve Robinson More than 200,000 businesses use Constant Contact to help grow their repeat and referral business. Using the Constant Contact Email Marketing System, you'll learn how to: build and manage your contacts, create great looking emails, analyze email reports to maximize results and much more! This session is best for new customers and anyone that is looking for training on how to use Constant Contact to promote their business. Phenomenal Photographs: getting great photos to promote your Inn. Barb Trueman – Paramount Pixels and Janice Hurley - BedandBreakfast.com Fact: The right photos increase occupancy rates! In today’s competitive market place, the right photos on your website and print materials make the difference between high occupancy rates versus empty beds. This seminar focuses on the difference between taking photos yourself versus hiring a professional, or a combination of both. We will discuss seasonal shots, props, lighting, photo enhancements, print versus web formats, contracts, pricing and how to use great photos to promote your inn. Yes, a good photograph is worth a thousand words! Consolidated Availability with Webervations Andrew Martin – American Dreams Inc / Webervations Finding availability during peak seasons, holidays, and special occasions is somethimes like finding a needle in a haystack. By using a Webervations consolidated availability search, guests can find who has vacancy immediately. This presentation is intended to help innkeepers understand the advantages of listing their availability on WBBA’s consolidated avilability display. We will also discuss how each user’s Webervations account ties into the consolidated display. 2:30 – 3:30 Breakout Sessions + Dessert! If You Build It, Will They Come? Increasing Profits Through Effective Marketing for 2009. Barb Trueman – Paramount Pixels Fresh new marketing ideas as well as a focus on “tried and true” B&B marketing and sales techniques assist innkeepers to polish up on what works to attract new B&B guests and keep the old ones returning. We will discuss the importance of uniqueness, help you recognize competitors versus partners, review room pricing strategies, preview successful sales tools, and study image branding to make certain your marketing image really fits your inn. YES, you can build it and YES, they will come IF you market for today’s guests! ROI is King: it’s about what you earn, not what you spend! Janice Hurley, BedandBreakfast.com Basing your marketing decisions solely on the COST of a directory listing, website design, photo shoot, or whatever, rather than a reasonable projection of the RESULTS can be a mistake! From Google Analytics to Quantcast, this session will teach innkeepers how to make wise buying decisions to maximize occupancy and profit. The key metric is not just the number of “hits” your website receives, but how many of those turn into reservations of a specific dollar value…with that information, you’ll know how to fine-tune your marketing. 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