From Selling Fried Chicken to "I'm Kind of a Big Deal"

In the past week, our company announced a restructuring of the sales and marketing department. By in large, those involved directly and indirectly agree in principal with the new alignment that creates a structure with strong competitive advantages. I'm not going to reveal our secret formula, but I will highlight one change that stands out as notable...that is the promotion of our director of catering to an area director of sales.

What's the big deal? Well, overnight, this individual has gone from being responsible for two subordinates to seven. She has gone from a financial scope of accountability of about $1.5 million to more than $25 million. This person - who has little if any experience with STR reports, budgets, revenue management, goal setting, RFPs, group ceilings, patterns or MARs - in one felt swoop has landing a job of exponentially larger magnitude.

"Wow!" and "How?" are a couple of thoughts you might be having. Wow is right. It is an incredible accomplishment for which she should be very proud! How? Well, it's pretty simple really - she gets it. What do I mean - what is IT? "It" is the appreciation for the critical importance of self-motivation, work ethic, passion and taking initiative. If you truly have those characteristics (and a little bit of political savvy) and you exploit them at every opportunity, you will naturally position yourself for career progression. You will learn more than your peers through the initiative, your efforts will be noticed in the strong work ethic, your passion will be visible in the quality of your work and your self-motivation will exude a positive attitude and energy. That's what Dawn did.

I mentioned that she doesn't have much experience with some of the technical aspects of the job, but because she possesses those other fundamental characteristics, nobody doubts that she will be successful. The technical details can be learned pretty quickly through training and situational exposure. As I've said before, hotels sales is not rocket science.

So, the moral of the story is - if you want a rocket ride career (not everyone does and that is okay too), you need to "get it". Congrats to Dawn!

Time is an Investment - Maximize your ROI

Business leaders are perpetually evaluating their organization, looking for ways to improving efficiency – they have to in order to maintain/grow profitability. In essence, executives constantly seek to grow earnings and fuel expansion by doing more with less, without sacrificing quality. What does that mean for the associates? Well, they too have to figure out ways to improve their day-to-day productivity.

For us (sales professionals), that means figuring out how to maximize customer contact time, because customer contact is what produces results in our world. How? In short, discipline. We must discipline ourselves to focus our time and energy where we have the biggest opportunity to make an impact. In practical terms, here are some suggestions:
1. Find out where you are wasting your time. Whether we want admit it or not, there is probably some time in everyone’s day that could be better spent. Evaluate your day and fix that.
2. Prioritize ruthlessly. Start each day with a self time management session, prioritizing the tasks for that day. If you have 20 tasks for a given day, how many of them do you truly need to accomplish? Which of them will yield the best results?
3. Learn to delegate. Of those 20 tasks, which of them can someone else do? The front desk, night auditor, coordinator, receptionist? Maximize your resources!
4. Set appointments with yourself. Schedule time to perform your tasks and stick to it!
5. Limit distractions. Don’t let the incessant interruptions that are non-critical distract you from your daily agenda of customer contact priorities. If they are critical, deal with them and get right back your plan.

Sources: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/time-management/WL00048 and http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/timemanagement/a/timemgttips.htm

How the Game Changes

In the midst of a recession, like most industries, hoteliers change their strategies to fill rooms. When times are good, there are more customers than available rooms and we get to play mathematical games and take risks with restrictions and rates in an attempt to maximize our revenue. More time is spent finding the best customer, but when times are not so good (now) we find ourselves to be far less picky and eager to settle for any customer. We become much more concerned about the prospect of having an empty hotel and we ask, "where can I find a guest to rent this room?".

Where do we look? Our competitors. We look at our direct competitors, but that's nothing unique - we do that even when times are good. Moreover, we look to steal business that we typically wouldn't target. For example, a Marriott might start pricing their discounts and group rates to compete with a Holiday Inn. They might also look to steal customers from the Ritz Carlton - typically that business may be considered out of thier league, but budget cuts might make that Marriott more attractive for high-end travelers seeking to save a buck.

The point is this: for travel managers, meeting planners and group travel coordinators out there looking for an upgrade to the next tier of accommodations - now is a good time to make that switch. For those who enjoy luxury properties, you can trim costs but still offer very quality accommodations for your executives. For individuals - the same applies. Government employee travelers may find this particularly true - many hotels that don't typically offer per diem have had a change of heart. So, go, take a trip and enjoy your stay.