Acorn Marketing Is Dedicated to the Education and Support of New Owners
This is such an exciting time for aspiring and new owners. You are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. Mark and Lisa Kolb can relate to the excitement you are feeling, as they too established, owned, and operated their own property for almost a decade in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We also know from experience that education is the most important thing in which you can invest your time. Without access to accurate information, you may find yourself making costly and uneducated marketing decisions. Acorn Marketing is dedicated to education and teaching any willing property owner how to make data-driven decisions every step of the way, from before you purchase the property all the way through your exit plan.
We invite you to read through all of the aspiring and support options we offer to new and aspiring owners. Also, be sure to check out our clients who have their inns for sale.
When you are ready, we are here to help you succeed!
If you are considering a career in lodging, then you have probably searched for the following:
How to start an independent lodging property
How to open an independent lodging property
How to run an independent lodging property
How to own an independent lodging property
A word from Mark and Lisa Kolb, Owners and Co-Founders of Acorn Marketing:
As past innkeepers and owners ourselves, we remember how exciting it was being aspiring innkeepers: looking for the perfect property, planning the business down to the last detail, laying out interior designs for various rooms that didn’t yet have walls, selecting furniture, linens, place settings for the table, and so on. Such fun it was! Then, the minute we closed on the property all of our plans started to grow legs, and everything began to speed up, like a snowball rolling down hill, getting bigger and bigger as it went.
No amount of classes, planning, or designing can really prepare you for the real thing. What really matters when moving from aspiring to owning is your ability to successfully manage everything you’ve only read, studied, or heard about up to this point. The more you’ve familiarized yourself with all the different facets of running a property in advance, the easier it is to actually “do each job” when the time comes. It’s very much like going to college: you study, you learn, and then you graduate. Only when you land the perfect job do you finally have the opportunity to put all that knowledge into practice.
Acorn Marketing is dedicated to innkeeper and small property education. In fact, many of our team members are either present or retired property owners, or have worked in various facets of the lodging industry!
There is no question or issue for which someone on our team cannot help you find the answer!
As you begin this exciting new life adventure, knowing what you don’t know is imperative. Hiring the correct people for your new purchase team benefits you, by identifying and addressing potential negative issues before they become a problem, helping you avoid any hiccups or surprises along the way that could waste your valuable time and money.
Request your copy of Acorn Marketing’s Aspiring and New Owner Roadmap to Success today!
Update: Our Spring Boot Camp has now ended, but we are still offering the video sessions, along with all of the handouts and homework, for $199. If you are part of an association, group or directory that Acorn Marketing works with, we are offering a $50 discount, bringing the cost to only $149! Acorn Advantage Plan clients have access at no cost. Email education@acorn-is.com for more information on the Boot Camp videos and the discount.
Many lodging properties have sold to new owners in the past year. With so many new owners joining the industry, quality aspiring and new owner marketing training is more important than ever!
Knowing what you don’t know is imperative for ongoing success!
A variety of classes are available to new and aspiring owners to prepare them to become new lodging property owners. Knowing how to prepare to market the property (including what the sellers are currently doing), how to wrap your arms around all that information, and what to do with the information is a daunting process.
Knowing what you don’t know is imperative for ongoing success. In 2021, we presented a 6-week class to new and aspiring independent lodging owners. From that experience, we learned that we needed to extend the dates, as 6+ hours was NOT enough time to cover everything!
We are excited to announce that Acorn Marketing will be presenting a new 8-week Aspiring and New Owner Virtual Marketing Boot Camp beginning in March 2022.
Lisa Kolb and Annie Buck will teach eight sessions covering important topics that every new and aspiring owner needs to know about regarding their Internet presence and online marketing.
These one-hour sessions plus Q&A time will begin on March 2, 2022 and finish on April 20, 2022. Each sessions will be held on a Wednesday afternoon from 5:00 – 6:00pm Eastern time.
The cost for this one-of-a-kind education will be $199, which includes all 8 sessions.
Each Wednesday session will be recorded and available via video for later viewing. Handouts, ancillary videos, and materials to support the session content, including homework, will also be provided.
We will cover:
Domain Registration/Email Ownership
Access to All Marketing-Related Accounts
Revenue Management, OTAs, Booking Engines, Tripadvisor, AdWords, Hotel Ads
Enhanced Marketing
Google Analytics, Search Console, GMB (Google My Business)
Traditional Marketing: Blogging, Newsletters and Social Media
And More…
If you are a new owner (have owned your property for 18 months or less) or are an aspiring owner who wants to be fully prepared to market your business once you close on a property, then we encourage you to register for these sessions. You don’t want to miss a step that could result in a loss in revenue because of something you didn’t know!
New Inn Owner Handbook
Marketing Access you need to acquire from your seller at closing
Many new owners are not aware of the vast and varied types of information they need to gather from their sellers to set up on their own.
If this is the first time you’ve heard of Acorn Marketing, then you may not know that the Founders and Co-Owners, Mark and Lisa Kolb, can relate to the excitement you are feeling. They established, owned, and operated their own lodging property for almost a decade in Colorado Springs, Colorado. So, for each new client our team has the pleasure to meet and support, we also get to experience the excitement you are feeling all over again.
Acorn Marketing was formed in 2002 with the mission of helping other lodging property owners succeed in the online world of Internet marketing. Over 50% of our 30-person team is made up of retired, current, or second-generation innkeepers who provide the expert skills and support you need to assume or create, maintain, and grow your new business. We’ve assisted many new owners in documenting all this “must-have” data via hours of phone consultations, and we realized there was a huge value in having this vast amount of data combined in one location. Thus, with input from our team and a few of our dedicated small property owners, we recorded all of this information, and the “New Inn Owner Handbook” became a reality!
The Mary White Scholarship fund will provide scholarships for qualified aspiring innkeepers to join the Association of Lodging Professionals (ALP) at no charge for their introductory year, providing full access to the member newsletter, webinars, and conference at member pricing.
Applicants must complete a qualification questionnaire to be reviewed by the Selection Committee.
Mary White’s dedication to innkeeper education began many years ago with her bnbfinder client newsletters, which shared marketing tips, national trends, hints and tips, and more. Mary became recognized globally as the author of the Innkeeping for Dummies book, published in 2009. Mary was not only the founder of bnbfinder, but also an incredible woman, friend, and leader in our industry.
With the Mary White Educational Scholarship Fund, we are honoring Mary’s desire to continue to promote and sustain that mission by providing aspiring and new innkeepers access to the educational tools they need to be successful in our industry.
Click below to access the application and to learn more about other scholarship opportunities.
