This Week in Hospitality Marketing Live Show 287 February 5th 2021

This Week in Hospitality Marketing Live Show 287 February 5th 2021

This Week in Hospitality Marketing Live Show 287

CoHosts
Dean Schmit
Lily Mockerman
Tim Peter
Amy Infante
Adele Gutman
Stuart Butler
Show Notes
00:01 — How to view the perspective that hope is good but based in the reality that it is ‘rough’ right now.
00:30 — “You now have to drive demand not just focus on intent”
00:40 — If you’re interested in learning more about your own money mindset, check out this event that my money therapist is doing end of the month: http://bit.ly/MoneyMetamorphosisEvent
01:12 — https://hyken.com/employee-engagement/the-problem-isnt-the-employee-its-the-system/ the real value of engagement with guest responses
01:27 — How cans sales run Marketing? Does it work?
01:36 — kolbe.com Amy’s platform for sales training
01:45 — Remote Revenue Managers and Sales training teams is it now the norm to not be at the property?
02:00 — Show ends
Topics

Hospitality Marketing Live Show 287 Transcripts (English U.S.)

[00:00:17.380] – Loren
  1. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this edition of Hospitality Marketing Live Show number two point eighty-seven. And I just thought since we’d never had a show with somebody with a mask, we might as well make it a good mask. And I’m going to get off just because you can’t really hear me. I don’t think know that. But I just you know, as I was making a comment in the green room, my buccaneers have never been quite this far since we’ve started the show over six years ago.

 

[00:00:45.520] – Loren

Actually, it’s been almost 18 years. But who’s counting? Twenty six days, 13 hours, 22 minutes.

 

[00:00:49.780] – Loren

But did OK about any military background?

 

[00:00:56.630] – Loren

It is nice to see you.

 

[00:00:58.150] – Loren

And you know, and the time even. Yeah, you’ve just way too busy. You just. Yeah. You know, you’re hanging out with a little people, which I appreciate very much.

 

[00:01:09.760] – Loren

Mr. Schmidt. How are you, sir? Oh, OK. Good morning and happy Friday. Yes.

 

[00:01:18.700] – Loren

And on that, Mr. Robert Cole, who is usually pretty good about giving the list some time to us before the show he must be making, he must have won the lottery. Did we ever hear somebody in Texas having won the lottery which didn’t know it was him? I don’t know. We shouldn’t be so mean to him because good friends always get me money. Just thinking.

 

[00:01:39.890] – Loren

I heard a lot of things about Texas, but nothing really related to the lottery.

 

[00:01:43.240]

So there is a lot about Texas. It’s unique that way. I did kind of throw a theme at us.

 

[00:01:51.550]

I didn’t know if you want to roll with that or if you had some amazing burning, yearning, desire to have certain things discussed. But I really wanted to be with everybody kind of dumping the beginning of the New Year prognostications in. And we having had reviewed wonderfully fuel travel’s information. And then just I just popped out a new economic study that they pushed, which I thought was relevant, content I thought was good, a little opinionated, but then again, so are we.

 

[00:02:20.380]

So at that. But I just thought, given the whole circumstances and I don’t know what my clients are persistently asking about, what to plan for, like how should we handle this? How should we handle this?

 

[00:02:33.970]

And, you know, you get so excited that you find a Ritz cracker like, oh, I thought a cracker.

 

[00:02:38.020]

Yeah, I’m going to start today because I’m going to get a little group here, a little group there. It’s it’s it’s Tim with the kung fu grip.

 

[00:02:44.800]

No.

 

[00:02:45.130]

One, the only and the world is very happy for that. Well, hi, Amy, how are you this morning.

 

[00:02:52.900]

Hey, good. How are you guys doing?

 

[00:02:55.700]

Well, we were just ready to dive into the possibility of optimism versus reality, what really we’re looking at for 2014. Tim, you are one of our investigators, if not the procrastinator of all prosecutors.

 

[00:03:07.720]

I can’t know if I can say that word enough times correctly, but I’m trying so so I don’t have a prognostication. I have a I have a point of view in this specific case, because let’s be clear, nobody knows what’s actually going to happen. We don’t know we don’t know.

 

[00:03:24.940]

One of the reasons I’m a fan of agile processes and like adopting the agile development methodology to what you do from a business perspective is because if you can’t predict, you better be able to react quickly and being agile allows you to react quickly. Yeah.

 

[00:03:42.130]

That said, you know, I’ve talked about this before, but there’s this thing known as the Stockdale paradox that I’ve mentioned before on the show. It’s a little dark. I mean, I want to be really clear. It’s a little dark, but it’s Admiral Stockdale. Admiral James Stockdale was the highest ranking prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. You know, he was like a special forces guy and everything. And an enormous number of people who were prisoners of war during the Vietnam War died.

 

[00:04:11.390]

And he said the people who died first were the people with no hope, right, they just gave up immediately and died. They didn’t die because they gave up. Obviously, horrible things were happening to them, but they were not able to be resilient because they had no hope. The second group of people who unfortunately didn’t make it were folks who were the diehard optimists because they lost hope over time. You know what? It just crushed them that that, you know, this thing that they knew would come to an end didn’t.

 

[00:04:46.970]

And he said the people who were the most resilient in this experience were the people who both understood that the reality sucked. And also, we’re hopeful that someday it would be better, you know, wasn’t blind optimism. It was an optimism with no sense of reality. But it wasn’t, oh, gosh, this sucks. And it’s going to suck forever. So I don’t try to be a pessimist about this. I don’t try to be you know, I don’t want to be not optimistic about this.

 

[00:05:13.400]

I’m very optimistic. Twenty twenty one could turn out to be a great year once we get into Q3 and Q4, maybe Q2 in some markets. And I think we also need to be prepared for the fact that if it’s bad, you don’t want that to be a shock. You don’t want to assume it’s going to be a great year. And then if it isn’t, it kicks you in the teeth and it becomes something tough to come back for.

 

[00:05:33.500]

That’s not a prognostication. It’s not a lack of optimism. It’s it’s that Stockdale paradox of holding reality in your head and also optimism at the same time and recognizing two things can be true simultaneously. You can have hope and also things can be, you know, to use a technical term pretty shitty. Right.

 

[00:05:56.460]

And so in that sense, it makes much sense because, of course, if you realize how severe the crisis is, but you still believe that where a lot of smart people who can have some impact, we may not be able to control the situation, but we can impact the situation if we collaborate, if we use everyone’s creativity and and take action. And that that feeling that despite all odds, we have some power to control our small world, if not the whole world.

 

[00:06:41.990]

It makes sense that that would work.

 

[00:06:44.990]

Yeah, I completely agree. And I mean, you should control the things that you can control. You should try to affect the things you can affect. You should recognize there’s things you can’t affect and you should be prepared to be nimble to move to, you know, how things shift as you go forward.

 

[00:07:01.490]

So that’s not my perspective. It’s not my problem.

 

[00:07:03.920]

Prognostication, as long as the resident forecaster of the group, which by the way, I just want to point out for a moment that we have even representation this morning between male and female. One of those is going to show up later. But anyway, so when we do revenue management for hotels, part of forecasting is looking at leading indicators. Right. We want to see like what’s going on. So for me right now in the areas of really commercial strategy is what I’m paying attention to, how our hotels handle commercial strategy right now, sales, marketing, revenue management.

 

[00:07:45.710]

So a couple of leading indicators. I’ve seen more job posts for revenue managers. It started first in the sales. We were seeing sales and marketing posts that has progressed to revenue management posts, which leads me to believe that more people think that the recovery is more imminent. And by imminent, that might mean six months. But we obviously need some lead time. So the smart people are gearing up for that. Many of those have said they’re just collecting resumes to see what’s going on.

 

[00:08:15.020]

Right. And they don’t immediately plan to hire. However, I’ve also seen many, many people changing their job titles to something revenue management related for a company. What’s in LinkedIn? Because I’m obviously connected with thousands of revenue managers around the world. Another leading indicator that I’m seeing is just kind of a resurgence of interest in webinars, interestingly enough, because I feel like we all went through webinar fatigue. So the people who are really paying attention are now picking and choosing very specific topics that they think are super relevant, maybe not going to every webinar, but they’re really looking for that great content that they can hone in on because they’re looking for the advice of how to move things forward.

 

[00:09:05.900]

So those are a couple of leading indicators I’ve seen. So my gut feel is with that and with the pace of vaccinations as it stands right now, probably in mid year, we’re going to start to see a little bit more of a normalization. I still think business travel probably not till the fall or maybe even next. Yea, when it comes to overall business travel, but I’m also seeing groups book lots of groups actually are booking for this year, some as early as March and April with people that I’m connected with.

 

[00:09:41.810]

Sell that back to Tim’s point is a cause for hope just based on your current conversation.

 

[00:09:51.260]

That’s why I dressed up today. I can’t keep up with the accoutrements, however, but I’m pretty happy I’m dressed today.

 

[00:09:58.190]

I’m going with the non branded but totally stoked hate. Since I’ve heard this show’s been running, I’ve never been in this position to say Super Bowl.

 

[00:10:04.610]

Anyway, just totally on topic, Lauren. Well, doesn’t see me exciting when webinar fatigue is now replaced with total.

 

[00:10:16.370]

What why now? Would you become addicted to webinars?

 

[00:10:23.840]

I want to I have to say no, just one a day before I do it and we’ll get anything else done. But, you know, to keep the thought is optimistically, we know that everybody’s eager to travel. We know that. Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, our question is the timing of when we kind of push into the fact that we’re trying to capture the business based on the uniqueness of the market that we represent at that time, because we do know it’s not going to be a blanket.

 

[00:10:56.390]

The whole world opens up. And uniquely, I think also from a society point us for the first time in my mind, has to face the reality that other countries have had to face for a long time, and that is conditions of travel. We used to always go with wherever we want to go. We’re good. Don’t worry about anything. We can do whatever we want, whenever I want, because, gosh darn it, we’re the American traveler.

 

[00:11:17.920]

And now it’s know you’re probably going to have to have testing and or confirmation of testing. There are going to be conditions of travel that you’re going to face that we didn’t have before. And that’s going to change, I think, in some ways, people’s perception. I don’t I don’t think it’s going to limit them, but I think it’s going to be a consideration for them. But it does go to the fact that we’re not in the throes of destruction, like, oh, my gosh, it’s so terrible.

 

[00:11:42.430]

We’re never going to travel again. It’s no, we know we are. It’s just being able to time ourselves that we don’t overspend before it’s time or understand before we can have the opportunity to optimize what we have is chance. Mr. Stuart Butler from New Guinea.

 

[00:11:57.100]

Even male, female, we’re off the ratio. Let me start, cause I’m afraid I’m going to leave early.

 

[00:12:07.210]

I have to drop off thirty.

 

[00:12:08.560]

So even if I know it’s so quiet until that point as well.

 

[00:12:15.970]

And by the way, I know I don’t ever want to sound like a downer. I think this is more about just being practical and pragmatic and recognizing both realities. Right. I in some ways, I think this is going to be a what we’re going to see in twenty twenty one in some ways is going to look like a and hear me out on this is going to be weird, normal hotel industry recession. And I may have talked about this last week, a week before or something like that.

 

[00:12:40.030]

You know, historically, if you ignore twenty eight, two thousand nine specifically, historically, the travel industry didn’t have a recession. The travel industry had recessions based on market. You know, this market was hot. This market was cold. This market was booming. This market was bust. Right. And that was very normal. I can remember in some of the best years of my career that I’ve had to this point where, you know, you’d be talking to one group of hotels and they were like, we are so full, we don’t know what our biggest problem is.

 

[00:13:10.810]

We can’t find staff. Our biggest problem is we don’t have enough space for all the people who want to come here and turn around and talk to a hotel in some other market who was like, we are sucking wind. This is the worst. Right. And I think that’s going to be true this year in a lot of ways, because there’s going to be senior markets and destination markets. We’re doing better at getting people vaccinated or doing better about making people feel comfortable that it’s okay to travel.

 

[00:13:34.870]

And you’re also going to have markets and feeder markets and destinations that are going to be more problematic because either they are undergoing an outbreak or they are fearful of an outbreak or whatever that factor is that causes people to say, you know what, I’m not prepared to travel. So you’re going to have places that do very well in places that do poorly. So your local market, your local supermarkets and the like. And really, I completely agree with you in terms of paying attention to the leading indicators of what matter matter this year as much as ever.

 

[00:14:07.870]

And so let’s go back to what you were talking about earlier and the fact that, you know, typically we talk about look at the data, right? Look at your historical data. We’ve all agreed, though, that your historical data is crap because to date. But, yeah, we start to look at it and we in fact, we even have to go back to twenty nineteen oh, look at that data a little bit and kind of take emerging three.

 

[00:14:26.050]

But then we really have to start looking at current data because current data is not going to be like any of those other two years. And we have to be nimble. As we said, we have to be agile and be able to adapt on the fly. Right. So we start talking about working with data. There’s also another balancing act we have to play, and that is making sure that we have statistically relevant data samples. So where do we draw the line?

 

[00:14:47.830]

How do we balance that line between making sure that we are not just going in there and trying to make changes every three hours because, oh, that’s the knee jerk reaction and making sure we’ve got a statistically relevant data sample versus.

 

[00:15:01.180]

I also know that I need to be agile and nimble and adapt to what’s going on on the fly.

 

[00:15:06.340]

Yeah. And actually, if I going have one point to that, because I think this is a really and I’m going to support this with real data or it is real data. It’s anecdotal in the sense of I’m talking about a couple of properties as opposed to all the properties in the world. Right. But but it is real data about these individual properties. And it gets to the point of how I think people approach. This year. I have a group of properties who I work with who are in a market that is doing pretty well, that there’s decent demand, that the feeder markets that feed them are continuing to do pretty well.

 

[00:15:36.850]

And they’re they’re shaping up to have a solid year, even with what’s on the books right now. They’re sold out this weekend as a for instance. So that’s good stuff, right?

 

[00:15:49.240]

I have another property and this is really to the point of balancing pragmatism and hope of I have another property who historically most of their most of their business came from overseas. Right now is they wait to market is they wait. You manage until, you know, that demand comes back 20, 22 is going to be all right. Twenty twenty two is twenty twenty one is going to be a terrible, terrible year for them. And twenty twenty two probably will be, too, because they’ll probably be too late to the market compared to everybody else.

 

[00:16:27.190]

So their activities, which they’ve continued, I’m happy to say, have been focused more on how do we find new business from places we’ve never gone before and they’re having success with it. Is it offsetting what they lost from international travel? No. Is it helping them dig out of the hole? Very much so. But they’d be delusional to look at, you know. You know, international travel is going to come roaring back in Q2 and Q3.

 

[00:16:53.920]

That’s not going to happen. There is I’d be thrilled to be wrong about this, but I think that the odds that we’re going to see a normal inbound from overseas market in twenty, twenty one, I put the odds of that 10 percent or whatever. Yeah. Which is not, which is not zero percent. Yeah.

 

[00:17:12.340]

It’s just not where we are today.

 

[00:17:14.560]

The odds that that’s going to occur are very unlikely.

 

[00:17:16.540]

But on the flipside of something else, right on the flip side, you know, we, we net travel out more than we people travel into the US.

 

[00:17:26.110]

It’s like, oh yeah, for sure. So the reciprocal is true that fewer Americans are going to travel abroad over the next 12 months. There’s a massive opportunity. And I think, you know, you’re all exactly right in terms of this is going to be a market by market, property, by property, demographic by demographic recovery. And it’s not going to be linear. There’s going to be areas that recover and then struggle and then recover again. It’s going to be challenging and for the reasons you’ve outlined.

 

[00:17:53.230]

But there’s three kind of what I would consider prevailing winds that that give me a lot of confidence. One is that the financial situation is a conundrum, right? People are talking about this recovery. But if you look at savings indexes, you look at disposable income, although it is true that there are a lot of people really hurting right now, like terribly hurting and my heart goes out to them. That’s not the majority of people, especially not the majority of people that typically would travel.

 

[00:18:27.700]

So the majority of people, especially the broadband middle class, are doing fairly well. You know, if you kept your job, you’re spending less money. You’ve had two stimulus checks, probably a third on the way. You’re in a OK position that you may consider travel as an investment. Right. So that’s that’s one prevailing wind that I think is really good. Another one is time. You know, we in the United States is notorious for not taking vacation time and people in Europe are completely opposite.

 

[00:19:00.640]

A lot of times people think nothing of taking a two week vacation twice a year, four weeks is pretty standard and it’s less atypical in the United States. But Expedia just came out with data. A lot of people are coming out with data that indicates that people are wanting to spend more time using their vacation time. Right. Whether that’s at home or traveling.

 

[00:19:20.800]

But people have been burned out and they need that. And then the third thing is we’ve been told that we can’t travel for a long time. And there’s this this there’s going to be a snap to that. People people don’t like to be cooped up. And so there’s just this urge to get out. And that’s going to be a mirror of what we saw last year where in certain markets, especially beach destinations, last year, people came in droves in a tidal wave we’ve never seen before.

 

[00:19:50.080]

And I think that’s going to be in the zeitgeist as the media kind of calms down. So those three things tell me that there’s a lot of opportunity. But individually, as a destination and as property, you’ve got to you’ve got to find your way to capitalize on that. You can’t just assume it’s going to come. You’ve got to be smarter than your competition and you’ve got to capitalize on on it when the opportunity arises.

 

[00:20:13.390]

I really don’t have a choice because I was just going to say this is really the time to shine.

 

[00:20:21.100]

If you have hotels in secondary and tertiary markets, especially if they are independent, boutique experience driven, has maybe some outdoorsy activities around even better the activities on site that are operational. This is where people are going because it helps to overcome this fear of what am I going to be able to do if I travel to this area. Like we’ve been supporting a couple of hotels in Estes Park now for a number of years. And in twenty twenty they beat the budget that they set pre covid for the year because there’s actually a lot of opportunity if you’re positioned well for leisure travel.

 

[00:21:08.550]

It’s really shifted away. I feel like from a lot of the brands, unless they’re true soft brands with that more of an independent feel in terms of the leisure travel, because people are looking for that experience. They want that secondary or tertiary market where they feel like they’re not going to be crowded in with a bunch of other people. So if you’re one of those properties, now is the time to really get on the ball with your marketing efforts and your revenue management, because there’s money to be had there.

 

[00:21:37.020]

But I want to jump in and throw the ball to Amy here because I am eager to hear what’s been going on in business development. Git go and what you guys are seeing on the group side, because I have less info about that. Sure.

 

[00:21:51.150]

Now let’s go. I mean, when Tim was talking, I was thinking, you know, talking about the covid world and how, you know, it’s market by market for us. It’s always been that way. Like, you know, we’ve always jumped in and had to help a hotel because of oversupply and a lower demand for whatever reason, maybe a demand generator left the market. And so I think, you know, you just have to be, like you said, very practical about how you look at the business and how you forecast and that balance between optimism.

 

[00:22:30.520]

And I mean, I don’t even think it has to be its reality, right, with a sense, I think you want your sales people to be optimistic. They should be the most optimal ways.

 

[00:22:46.120]

I’m pessimistic. Salesperson is never a good salesperson.

 

[00:22:50.740]

I always talk about mindset. Mindset is everything right when it comes to your sales team. But so we’re seeing very much like you guys are seeing, you know, it varies by market. We’re seeing, you know, a good amount of group in places where there’s leisure activity, outdoor activity, you know, small groups, still lots of project business.

 

[00:23:18.310]

And the transient is basically due to project work that’s happening in the market.

 

[00:23:24.520]

So business travel is still happening, albeit less than hotels have gotten in the past. But they’re really able to capitalize on focusing on some of the key industries and segments. You know, we’re doing a really awesome Beda right now with a major hotel chain feeding feeding data that has intent behind it. So they’re searching keywords and saying, well, you know, and it’s business travel.

 

[00:23:54.790]

So key decision makers in that area.

 

[00:23:59.410]

And we, you know, pushed out over 5000 prospects into hotels, portals so that they can actually connect with them digitally and personally via phone and qualify that business. And we’re seeing, you know, we just we just launched live last week. And so we’re starting to see some really great activity and feedback and action from those particular set of five thousand prospects, which is scattered all over the country. And we’re seeing, you know, certain markets received 50 leads that had intent and other markets received five.

 

[00:24:43.990]

You know, and it really doesn’t matter. It’s not about CityCenter versus a tertiary market. We’re seeing some really, you know, small tertiary markets that have a lot of activity going on. And it’s usually due to some type of a project going on, you know, some, you know, building a new retail store or a manufacturing plant or, you know, some some of it’s related to the oil and gas markets and things that are just shifting and changing.

 

[00:25:14.850]

And so you really have to be very aware of what’s happening in your market and, you know, really read the news, connect with your economic development departments, your chambers, really, you know, you just you have to be aware of what’s going on in your market and what’s coming. For the record, Tim, I think your hotels, it’s the temporary effect, I don’t think it’s anything to do with them. I think it’s just they know that Tim Peters involve Tim.

 

[00:25:44.290]

Peter doesn’t create business, Tim. Peter is business.

 

[00:25:49.080]

Their leader is.

 

[00:25:51.130]

Oh, let’s let’s be clear. That’s not the case.

 

[00:25:55.260]

You know, the thing the thing that’s really notable is in every situation where there’s where there’s downsides, there’s also upsides. I mean, you know, 20, 19 in many of the markets that I work with, many of the hotels that I work with in specific markets, their complaint was the growth of supply. Right. Was they were they were getting concerned about recompression. They were getting concerned about occupancy, pressure and things along those lines because there was so much room inventory coming in to market.

 

[00:26:31.220]

This is this is definitely taking a hit, not so great situation and turning it into a glass half full, but the reality is, is we get it through twenty, twenty one as we get into 2022. That’s not going to be the problem that most people are facing. Right. And I do agree to the story, but there’s a lot of latent demand. And we’re seeing I have to be very careful here because I want to disclose the property.

 

[00:26:53.750]

But, you know, I do some work with some independent luxury properties. And to the point of the recovery, they’re doing fine, like they’re doing completely fine. They’re ahead of budget in cases, they’re ahead of 20 nineteen and things along those lines. So it just depends so much on where you fall from a scale perspective where you lost customers perspective. And that the the thing that I’m always trying to emphasize is if you are having, you know, last year was a terrible year.

 

[00:27:25.380]

And if this year is shaping or looking like it’s going to be a terrible year, the biggest mistake you can make is planning on what you always got being what you get. You have to go looking for new sources of business. You have to go looking for new opportunities. And it could be very different opportunities. There are going to be opportunities there for sure. But, you know, think like a startup, think, you know, be hungry.

 

[00:27:49.910]

Right. Since we were making the joke about, you know, depressed sales people before, you know, be you’re not. You’re right.

 

[00:27:58.460]

You know, I can tell you, I’ve spoken to hoteliers who are some in and doing what they’ve been doing.

 

[00:28:10.460]

And I believe most of them have not happily, most of them have not. But you run into some of the hotels just like, you know, well, fingers crossed. You know, people will do what they did in twenty nineteen.

 

[00:28:22.740]

Again, I wouldn’t bank on that. Yeah, I’m sure I would. Thank God they’re going to do what they did in twenty twenty and then anything and then go and find every single person who was going to travel into your market and some of them who were considering it and get. That’s right. And that is exactly the right approach.

 

[00:28:45.590]

And it’s you’ve got to be a hunter gatherer. Right. And so changing your tactics accordingly. I would say this. We published a lot of podcast episodes this year and a lot of them have been focused on that, shifting their mindset and in trying to go out and look for the business and aggressively go after it because your competition is going to do it. And to your point on supply chain, although you’re right in the fact that people aren’t building and opening new properties, there’s sort of a similar event happening in terms of reopenings, though, it’s bringing supply.

 

[00:29:20.660]

So I’ve seen markets where they’re doing OK and then all of a sudden 20 new properties, new quote unquote, properties that had been closed for the last six months re-open in it and it crashes the demand. So I think you’ve got to be careful to to assume that just because you’re on a linear trajectory, it may not be sustainable unless you continue to accelerate your efforts and continue to be aggressive. A lot of our clients are doing things that, you know, a year or two ago, we would never have encouraged them to do more top of funnel.

 

[00:29:50.480]

You know, we always said, hey, but you DMO drive demand and you harvest the intent with so many people searching, just get in front of them when they’re actively looking. But now we’ve got to we’ve got to inspire travel. We’ve got to convince people. Now, there’s still forty seven percent of people in this country that haven’t traveled since March. Twenty twenty. That’s a lot of people that are sitting there wanting to travel, yearning to travel, but haven’t been convinced to jump to take that leap.

 

[00:30:19.910]

So part of your job, your first party data to your email database, to your social channels, go out there and talk to these people and try to encourage them in an aggressive way, but in a you know, a responsible way to I really appreciate what you’re saying, because I can’t tell you how many times I have, you know, toughed it out with somebody because they are insisting that hotels do not generate demand. They only steal market share.

 

[00:30:53.810]

But I don’t believe that that’s the case because of social media and because of, you know, all media that, you know, if you show me a beautiful picture.

 

[00:31:07.460]

I don’t even know what country it is, but I want to stay I want to be on that rooftop and I will fly there. I didn’t decide on the destination first. I decided on the experience first.

 

[00:31:19.880]

Absolutely. You know, it’s interesting. I’m seeing I’m seeing a lot of that now on Ticktock where I’m seeing some really great marketing where people are doing like these little drone things and whatnot. And I’ll tell you what, it makes me want to travel. I mean, granted, I love traveling kind of in my blood, kind of in the industry. But, you know, I think that investing a little bit of money and I don’t think drone videography is even that expensive, to be honest.

 

[00:31:48.020]

But to really give a good example of what the experience is like, because I often find that even though great photography is helpful, pictures don’t even sometimes do it justice, depending on how your property is laid out. So I think that that’s really important. And then also, I wanted to jump in on the mindset thing that Amy was talking about, because as an entrepreneur, I work with what’s called a money therapist who actually goes through and helps you identify, like, how do you personally relate to money and how does that show up in the decisions that you make?

 

[00:32:24.410]

And boy, if I could have every revenue manager and sales person sign up for that, because I can almost guarantee you that their personal views of money aren’t just impacting the way that they run their personal finances. They’re impacting the way that they’re selling for the hotel, the way that they’re pricing things, that scarcity and abundance mindset. So actually, I’m going to be interviewing her for my podcast next week, so that’ll be launching hopefully next week. So I was laughing really while you were saying that.

 

[00:32:56.480]

I’m so sorry. Super quick. When I worked for Leadin, when we hired new call center agents, the leading hotels of the world, we our neighbors were six hundred dollars a night. Fourteen years ago, fifteen years ago, the first training we had to put our call center reps through was, you know, calls it a reps. Obviously, we know what they make. They are not necessarily the highest paid folks and things like that. You know, we had to train them with teach them that when they pulled up a rate not to go.

 

[00:33:27.620]

That’s really expensive, you know, because because obviously to them it was incredibly expensive. Right. You know, if you’re looking at a twelve hundred dollars room, but it was a training we had to do for folks to understand your customers want this. So it’s the point about mindsets.

 

[00:33:45.800]

And it’s a fascinating idea, Lily, to bring that in. It’s it’s really it’s really clever. I’ve never heard of that before. And your money lady is a very engaging. Yes. You know, I heard her talk. She’s bringing it up that so in case anybody’s interested in exploring more, I will let through the event Lincoln and people can explain.

 

[00:34:11.450]

Please do it. It’s kind of funny that you say that because from an old school perspective, no, I run in front desk managers or reservationist back. We used to phone calls that came into the hotel thing. We often talked to them as to what they thought they would get based on what they would spend if they went stayed somewhere. And then we kept escalating it until finally it was like I would never pay that. And yet it was in our price range of the hotel was that they would be working at that.

 

[00:34:36.410]

They would be negotiating with that. They’d be working. To your point, I would leave a list at the front desk at the end of the day as to how many rooms we could sell at different rates set to hit the ADR. We’re looking for for that day saying, yes, you have ten rooms to sell at this really bottom rate, but you only have those ten. So the better you still the higher end, the less likely that and it began to educate them is the value proposition of whom they’re talking to rather than them selling to themselves, which we all know is the bane of all ownership they sell to themselves.

 

[00:35:05.100]

And no, no, you have a group of one. Yeah. It’s like don’t sell yourself the most dangerous thing in marketing.

 

[00:35:13.250]

The focus group of one.

 

[00:35:14.960]

Yeah. Which I’m very happy for. I said to myself all the time, so if I said no, I could go back to one thing Lily said in particular.

 

[00:35:23.630]

This is a long standing piece of advice I give. I’m giving hotel clients for years and years and it goes back to the imagery, goes back to video and things like that. I recognize funds are tight right now.

 

[00:35:35.030]

I’m recognized for many properties here, struggling to figure out where you can get some revenue from, things like that, whatever your budget is for inventory and whatever your budget is for video Doubilet and do that every single year, find cheaper ways to do it, find more economic because it gets cheaper every year, too. But whatever you think you’re spending on it, you’re probably not spending enough pretty picture to sell hotel rooms, pretty, you know, hotel rooms.

 

[00:36:04.700]

I’m going to point out the fact there’s plenty of tools out there. The. Make this very affordable and to Mr. Stewart, smiling because there are some cool tools out there, I’m playing with one right now with my client, they just love it’s called edit mate, where they get to have their whole staff just submit stuff.

 

[00:36:19.420]

And then we sort of sift through it and then we figure out how it plays into our storylines. And they are just taking some incredible pictures that nobody even thought about doing like this is how we have breakfast. This is our little banged up. And so people have a visualization of stuff that we just talked about. And it’s from a safety perspective, this will do well. Now we have pictures of it now. We ever thought about, hey, maybe we should take a picture of this and the staff did.

 

[00:36:41.830]

And so it’s been kind of fun to have that kind of interface and also say to we just went through a recent exercise with a demo that was very interesting about photography. And they and in videography, we created a sizzle reel for the destination and we’d shown it to an audience of locals and just local stakeholders. And it kind of fell flat. And what we were hearing because it was a diverse group, was we don’t see ourselves in this in this video.

 

[00:37:06.640]

It looks very high produced. It was a destination that appealed to and more of a blue collar kind of a crowd. And so we took that feedback and went back in. We started we actually took a bunch of content from flip to like just the static images in, just kind of put them in and animations and just showed real people and real stories intertwined with the high production quality. And the response was unbelievable. It was a 180 like everyone just felt like it was the most authentic, compelling story narrative that they’d ever seen related to that destination.

 

[00:37:40.300]

And so, you know, there’s definitely, I agree, 100 someone to spend more money on on that kind of content. Don’t dismiss the authentic content you can get. Right. Generated content to that. That can be infinitely more powerful because it’s peer to peer communication versus, you know, propaganda coming from from the brand. So, you know, it it’s a balancing act, but definitely going to use both of them as a one two punch.

 

[00:38:07.720]

It was to a tick tock video that really demonstrates what we’re talking about here, too. So what I shared with you a while back, Lauren, I just think it’s really well done. Yes, it is.

 

[00:38:19.570]

It was. Yes, it did. And that’s the interesting thing, is that I would be the first to say I underestimated what Tic-Tac was going to do. I felt that that we as marketers couldn’t really break that mold as to what Tic-Tac was offering and so forth. But what I didn’t account for was the fact that without a marketers going into the traditional sense of abusing it and trying to sell hard line product, instead, we could create communication with it, which was a much more subtle but more powerful way.

 

[00:38:48.430]

It’s subtle in its introduction, but powerful in its impact as to what you can do with tick tock. Probably done. And that goes to any of the meetings which I want to step back. We’re going through some transition processes that with Facebook and their ability to do retargeting in the future tense for and what they and all the shutdowns of all the third party cookies and so forth, we’re in a transition of marketing where a lot of these people that are coming from what they used to do to into present tense, where they want to start remarketing again or coming into market again, they’re kind of driving a NetSol on some of this stuff, you know, Okah, Husan, Okah, that is not up to modern standards.

 

[00:39:32.020]

We’re going to we’re going to work with Logan on his cultural references.

 

[00:39:34.300]

But it’s OK. Yeah. OKAH That’s not running good howzat. No, the the the idea that I channel my inner steward on a live show I was doing the other day with somebody else. But they ask, what’s the one thing you would do if you recommend anybody what they should do if they’re going to come back into the marketplace as this technology? This you’ve got to you’ve got to up your technology standards to what they are now, you have to look at what people are more accustomed to and needing to use compared to what you were familiar with back when you were focused on that.

 

[00:40:03.140]

And that goes to the whole tech stack, not just the innovative stuff that Stuart and team does about, you know, keyless checking entries. And so it’s just you have to up your whole data storage, data integration, compatibilities crossover’s, all that stuff has to be evaluated in a much more up to ten times way. So I did a channel, my little Stewart on that one.

 

[00:40:25.030]

I’m not going to take the bait on whether we should invest in technology where people were being more human or things like that.

 

[00:40:32.150]

What I will say what I will say is, you know, and this is a very real tip that I’m seeing a number of hotels that I work with, a number of hotels in talking to, have had a lot of success with is we’re seeing a rise. And I don’t know if this is going to I have no predictions that this is a trend that we will see for years or if this is something that will last for 20, 21. But, you know, people are are increasingly working from anywhere as opposed to working from home.

 

[00:40:58.730]

And so, you know, I’ve seen many hotels have success with, you know, work from here package kind of idea. But obviously people know that. But here’s why I’m bringing this stuff specifically. One of the thing that we should take from the pandemic desk, your point about technology where you’ve got to make your Wi-Fi great. You know, people we have learned to live our lives online over the last year. Your your guests are when they come online.

 

[00:41:27.470]

That’s been true for years, is on any given night. You host more devices than you post guests. And what is absolutely true and what people have learned during the pandemic is they’re going to use them. They’re going to stream they’re going to do Soohoo calls. They’re going to do you know, they’re going to be watching during a call for work while their kids or their spouse or the partner or the traveling companion is streaming Netflix and the like in every room.

 

[00:41:55.100]

However, getting your Wi-Fi is make it better, make it fast, because that’s going to continue with luxury.

 

[00:41:59.890]

And it was a time it was a luxury and now it’s a utility. You know, I think people would be more alienated if the Wi-Fi didn’t work than if the order didn’t work at this point, you know, so you’ve got to treat it the same way you do the other basic essentials. It is an essential in today’s society.

 

[00:42:17.030]

So it’s the first it’s the first tier of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for water, water.

 

[00:42:25.310]

That’s the only thing that’s made me leave a hotel early before. Is it really? Yeah, I actually it was when I was down for the summit, I conference the rock conference in New Orleans the year that we were in New Orleans. And I was at an Embassy Suites really near to the convention center and all of that. But I literally could not have a single call like and it was audio only over VoIP. I couldn’t do it at all.

 

[00:42:54.650]

And I’m like, look, guys, I’m so sorry, but like, the hotel is lovely, but I got to go. I have somewhere where and I paid more to relocate to a hotel where I could actually have my meetings and whatnot, because it just it wasn’t feasible right now. True, also, when you’re when you’re streaming, you sometimes don’t even want to be on wi fi, even if you have phenomenal wi fi, like like I paid extra, extra, extra for here you want to be plugged in.

 

[00:43:29.850]

So that’s got to be great, too, and maybe have really long cords so they can go out to the balcony with it or whatever they want to do all the time.

 

[00:43:43.500]

That’s it.

 

[00:43:43.870]

That is a great point because how often do you used to be you only see an Ethernet cable in the hotel room. That is kind of a standard for a while. You don’t see those anymore.

 

[00:43:53.520]

Yeah, sometimes you need them if you want to have a reliable connection. And yeah. And and maybe instead of the business centers, the way we’ve had them in hotels previously, maybe we’re going to have Zouma rooms for people who lose that phone because then Superman has a place to change.

 

[00:44:17.910]

What was that for in the world.

 

[00:44:19.760]

Oh sure. The Sheraton now has quiet rooms. Then we look at phone booths for their new branding. We’re going to sit and be quiet.

 

[00:44:29.040]

What was it that Maxwell Smart cone of silence like really at the Fast Company Innovation Festival? A couple, I think two years ago now. I was there in New York City and they had those two in all of the common areas. There were all these little like sort of fundus. They just had a little desk. And when you close the door, it would be completely quiet. I mean, they didn’t have enough of them. There was always a line of people waiting for them.

 

[00:44:53.650]

But I saw that and I was like, that makes a lot of sense to just kind of put around. And they weren’t charging anything for them, but they were doing something through a sponsor. So I think it makes a lot of sense to have those options to find out you want one in our apartments.

 

[00:45:13.330]

And I know you had about an hour with us, and it’s great to have Julie and Amy and Rory with us. I want to bring up something that that Robert brought up in his listed dialogue, his preamble to his list last week that we didn’t really get to touch on that. I brought up in a conversation with somebody else, and that was his dialogue about stupid people.

 

[00:45:38.130]

I think that’s going to stop making them, you know, reference.

 

[00:45:43.130]

These are good intended people, highly intelligent, articulate, everything else. But they unfortunately make decisions that not only hurt themselves, but hurt those that are also in market with them. And he he talked about was a psychologist. I don’t even know if I’m saying the name right. What is it? There was a quadrant chart that he created or had. SAPOL is very it’s a matrix on stupid people, and he had five rules of it and so forth.

 

[00:46:06.540]

But the part that I want to get to is and maybe rephrase it to be politically correct, I’m not sure, but it’s pretty accurate. The way it sounds is it’s a stupid people.

 

[00:46:15.600]

I don’t think that’s you know, people are be the only people who will be offended if you call them stupid people who are people who actually think they’re stupid and that anybody’s going to get jump in that boat are pretty small.

 

[00:46:29.520]

Let me give an example of context is where a hotel and this is why I’m happy to lose here, lowers the rates in thinking that they’re going to go over and generate more business, which drags everyone down because, of course, they’re in contrast to whatever else they’re charging and they’re thinking they’re doing themselves a favor when in fact, they’ve just hurt themselves putting money back on the table and hurt the entire market by doing so. That’s an example of, you know, bad decision.

 

[00:46:54.600]

And there’s other decisions that we can point to, to those things, brand produce, brand standards, lowering your staff, things that will hurt you, thinking that you’re actually benefitting yourself. And again, these are people that not for anything, they’re intelligent or whether you’re educated or whatever, make poor choices. But we as a as a strategy don’t account for that as much as we should in realizing that our best intentions can also have somebody in this market that just totally underpins it, blows it up with a grenade, so to speak, by making stupid choices to this market.

 

[00:47:26.790]

So I just thought a great thing that Robert thrown into his dialogue last week, that we never really got a chance to talk much about, that I thought would be kind of fun with you guys because you have great insight from the fifty thousand point of view. A little you just have to deal with this every day.

 

[00:47:40.380]

Did a webinar on it on Tuesday, did you? I did.

 

[00:47:44.640]

And I just did a podcast about this like two weeks ago. My resources for all of our listeners back then, that’s my idea is like, well, how do you deal with or how do you account for the lack of good decisions for those that you’re in market with that make these kinds of choices? I guess? How do you plan for that? So, I mean, Lily is going to speak to this more can speak to this more. You know, in a in a specific sense, I think about it more, is that there’s only a handful of reasons you should ever give people a discount ever.

 

[00:48:27.280]

Right? You should only give people a discount if A, you are prepared to live with that price forever, be you are giving it to a specific purpose person for a specific purpose. And that purpose is clear. See, there are some hurdles around it. You know, there are some reason why they get that discount, because if you don’t do those things, then the first premise is you have to live with it. Forever is going to be true.

 

[00:48:53.800]

It’s always easy to lower price. It’s a nightmare to raise it. It’s really, really hard. So you just have to focus on who are we giving the discount to? Why do they get the discount is clear to everybody why that discount exists and do they understand why the discount only exists? And if you can’t do those things, then you’re just lowering your price for them. Right.

 

[00:49:17.360]

So, you know, you have to be you have to be really thoughtful about the people you’re giving the discounts to and being very clear that it kind of comes back to what Adele was saying earlier, that, you know, hotels can’t create demand. So it’s actually even more nuanced. They can. I agree with Adele that they can create demand, but not by dropping their rates. That is not how you create demand from another market unless you have like you’re somehow partnered up with a great deal at the same time.

 

[00:49:54.290]

And you have a direct partnership with an airline on a package. Sure. Go for it and do something cool there. But outside of that, you are only lowering the amount of money that everybody is making in your market because somebody else is going to follow you and somebody else is going to follow that. So I won’t go into all the details that we went over on the podcast. But I shared some data that Star put out at the D.C. conference two years ago about, you know, this was pre pandemic and they did a great session about what happens with the first hotels that drop rate in the last hotels, that drop rate and all of that.

 

[00:50:31.250]

So I shared a little bit of that. But basically the number one and number two rules are don’t be the first one to drop rate and maintain your rate positioning within your market. If your entire market drops rate, don’t be like, well, they told me I shouldn’t drop rate, so I’m just going to be one hundred and fifty dollars higher than everybody else. That is also a stupid move, short sighted. So you want to if you’re normally like the second or third in line, try to be the second and third in line.

 

[00:51:03.110]

If you’re normally the fourth or fifth in line, try to be the fourth and fifth in line. You don’t need to change your ranking in terms of where your buy rate is. Also, keep in mind that sometimes raising or lowering bar rate has the opposite effect on your overall ADR. So you want to play with discounts, you want to look at the bar rate, but really look at it more nuanced, even your market segment shift mix. I think people get hung up on what is my bar rate and that’s where we get into trouble because we caused that whole downward spiral.

 

[00:51:39.500]

I was pretty proud of the name of of the webinar, by the way, so I just have to share that we decided to call it the ADR pandemic.

 

[00:51:48.260]

How to get perfect if I’m going to have one of this. Really, really. I agree with you completely. There’s going to be a slight nuance here where it’s going to sound like I disagree, but but I generally agree with what you said.

 

[00:52:03.980]

The one thing I would always caution people is also, look, you know, if you charge 250 bucks and this bar and everybody in your market drawings look at can you continue to charge one hundred fifty dollars and put in value ads that have low cost to you. So people get more value for the dollar. What you want what you want to get out of the business of doing is competing head to head on price. You want to sell value to the customer and as you can throw in more value, that same rate, you can actually hold that rate level.

 

[00:52:34.820]

Yes, they’re getting more stuff for it. But if you can do it at a low enough cost operationally, sometimes you can continue to get that same rate, that actual rate, without lowering the rate and giving up different perceived different perceived value to the customer.

 

[00:52:48.380]

So I want to go back to the way that you were talking about earlier. You talked about they’ll be the first, won’t be the last.

 

[00:52:53.580]

And I’m thinking of another webinar that I sat in on a while back. A gentleman was talking about revenue management. We talked about this whole conversation about don’t be dropping a rates since the whole conversation we had. And by the way, I agree with everything that you said. So I’m just producing this that are putting this out as a counterpoint.

 

[00:53:10.370]

But one of the things that he brought up was that, well, if you are going to drop your rate, that being the first one to do it does have an advantage in the fact that now you’ve let market in there and now you’re getting all of the exposure as a result of dropping that rate. You’re the first one to do it. You go exposer, whereas if you’re just a copycat somewhere down the line now you’re doing what everybody else is doing.

 

[00:53:32.510]

I fundamentally disagree.

 

[00:53:35.390]

Yeah. The economist who produced the study, Freestar, so like some really good research behind it, showed that, yes, you do get the first movement. However, at the end of the day, when you look at Rev Par, you are taking a much bigger hit than everybody else and doing it less profitably. So it’s almost better to be like. A fifth or sixth hotel to me, if not the last, but kind of in that two thirds, because that’s where you find the best balance of rate and occupancy.

 

[00:54:07.570]

So they’re getting like tons of perfectly poor occupancy like travelers that maybe you don’t even want is often what happens there as well. So, yeah, occupancy will shoot up and you will gain from that, but not in a profitable way and not in a way that’s sustainable. Yeah.

 

[00:54:23.970]

The other the other thing that’s true about that there’s research that supports this and real world experience which supports those of a don’t forget. I mean, Dean, you are the king of Medda. You know this better than everybody, right? Rates are entirely transparent. And we really don’t get that much of a first mover advantage because your competitors know your rates better than you do sometimes. Your customers absolutely do because they have more incentive to do so. The first mover advantage, so-called, usually doesn’t exist because the minute you drop rates, everybody else can drop them.

 

[00:54:56.040]

You know, in many cases using automated Oremus systems. Right. They just immediately drop across. So there there’s really not a lot of first mover advantage there. The other thing, and this is hugely true, and there’s there’s SBIR study on this. There was a Cornell study on this. I have a link somewhere else, but. Obviously, everybody on this call, those there’s lots of folks watching know this, that revenue, right, ADR.

 

[00:55:28.380]

All things being equal is better than occupancy, right, occupancy has a cost associated with it, ADR every extra in ADR pretty much falls straight to the bottom line. That’s pure profit. So being a little above market and showing value, being a little above your comfort and showing value in getting that, even if you create a little bit ADR, a little bit of occupancy for it can be an incredibly valuable strategy in the longer term. Obviously, it’s not one for one.

 

[00:56:00.120]

I said all things being equal and all things are never truly equal. So you have to figure it out for your own. You’ve got to look at your own daily reality. But generally, if you can have an extra dollar of ADR or an extra point of occupancy, generally speaking, you should take the extra dollar an ADR every single time. Absolutely.

 

[00:56:20.400]

Can I just say real quick, and it’s the last thing I want to say before I leave. I love the title. I love the title, the ADR Pandemic. Thank you.

 

[00:56:27.390]

Thank you for giving me that feedback. I really appreciate it. We finally came up with it.

 

[00:56:37.290]

I was just going to say that it’s really important when you’re deciding what position you’re in, etc.. You know what? I once was a young sales manager and I started at a new hotel and I asked the director of sales and marketing of that hotel, well, what’s our unique selling point? What makes us different than everybody else? Well, the hotels knew and that was the end of the conversation.

 

[00:57:04.380]

So I actually didn’t last long at that hotel.

 

[00:57:08.550]

Anyway, my point to, you know, stone-Cold, what makes your experience better than the people who are charging more? And if you go into it with that really understanding your value? Our experience includes this. We have this. We have this. We have this. We have this.

 

[00:57:31.170]

And if you’re pounding on, you get all that, it’s going to work better for you.

 

[00:57:37.740]

And of course, I got a little plug in. And if your reviews are better than theirs are, that’s going to help, too. If you rank great higher on Google, TripAdvisor, Expedia, dot com, that’s going to do and have more reviews. But just if you just know yourself what you’re giving more, then you can communicate that and people will recognize why it’s worth it to do that.

 

[00:58:08.280]

But if you’re sacrificing all your amenities because of all it and all you have is a room like anybody else’s, you don’t have a right to charge one hundred and fifty dollars more than the other hotels.

 

[00:58:19.470]

And I think the least of you, you haven’t changed your look. Me mentally, personally, my wife says I’ve never gone past twelve years old. You physically have not changed. I’ve seen pictures of you.

 

[00:58:30.000]

You’re still to say the least, understood the least understood word in marketing is differentiation. Yes. And most people here differentiation and they assume that it means be different. What differentiation really means is the difference you can charge for is people aren’t willing to pay for that differentiation. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all. It has to be different in a way that is worth something to the guests and worth something for your business and doesn’t have that, then that is exactly right.

 

[00:59:02.580]

You can’t charge more than your company and ask people, if I wasn’t talking about your hotel by name, if I wasn’t saying the Marriott or the Independent Hotel or whatever, I wasn’t referring to your hotel by name. How would I be identifying you? I’d be saying that hotel across from or the hotel that has or the hotel that does. Right. Those filling in those blanks. So how do I know you’re a hotel without doing it by name? That’s what’s the answer to that question.

 

[00:59:31.280]

And I love that group.

 

[00:59:32.640]

And really, it’s not about what you think about the value, it’s about what your guests think the value is. And so engage them and understand what it is that feels to them about your property. Just because you think something is valuable doesn’t mean that the people are willing to pay for it, throw an elbow and get in there and they’re not the same.

 

[00:59:53.580]

But I would say I see so many hotel sales teams that can’t articulate those things and culture. You absolutely have to take a step back with your team and make sure that it is documented what those things are like. It will be a huge difference maker actually on your sales team if they are in alignment with your marketing and also your revenue strategy by. There’s just too many teams out there that aren’t able to articulate their it and it becomes this is why we get into this commoditization zone, right where we’re constantly just well, we all have that right.

 

[01:00:44.820]

And also, I’ll just say it’s not enough to say that your staff makes the difference.

 

[01:00:51.780]

I, like everybody is hospitable, but you can say that all day long. How do you demonstrate it? Right.

 

[01:01:01.590]

And and I know because, Adele, you talk so passionately about this and it’s a big deal. It it does matter. But you can’t just say it will just show people that that. And there’s probably lots of creative ways that it’s been done. I’m sure you’ve got ideas and have helped your hotels with that, too.

 

[01:01:24.070]

Actually, I was just raising my hand because I got to go. Yeah, I do. I do. I would love to have that conversation.

 

[01:01:28.890]

But Adele does. It does. Lily does. It does. So lovely to see.

 

[01:01:34.970]

I apologize for her to drop a little early, but I got I got to run to another thing.

 

[01:01:40.200]

Greatest age. So lots of hotel rooms.

 

[01:01:42.540]

Everybody seems to want to find a way of finding the computer dotcom. Peter on Twitter, Tempy everywhere else.

 

[01:01:50.160]

And to me, a conversational VR headsets just saying, yeah, call me.

 

[01:01:57.050]

Hey, I’m story. True story.

 

[01:02:01.380]

I’m not a gamer. I’m curious to try the games. I’ve done VR another in other environments before, literally. That’s for a project I’m working on. We’re doing some remote work scenario design and things along those lines of trying to promote or support using VR. So this is going to be fascinating for those tech what I did.

 

[01:02:25.900]

Thank you, sir. You know, later. I know, actually, I have to get ready for a Boy Scout Klondyke camp. And if you’re not a boy. Yeah.

 

[01:02:35.550]

So it’s like, you know, the Klondike bar. But yes, it’s going to be subzero temperatures and we’re outdoors. Camping this weekend can be fun.

 

[01:02:43.230]

So look for that side. Don’t turn into a musical.

 

[01:02:46.260]

Let’s see you guys go before you go.

 

[01:02:50.130]

Where do they find your fun on LinkedIn? Unredeemed Schmitter, find my website, space camp MEDCOM Metasearch Marketing dot com.

 

[01:02:58.860]

Thanks, Steve. I got a question for Amy. Amy, go on back to this. Silly people or stupid whatever you want refer them to. I was doing it was I’m finding from some of my clients as they try to rev back up the operations of sales for group events and so forth. They’re dusting off old menus, they’re dusting off old selling stuff.

 

[01:03:19.410]

And I have gotten more round and round conversations of dudes. Seriously got to change the model here. What what what do you face?

 

[01:03:29.700]

Yeah, well, I think just continuing changing to change is not good, I’ll say that. But but continuing to do business in the same way that you’ve always done it, because that’s the easy route and it’s a pipe dream, honestly. Like you really if you haven’t already right now, you need to be reviewing all aspects of your sales enablement, what tools do they have? And not only menus and and, you know, sales cards, proposals, all of it, all of that, as well as the technology.

 

[01:04:11.160]

But it needs to be just take a step back and say what’s working, what’s not, and how can we improve this because and honestly, looking at how are the buyers buying. Right. There is a I posted a McKinsey study online. I’ll try to find the link to that this past week. And they were talking about global B2B buyers, how they don’t want there’s like I want to say, I was like twenty to thirty percent said that they don’t want to engage with a seller in a face to face situation and that in the B to B global buyer space, they’re willing to spend fifty thousand dollars without ever engaging with the salesperson.

 

[01:04:57.930]

One hundred percent digitally. Now, I don’t think that that marries up with what we sell hospitality, which is experience and location and things like that. There’s certain aspects of our buyer journey that can be digital on the B2B side. And but there’s you need the flexibility within your system to be both digital and personal. I think that makes hospitality. That makes the hotel world. Unique in an odd way, and so I’m seeing the same thing, like, why are you still you know, but there’s a lot of hotels out there that did the smart thing and they kept their sales teams in place, at least a few people.

 

[01:05:42.760]

And their job over that period of time of six, eight months was to revamp menus, revamp proposals and get ready for the day that they could actually use those items. So I think, you know, if you haven’t done it, you need to it.

 

[01:06:02.860]

And everything you just said is spot on. And it can equally be said on the marketing side of stuff. You know, the emails are sending out the creative on your ads, your website, the your social media accounts. Every one of the exercises we’re encouraging our clients to do is to just go through the thought exercise of pretending you’re starting a new job. We sometimes go extreme and say, pretend you jumped into a rocket ship and went to a new planet with complete alien people in your opening a hotel for the first time.

 

[01:06:32.700]

Take all the knowledge you have. But throw out all your assumptions of your current audience, because they’re going to behave differently, they’re going to have different expectations, the motivators that their fears are all completely different than they were a year ago. And so you’ve got to adjust to that. If you’re not if you’re not making adjustments and you’re just trying to do the same thing, it is not going to work. So you’ve got to be smart. You’ve got to approach it with, you know, with all of your experience, but with a fresh set of eyes at the same time.

 

[01:06:59.460]

It’s a real challenge, especially right now if folks have limited capacity. But if you don’t, you’re going to be hurting a lot longer than than those folks that have been invited.

 

[01:07:08.670]

And I the hotels more utilize the voice of the customer insights to help make those decisions and changes to. I think we make too many assumptions sometimes.

 

[01:07:21.040]

And the voice of the customer, when you listen to the people serving there, they know it’s just crazy to me because I hear it.

 

[01:07:36.840]

So I see it so often more than I hear it.

 

[01:07:39.960]

I see in responses to reviews, for example, or responses to social media comments that those comments are not being answered by or I assume when they’re not being answered by that they’re not even being seen by anyone who is in a position to make a difference, to change the situation. Very often somebody says, I really like this, but I mean, this, this and this was a real disappointment. Thank you so much for all your kind words. We can’t wait to have you back.

 

[01:08:20.280]

And it’s just cut and paste, cut and paste if you’re the general manager or if you’re the owner of the director of sales and marketing or sales or marketing, or if it’s your job to make sure that those things are addressed so that people feel like there’s a human being on the other side that actually cares about the guests and use those words, whatever it is that the guests are saying, and use that to move your hotel forward.

 

[01:08:56.340]

And it’s true both in terms of like if they if they complain about something, put it it put put the antidote to that complaint in the print statement, put the antidote to that to that surprise, that unwelcome surprise in the website, in the booking engine. And I think it was Stuart that said it doesn’t even have to be one preset email. You can have multiple preset emails to suit multiple causes because you know that people don’t read anything. And sometimes the hotel you will say to me, oh, I have that on my website.

 

[01:09:33.230]

Yeah. Buried somewhere. But if you really cared for your your customers and they’re saying that they didn’t see it, make sure it’s on every page. If it’s important to bring into the fact that we’re in a change of culture right now, I’m facing now as clients begin to bring back staff or whatever they feel is valuable to their team, old school versus new school. And we’re facing a residual to what our society has had to deal with, which is most people stating belief rather than fact.

 

[01:10:04.920]

I believe this. Great. Where’d you get the effects? Where’s the data? Well, no, when we used to. When was the last time you used to where exactly did that happen? What is it that you’re talking about? Show me why you believe what you’re saying. Just don’t tell me. I believe that the sun comes around here, but OK.

 

[01:10:20.400]

No, no, I kind of think it doesn’t do that. And it really turns into I’ve turned into this this protagonist actually, where I’m sitting with my clients.

 

[01:10:29.760]

And these people start pontificating on the thoughts of like, um, can you prove that? Where’d you get that? Where’s what’s the data?

 

[01:10:37.170]

And especially if they’re long held assumptions. Right. To revisit those on a frequent basis. I think that’s always a good exercise. To Dell’s point. I think it’s what you’re describing with the reviews is symptomatic of a larger problem, which is a lot of hotels treat everything as a checklist like they they’ve been told they have to respond to reviews. It’s a to do item and they lose sight of the fact that that’s a real person that’s trying to have a conversation with you and that you should reciprocate that conversation.

 

[01:11:09.480]

It’s we did an episode of our podcast several years ago that was kind of tongue in cheek where we said, what what if your call center treated your guests like your website does? And so and so we roleplayed out phone calls about, you know, the way people get treated online. And it’s idiotic when you really think about it. If someone came to your front desk and said, I have a problem, I’m not satisfied. With this, and I would like you to do something about it, which is what they’re doing with an online review, you would never put the intern in there or a robot that just spouts back an automated message.

 

[01:11:46.480]

You would go get the manager and have them have a conversation and try to rectify the situation with your shirt.

 

[01:11:54.400]

Right. But you’re right. But the fact is digital, we just think, oh, it’s another to do. I just need to check it off the list. And once it’s done, it’s done. Just like the pre-arrival messages we send to pre-arrival message, it’s done. Well, did you really think about what you actually communicate that we’re in the hospitality business? The last part of that is about how we how we develop relationships with people in the way we develop relationships.

 

[01:12:17.540]

It’s through conversations, through exchanges.

 

[01:12:19.810]

And we just lose sight of that because it’s you know, I just I have to throw in there just briefly, because it’s still like amazes me how many people don’t realize this, but both the review and your response become part of the organic seal attached to your hotel. So if they’re using negative words or words you don’t want to be associated with in their review, don’t repeat them. In your response, you’ll be like the hotel where when I moved here to Phoenix, my new house had a cockroach problem when I moved in.

 

[01:12:54.730]

So I searched for cockroaches and a specific area because I was looking for a pest exterminator. And the second result on Google was a hotel.

 

[01:13:05.510]

Who had been responding to reviews about cockroaches and continually using the word cockroach again, and so they actually were the highest for cockroaches to use the name of the hotel in response to the negative review, which is when we had that with a client, where the odor suggests that when you started typing in the hotel brand, the first response or the response was brand destination.

 

[01:13:32.160]

The second was brand bedbugs. Yeah, that was obviously problematic for a little while. And it was the exact same people. Couple of people had complained about bedbugs on a couple of sites and so they’d gone written responses and they included bedbugs and also included always talk like if you’re talking in front of a stadium of people, what would you say if you’re on a microphone?

 

[01:13:56.930]

Because unfortunately and I learned this actually from a previous employer, it’s so easy to walk into your boss’s room, go, you know, such and such, did such and such. And they did this. And I think that.

 

[01:14:06.650]

And so my boss was really good about getting him on the phone and pulling me into the room.

 

[01:14:09.920]

And you’d be amazed how fast the tone of the conversation was, the certainty of how bad this person was saying to say, well, you remember when you said that it sounded like all of a sudden the whole like now you’re in front of the person so you can’t talk about them. You have to talk with them. So the whole context of certainty turned into implication. And the thing that people forget is that autonomous response to people. You’re saying that to anybody that sees that forever more.

 

[01:14:38.870]

And if you get snippy, if you get hurt, if you get contrived as to. Oh, yeah, well, sorry about that. Next time, hopefully it’s better whatever that gets seen by others. And that reflects upon the overall perception of what you’re doing. So if you always think you’re walking into a room with a microphone, you’re more likely to be kind, thoughtful, insightful, productive, positive compared to checkbox is, as you say.

 

[01:15:04.860]

Thanks so much of a whatever that happened that way. We’ll talk to you soon. Hopefully we’ll give you something away if you just brush it off.

 

[01:15:09.830]

That’s the feeling you’re conveying to everybody that sees from that so that you can use it forever. It’s like that forever. The truth is, you can go back right now to a review that you a response that you wrote five years ago.

 

[01:15:25.760]

And you can say, since then the hotel’s been renovated. We have a new restaurant. Whatever it is, those people have been shot.

 

[01:15:34.130]

And those people should have got shot.

 

[01:15:35.220]

Yeah, easily. Because TripAdvisor used to like it used to be a process and it would be that was fine for five days. They had to approve it. Now it just happens like this. And but the second thing is, you know. Imagining that the actual guest is face to face with you is important when you’re on the phone, when you’re sending an email. It’s not just on the technology side, it’s those other things. And I’m even going to say something controversial, because I know some people really don’t like this, but if you presented in the right way, it will go over.

 

[01:16:18.590]

It’s for the best interest of the hotel. You should look, if you’re the director of sales marketing revenue, you should look and at least quarterly at the responses that are going out from your team reservations or front desk inquiries, whatever it is, you should just ask somebody to pull 15, 20 of the most recent responses without editing, without choosing, and send you both the inquiry and the response and look at it and say, am I? And my exuding hospitality and my making a human emotional connection with the guest, by the way, you should be asking your priest to email.

 

[01:17:08.360]

You’re making human emotional connection with the guests. Are you doing that on the website, et cetera. But there were you may be losing conversions because of the because of the transactional way you’re responding, because you’re not really envisioning this human being that wants to travel here to your hotel and not, oh, my gosh, we’re so excited about it.

 

[01:17:34.150]

And I don’t think I would like to go back and I want to say that the beatings have improved morale. And for that reason, we’re readjusting your question.

 

[01:17:42.940]

But I would take that example one step further, though, and, you know, use that both as a carrot and stick.

 

[01:17:50.050]

Right. So celebrate publicly with the whole team, the great examples of hospitality. Encourage others to do that. There’s nothing more contagious than positivity in that setting. Then the ones with someone they may need a little bit of coaching. Your job as a manager is to be the team coach. And so go and put the hand on the metaphorical shoulder because you don’t want a lawsuit. Could put your hand on someone shoulders and coach them up and break down, say, what were you thinking here?

 

[01:18:17.410]

And like, help me understand it. And maybe this would be a better way to present it and give them an opportunity to see, you know, from a different perspective why why it maybe wasn’t the best choice of words. So I always, always encourage and praise in public and then, you know, chastise or coach and in private, it seems to have an effect, especially if you’re consistent with that.

 

[01:18:37.550]

It just brings a really positive culture, and especially if you acknowledge that person for all the kindness and compassion that they display in real life when there’s a real human in front of them and say, where is that beautiful person?

 

[01:18:52.930]

I know on this on this e-mail I see that comes through because you’re the match, you know, that’s great.

 

[01:19:02.980]

So I want to take it from a bit of perspective and a business development perspective. So when I think of was the customer, I think of customers who are, I should say, voice of the prospect. Right. It’s fantastic paying attention to the guests. Like we want everybody to do that, of course. But when we’re building new business, which so many hotels have to do right now, if if your sales team or you don’t have a sales team or your team is afraid to reach out and connect with potential customers, then the problem is they’re worried about, oh, how can I connect right now and ask for a sale when I know my markets shut down or whatever is going on in the market.

 

[01:19:45.910]

But you’ve got to get voice of the customer insights for prospects to understand even things like timing. When are they going to be coming into your market? What are what are they thinking? What’s really important to them? And I learned a really great technique and tool just for my business, which is having interviews with prospects, your target audience, so that you can literally use their words in your marketing copy. It’s a simple, you know, strategy.

 

[01:20:18.490]

I know a lot of marketers do it, but I you know, I’m not seeing a lot of hotels actually grasping that and collaborating together between the sales team and the marketing team or in a lot of individual properties. Don’t even have marketer, you know, on their staff. But you’ve got to be writing email, you know, email blast, email, copy things for the B2B buyer. And you should be using the things that are important to them.

 

[01:20:48.070]

And of course, it’s not a market of one. Right. And I think that’s what’s happening when I’m working with hotels. When I asked who’s writing the emails and where are you? How are you getting the copy for that? They’re basically taking the market of one approach and just making some assumptions on what how that email should be written and not really engaging yet with any customers to match up what the customers are telling them. Right. And. I think that’s a really great technique and something that you could be doing right now, because there’s no pressure in I have to close a deal in this conversation.

 

[01:21:29.390]

You’re literally doing research, you’re interviewing potential, you know, and there could be a fit there, but you don’t know until you start having conversations.

 

[01:21:40.520]

And business coaches says conversations create cash, you know, with a website company that they created websites for for me in the past. And they’re in Paris. And they I remember them telling me that this one hotel that they were working on, you know, was looking for a way to break through in in in their attractions and conversions and I mean, the people to their website, et cetera. And so they started looking at what people were saying about them rather than just what they say about themselves.

 

[01:22:20.720]

And it was really popular to say it’s so near the Eiffel Tower and aspirations. They didn’t think it was that near. They considered only those hotels right by it. But for the travelers, that was that was near. And so they started putting it near the Eiffel Tower and suddenly they opened up a world of traffic for themselves and and it really helped their business. It just goes to show you we get numb to some things because we’re so close to it.

 

[01:22:54.080]

Sometimes we have to look from the prospect viewpoint. When you first started talking, I thought you said the voice of the process, because I know we both talk about process all the time. And so I just I thought I’d put in the link that it even though it’s for the medical and medical business, it’s really very similar. I always say it’s never the employees fault. It’s it’s it’s always, you know, our our fault in the way that we we need we set up the system for them.

 

[01:23:27.590]

Right. So we need to listen and make those adaptations. It’s it’s never there. They they are answering the way they do because we didn’t give them the training, the tools and the inspiration to do something else. So it’s it’s our it’s our moral responsibility to to empower them and make sure that everybody in our company grows to their full potential.

 

[01:23:57.680]

I mean, I got a question for you before you do. I’ve got to go one by and I’m going to help a ratio’s lily. So you’ll be happier now, generation already.

 

[01:24:09.330]

I’m not going to be the minority.

 

[01:24:10.700]

I’m going to, like, win the whole show. I’m going to be off soon.

 

[01:24:18.140]

I’m just going to be girl power man. We’re going to nail this.

 

[01:24:26.360]

It’s going to be a whole different show about you and of course, the really inspiration and intelligence of your feelings. Melissa, just me and fanboy on that.

 

[01:24:35.810]

We’re going to find, you know, travel dot com is the mothership.

 

[01:24:39.590]

You just search hotel marketing podcast anywhere. You’ll find us at the top of the list. And yeah, we’ve got other ships that one seventy six. So, yeah, look, it was really awesome to join the conversation.

 

[01:24:53.090]

Have a great weekend. Always thanks for doing such again. So I have a question. I’m finding that we’re going back to an old way of saying that I used to complain a lot about sales.

 

[01:25:02.300]

People by nature historically have been used, incentivised to sell group business, B2B business and large scale. And as some hotels begin to ramp up, they’re pushing back the marketing back onto the sales team again, saying, hey, we can’t afford everybody we afforded you. So now you have to worry about everything. We’re incentivizing your pain you are asking you to do for what you’re traditionally done in sales. But we need you to do the transition side to media marketing.

 

[01:25:31.490]

And I always was a complainer of inherently the paradox of that. You are asked to sell what literally deteriorate your ability to sell what you’re really getting paid for to do. And the ownerships or management companies equate that to, hey, you’re in that space. You know, what people are looking for on one side is say it’s a huge benefit. The salespeople are engaged with marketing. I think it’s a critical component of how you sell business to business is truly translatable to transient interest, just like what Adele just pointed out nearby of this, what we have, those things are very valuable in the dialogue that go for both business segments.

 

[01:26:07.070]

But again, you’re being asked to sell and then not always given the tools or maybe given the responsibility.

 

[01:26:14.120]

And it’s kind of like how much the good ones balance it, the bad ones. Defer to it. OK, I’ll do the marketing, sure. Tick tock, tick tock, tick. We did that. That’s on. But meanwhile, let’s go back to what I’m getting paid for.

 

[01:26:27.040]

Do you feel there’s a way of making it where there’s a way to pay separately? Is there a way to say, hey, from sales, you get this if you do marketing, is there a solution to this?

 

[01:26:35.590]

Is my big question on it then.

 

[01:26:37.630]

Well. I think you need to look at it like you have to define what the role you need for the hotel is right. And I think what’s happening, and I see it all the time, even way before covid, where a sales person was expected to the director of sales at the hotel has to run all of the marketing and marketing is a very general, broad term. So what does marketing actually mean? Because at some hotels it’s, you know, hosting retargeting ads and doing digital and some it means just creating flyers and doing email copywrite.

 

[01:27:12.060]

It really depends because it’s also it matters how much support are they a branded hotel or independent? And so I look at it more as if I was running the hotel. I would need to know what if I had a team and I was running the hotel and I had a sales and marketing department. First of all, what are the what are the things that need to be done to build business, generate revenue for my hotel? And do I have the people with those skills and are they wired in that way?

 

[01:27:45.480]

Right. So if you’re asking a salesperson who is a true seller. Right, they are all they’re strong at converting opportunities into business. They need a lead funnel. Right. They’re not your hunter. They can build relationships. They can nurture business. And they want to close. They are. You’re closer, right? That’s a different person. That’s a different set of skills and a different mindset and modus operandi. Right. For that person versus somebody who needs to be process oriented around, you know, and I’m just making this up as I go.

 

[01:28:29.070]

But thinking through, like what you would need for a marketer to be successful for your hotel and then what you need for lead generation. Right. What what do you need for a hunter? New business generation. So if you can find somebody that can do all three of those really well, you have a unicorn. I’m like, that’s very, very rare. But most likely they’re going to lean towards where they feel most comfortable and do that. And then they’re going, which I see happening a lot is they’re really comfortable with building relationships and not so much about opening new doors.

 

[01:29:13.740]

That’s really uncomfortable for them. So they wait and maybe it’s like, oh, crap, I didn’t prospect all week. It’s Friday afternoon. I better get my dial’s in. Right, because I’m going to be that’s happening all over the place right now and it’s really scary for those hotels. So not to get too much on a tangent, but this is an area that I’m very passionate about.

 

[01:29:34.350]

No, no. But you got to know what you need, right. And be realistic. And I realize that budgets are tight and you can’t just go higher every position that you need necessarily. So then find people, you know, maybe there are like we’ve had to do this in my business. Right. I’ve got team members who have an affinity towards some skills that’s not really their role today. But they’re they’re putting in some time in that area while we ramp and get to a point or that position as a full time position.

 

[01:30:13.350]

Right. So there’s not a cookie cutter way across the board. I don’t think that there’s an actual exact solution. But I would say don’t kid yourself to think that you’re going to find one person. Right. Do all three of those things really, really well. So you have to know what’s the priority and hire for the priority first and see if they can manage the other things while you you know.

 

[01:30:43.770]

See, I want to ask you to do that, because if I ask, I know the answer is like, sure, I’ll take it over while you’re at it. Let me have that and that. Just please, let’s make this work best for all of us.

 

[01:30:55.470]

Just give me the keys to the place, because it is funny you say that because you’re looking at it from the business. How can we make this work?

 

[01:31:05.520]

And Lilly will be like, I will make it work and you’ll do what I say when I tell you to make it work.

 

[01:31:14.040]

I don’t know where I got this reputation as such like a slave driver. We do not exclude drawbridges. Very clear in your vision. That’s true. I do try to be clear in my vision. You are very clear. It is a compliment.

 

[01:31:27.090]

In the highest level for me is that I there’s nothing worse than me than dealing with people that are ambiguous.

 

[01:31:33.720]

At least be passionate about it. You could be dead wrong all the time. I don’t care. Just be passionate. About the one thing you can’t teach is be passionate about it. Anything else is a learning experience when you do it wrong, but not caring and not wanting to know and not wanting to care. Worst things in the world poisoned anything we do because there’s only going to do what the minimalist is of it is. And yes, I completely agree with you, though, that every time we fail, it’s the fault of the leadership.

 

[01:31:58.990]

Absolutely. Because leadership is about giving the resources, the tools and the and the motivation and the support for all of what they need for that. But the one thing that leadership can’t do as it is, is motivate somebody they can inspire, but they can’t motivate. And to that end, we will always make sure that we bring in the people that it’s what you just said. I mean, salesperson will knock themselves out to do something. They will crush themselves to the point of being cowering in a corner to try to make it work because they’re being asked to do that.

 

[01:32:29.380]

But to find the person that knows how to balance it, that’s magic that when you find somebody knows how to juggle that stuff and then throw what Adel does, like making sure that we don’t lose track of what we’re doing with the very people that pay our bills, which are those that walk in the door and keep that collaboration. I can count on three fingers in the show that would be able to do that because so few people have that balance capability.

 

[01:32:52.510]

They just they don’t know how to do it. They don’t they don’t even have the skill or they’ve not been given the opportunity.

 

[01:32:57.220]

And that’s what’s really important, to also just know what your strengths are and what they’re not.

 

[01:33:04.720]

And even though something may not be your strength, you’re collaborating with your team and getting people who love doing this, that and the other thing to do what they’re doing. But you still have a big picture just because that’s not your personal passion to do that task, it doesn’t mean you’re not passionate about that task getting done well and and you recognize what getting done well, looks like one of the best things you can do for your hotel’s culture is learn about your team, like figure out how they operate, whatever.

 

[01:33:44.200]

You know, I’m a big believer in assessments. I don’t put all of my energy towards that. Like, that doesn’t completely make a decision or what have you. But it was a game changer for our team to take certain assessments and to know each other and how we operate. Know yourself. And then how does that marry with the other people on the team? And I can I could see that being a really great opportunity for a hotel team to do it, even if it’s just the leadership for the first star management.

 

[01:34:21.070]

Hey, do you have the link? Is there like a free assessment tool that people could try me like I do?

 

[01:34:31.270]

We don’t do a thorough assessment, actually, because we are part of Kolby certified training.

 

[01:34:38.320]

But I can I can share the website to the US for dinner with you all saw this, I mean, as social post and so forth. I was very touching, but it goes a little bit to our conversation.

 

[01:34:49.870]

There was a teacher and they did the security camera caught him walking down the hallway before he went into his classroom to teach. And he had his mask on partially down because he was by himself. There was nobody around. And he’s looking at his notes. It’s over. You just saw he was just worn out, tired, just flat out dead dog, tired for all the stress of whatever he was doing. And you saw him in there and so forth, these little things up.

 

[01:35:13.390]

And before he went into the classroom, you just saw him and you saw him put on a smile and walk in and they just caught him.

 

[01:35:21.010]

Insecurities just you know, it was just he didn’t expect the camera to catch him. It was him being alone, OK, and going in. And when they finally caught anastomosis, like the students should never see me other than happy, you know? And I think he goes to the gentleman. So it’s like we’re not being going to our first public conversation today. We’re being realistic about what we’re going through right now.

 

[01:35:40.630]

But we’re also being optimistic what it can become and our team not to be fake, like, oh, let’s put our smiles on folks.

 

[01:35:47.470]

Happy face it, that’s bull crap.

 

[01:35:49.930]

You know, it’s been living the fact that you’re coming in the door going, hey, guys, you know, we got Octopussy today blathered. You know, I don’t care if it’s only ten people, one person or one hundred people. We’re going to make a treat like everyone special today because that’s what we do, no matter how big, how small we’re here, we’re doing this. And you keep that with everyone. You don’t have to persona’s you don’t have.

 

[01:36:11.650]

We just sit in the back and you talk to your closest buddies going, oh, this is a screwed up day, whatever. No, you are that person to everyone consistently. Whether you go home with your spouse or something is a totally different world because that’s not the same. Business is business personal. It’s personal, but you are that person and you’re not rah rah rah pom poms, faintness. You’re you’re genuinely passionate about succeeding with everybody. You’re always there to be that leader that give support to everybody.

 

[01:36:38.480]

Lame is my way, crape praises your way, you know, and you get out of the way and they think they did it all themselves and later on in life they call you back. I’m going, oh, my God, had I only known all this stuff that you cleared out of my path, those are the dreams that you have being a good leader, that you hope that they become the leader that you would want them to be when you saw their potential.

 

[01:36:56.120]

That’s the cool stuff. That’s what makes all this so much power. You know, this is the the smiles that you look at, like this is why I do this stuff.

 

[01:37:02.030]

This is the cool stuff is really we can’t do it. You know, they’re the ones that are doing the work. We can’t nobody can run as one human being. You need a really fully engaged team. I work really well. So it’s such a joy to to see it happening. And there’s just nothing more rewarding even than the then the revenue.

 

[01:37:35.390]

As much as we would hate you for me to say that, then having people say, wow, I learned so much from you. Wow. I feel really energized and excited about my work now. And, you know, I will never forget all the skills I learned, etc.. That’s really gratifying.

 

[01:37:56.840]

So see how I’m outnumbered. Just saying I’m not just talking to because I mean, I pretty much have talked about just about everything I want to throw into the dialogue stupid people, including me, because for some reason it was my mantra this week.

 

[01:38:13.490]

I don’t know what it was, but it just irritated the heck out of me because I’ve been faced with some client relationships where they bring in people going, wow, where did they get you?

 

[01:38:23.960]

And having to go back five steps to re-educate the process. But from your experience, what are some things that you would like to make sure that we don’t miss in today’s happiness? Because I know lately it’s been nice. You’ve been busy, so busy. I mean, not to mention podcast behind on schedule.

 

[01:38:37.820]

Just say you check your email right now. I mean, actually, that’s been one of my pushes recently. So I am working hard to get a backlog because it was so difficult. I learned with being around the beginning of the year and the holidays that people kept rescheduling on me that I thought I was going to be releasing. So we are finally getting back on track with that and hopefully we’ll be able to sustain our weekly releases, maybe be ready to go.

 

[01:39:10.370]

So today we’re releasing one with a CEO of a company that I do some business coaching for talking about some of the timeless principles that he uses to help small business owners scale. But they also apply to the hospitality industry ideas versus target market and things like that. The next week, as I mentioned with Jennifer, love to talk about money mindset and how that influences people in revenue management. And I just recorded with this lovely woman named Adele, along with another colleague, Antonio, based out of Europe, who is in that space as well.

 

[01:39:53.390]

So more of a panel discussion so that one will be out in two weeks. So every Friday it should be uploaded. And we’ll promote the links on Wednesday. So hopefully I can keep to that schedule because we’re finally getting some momentum with good content. Awesome.

 

[01:40:09.830]

Well, again, I’m leave it to you guys because, I mean, at this point, I know, Adele, you’ve changed your corporate name.

 

[01:40:17.370]

There were just too many expiries in the world. So I just changed my website from the Your Reputation marketing to Adele gotten so much using like LinkedIn from Hotel Adele to Adele Gutman and and on Instagram and Facebook, the aspire is now at inspiring.

 

[01:40:51.650]

I’ve got so and I have a new YouTube page, which I put the link on and I ask everybody, please help me get to a hundred so that I can change the name to all of it.

 

[01:41:05.690]

Because right now, right now it just gives you a bunch of numbers and letters. Not good. I did it to tell.

 

[01:41:13.850]

Thank you so much on my list, Adele. I had to try. I got to try to find my login. I was on my phone then.

 

[01:41:21.020]

I was like, I, I also do a I invite hotelier’s. If anybody’s listening, I invite Hotelier’s to make an appointment with me for a complimentary. Conversation about specifically their hotel, their views, their goals, and I will have that first session completely complimentary to set you on a path to success. Give you give you some actionable tools, and it’s completely complementary. I just want to help out. And then if you want to continue more betting that then you can hire me for one session for any hotelier is complimentary.

 

[01:42:08.780]

I think from what I’ve been feeling lately that you and I actually Amy, both of you really, I mean, as always, but in the sense that you’re in a prime position as we move forward, that the dissent, the dissent and the lack of you having to be at a property, probably that’s the best way of saying it is now a mainstay.

 

[01:42:27.680]

It’s like it’s no longer a question of productivity capabilities. It’s a proven commodity. Running revenue management without somebody sitting in a little office on the property is as valuable now to a lot of companies as they have been. And even in sales, from what you’re saying, from from the perspective of influencing sales teams, you don’t have to be at the property to sit with them. Not that it’s a bad thing, but it’s not a necessary component anymore.

 

[01:42:55.550]

Up until I feel covid, there was always the dialogue of, well, you know, I really want be able to walk into their office and talk and this and the the advancements of the technology usage and so forth I covered as providers has really proven that’s not necessarily a need anymore in the dialogue with revenue management team and or sales team as it is so much now the the ability to have the perspective of multiple usages, multiple markets influencing decisions because of exposure to variations where, you know, sitting at a property kind of isolate you from all of that.

 

[01:43:31.310]

In a lot of ways, you’ll never centric to the one property in a good, bad office. Listen, but I’ll let you go first. Now, I mean, being virtual like that, our team has been virtual since, you know, forever, a long time. I mean, we have an office space, but it was not mandatory for people. To me, it gives allows us to meet as a group, which I mean, I’ve been noticing lately, like we were in the middle of a big beta launch with a client.

 

[01:44:08.140]

And it would have been really awesome to be in the same room together, whiteboarding some of them. Like, I really missed that. And we both said that, like, gosh, we really missed getting together. And actually, just because over Zoom, I mean, there’s technology that can allow you to do that. But there’s just something to be said about being in the room together, and especially when you’re problem solving and creating a solution for something and having to literally, like design going through what’s what’s the gap.

 

[01:44:40.690]

And we design it with existing tools and new things and all that. So anyway, I just wanted to say that for sure. But no, I mean, I’ve been an advocate to say that your hotel sales team shouldn’t be cooped up in an office inside the hotel. I mean, they can work from anywhere. And it’s proven now more than ever. We’re seeing more hoteliers hiring third party agencies as their sales team.

 

[01:45:14.560]

And, you know, there’s you have to be the right type of hotel to make that a fit for you. And you need to be very clear about what you need. And that vendor needs to be very clear about how that works and what they can and can’t provide based on that. But there’s less and less barriers for that today. And taking it from a customer perspective, the customer’s, by and large, don’t care where the seller is sitting right there.

 

[01:45:45.790]

And most of the time you say your local market, the decision maker is not even in that local market. In a lot of cases, they’re not in the backyard of the hotel. They might be in in another city, you know, and they’re but they’re travelers are coming into your market. Right. Or they have a headquarters location that is making the decision. But you might have an office location in your backyard. It behooves you to be, you know, have a relationship with that influencer in your backyard for sure.

 

[01:46:18.880]

But you have there’s multiple levels of a customer. Right. And lots of different decision makers. There’s people who sign, you know, who cut the check. There’s people who influence there’s the traveler. And then a lot of times there’s the third party agency too involved. So having a seller in the same market as the hotel, doesn’t it? You know, if you’re I think you have to be comfortable with that. Right. But you should be seeing the light today because the world has changed and it’s already proven, you know, just like there’s tons of office space empty, you know, and there’s a lot of companies that have no desire to move back into those office spaces.

 

[01:47:07.240]

Right. And so that’s just the reality. They’re going to be working from home, too.

 

[01:47:12.040]

So that’s why you bring up the technology part of it, because as much as Tim was joking about him testing the VR headset, I’ve been you know, I’m a geek as I am. I’ve been talking about how cool it is. I don’t want it to replace human interaction. I don’t want to say I will never, ever want to go to a conference. I never, ever want to be in person. But of course I want to. But there are some efficiencies associated with this technology that now has grown up in an accelerated way with with what has happened with covid.

 

[01:47:40.480]

And one of the VR things is pretty cool is that you can sit in a room virtually and share a whiteboard, computer screen, whatever have you, in a really cool way differently than this flat tailed Brady Bunch. Look, our shared whiteboard, single spaced that you can actually sit in a virtual room and virtually have avatars that are interactive in a more way. And yes, there is great hope and promise for all that. Will it be the way it is now?

 

[01:48:06.820]

Obviously, it’s a it’s just in its infancy as to its usability, but it is kind of neat because there are will be, as we talked about earlier in the show, logistics issues of people traveling internationally, domestically, even for most parts for short term. And because of that, these might be other stuff and stopgaps. I mean, I don’t think it is going to be dropping three hundred dollars each just to get answers, VR goggles to be in a virtual meeting.

 

[01:48:29.890]

But as prices come down or efficiencies get moved up, who knows? It’s kind of cool. Some of the stuff on there you can go. Virtual classrooms where there’s virtually a board in the front. The professors in the front, the people you choose, the seat you want to sit in, and it’s just like you’re in a classroom in lots of ways. Not really. But it’s just neat in that sense that those things will be in play.

 

[01:48:50.450]

But I’m sorry, I was I didn’t know for walk.

 

[01:48:52.930]

That’s OK. I think it’s a great point that technology is definitely getting us closer to that. I agree with Amy that there’s always going to be a place and a time for meeting in person, right. When we’re able to do that. And I think that for me, from the revenue management perspective, that is particularly if you’re going to have a major strategy meeting. Otherwise, I’ve literally had people pay us to have somebody on site. They’re paying a premium for that.

 

[01:49:19.850]

They’re paying travel costs and whatnot when we’re doing task force and nobody even interacts with us. Right. So they’re paying this premium for absolutely no value. But they just have this. And it’s still to this day, mid Kofod. We just want someone in the seat. We want this person to be on property. And it’s really not necessary. One hundred percent of the time, there is a value in, you know, regular, like strategy sessions, maybe quarterly in person or something like that.

 

[01:49:51.290]

But outside of that, it’s probably not driving any kind of value. If anything, it’s distracting them from what they should be focused on, especially when it comes to revenue management. Like the worst thing for any revenue manager is to be super deep into a highly technical budget or forecast and have somebody just bust into your office room. And she came the other day like, oh, no, I just lost my train of thought. Now I have to redo this whole thing.

 

[01:50:18.140]

So, yes, those who don’t honestly, I think you’ll be the first revenue management company that hires Boston dynamic DOGIES to show up, don’t you?

 

[01:50:34.840]

I think that I’m going to put that at my strategic map to change your plan.

 

[01:50:39.770]

I mean, with you seeing some of the things that I mean, other than dancing robot, they can do backflips and stuff like that that scare yourself, but they now have an arm put on these little electronic dog and the word to save it that can now not only open doors and so forth, but they have cameras. And it’s really cool, the technology, but really scary. You ever want to watch the show Dark Mirror? Because it’s like, you know, you’d see what the technology can be warped into potentially.

 

[01:51:03.500]

But it is kind of neat that that you’re right there.

 

[01:51:06.440]

Are there there some clients, some clients. When I first get engaged, they’re like, So you want to show up now?

 

[01:51:11.270]

I’m like, no, we don’t. Look, I don’t want to cause any additional expense for you. There’s a lot of work we have to do before we ever physically show up. And it’s silly for us to show up at the property, still learning about you where it’s better for us to get everything all set up and then we become much more comfortable with it. We’re going to inherently create questions that, yeah, first person will answer when we’re there, like, oh, so that’s what this looks like.

 

[01:51:33.050]

Oh that’s what that’s like. Ah, this is what it feels like. There’s always that kind of first person thing. But I think the one word that will be more of a value to me going forward is the word gratitude. I will want to go to conferences are probably was not really thinking I was going to go to when I get that chance, just to be able to run into people and see people and hang out with people and be around people.

 

[01:51:56.360]

Just because I’ve been missing for so long, I’ll be like, sure, I’ll go to the widget gallery conference thing.

 

[01:52:05.570]

It’s almost like you’re an outgoing person.

 

[01:52:08.810]

I know. And like skipping out for no reason whatsoever to anybody. I don’t care where there is. I don’t know you.

 

[01:52:15.080]

You know, the friend just gets really weirded out by it every time.

 

[01:52:20.320]

You know, one thing that is really I think that nothing virtual could ever really compare to the tour of the hotel in real life what it feels like to walk through the building and to be there when your customer is making a decision and walking through the hotel together. That is one reason for a salesperson to be on property.

 

[01:52:47.420]

And that is that’s an important, you know, hour or two hours that you might spend with somebody that will make an impression for hopefully years to come. I’d rather spend the money on getting somebody to come to the hotel and take a real life tour than to send a salesperson out to visit their office.

 

[01:53:11.190]

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I see there’s a lot of ways that hotels and I think depends on the type of hotel you are. Right. Like, you know, a full service resort property or a full service. So when I’m talking to customers that think they want to do complete closed loop outsourced sales, it’s not a fit for everybody. Right. But the ones that it’s generally a fit for are more of the select service hotels, those who may not be able to afford the the top talent to do that and who we could train a a front office manager or the general manager to do a really solid sales site to her.

 

[01:54:06.460]

Right. So there is a difference in that. But I, I totally agree because we transfer energy as humans and I think you can do that more when you are in person versus Zoome. Sometimes you’re not fully present in a meeting, even if it looks like you might be right. I’ve had to check my messages a couple of times on this on this show, but that’s just the reality of it. But when you can get face to face with somebody, break bread or whatever like that, the bill I was just talking to my husband about that last night.

 

[01:54:43.750]

I was like, I need I was talking about a particular person. I’m like, I need to break bread with this person and sit down and have a conversation, not just about business, because I know that we would get so much further in a relationship, so much faster. And so there’s definitely something to be said that you can be creative about that, too, right? You can be creative about how you deploy your sales, your team that can handle those face to face discussions.

 

[01:55:13.540]

And I think that we just have to think it’s kind of comes back to originally, you know, the way we’ve always done it. Right. What got us here is not going to get us there. That is my favorite. Another quote that I have gotten from a business coach. You know, we have to always be thinking creatively and innovate a bit on our ideas.

 

[01:55:35.710]

Just Marci’s asking for your YouTube info in the chat box if you want to throw that to her. But I think I think you’re kind of, in a way, referring to what Einstein was announcing in little he probably knows better than I do. The thought process that got us into this problem is not the thought process that will get us out of this problem. It’s in mentality. The huh. It was a good paraphrase.

 

[01:55:56.080]

Well, there was I thought it was better. I thought, you know, it’s true. Well, how we did things in the future tense of it. And also, too, I miss I was always enjoying the fact that I was more in depth of being a Calvin and Hobbes person. Anyway, as I’m sitting in the media, I’m probably thinking about space aliens anyway. But the whole body language and seeing the intent of people and the nuances of their engagement and reading a room as to who is really responsible for what, I miss that dialogue.

 

[01:56:22.120]

You get better at Zoom eventually. I always ask my clients to turn on the camera. Please let me see you. I want to know, but even you can blankly stare at the camera too. But at least it’s visually seeing whether or not the person is connecting with you. I understand the phone and so forth, but it is missing that component and metaphorically. Let’s go have a beer. It’s not about the drinking, it’s about the collaboration.

 

[01:56:44.920]

It’s the setting and changing the tempo of the dialogue. And oftentimes when you’re on these things, it’s about getting the conversation done and not so much the the pauses, the randomness squad that you get along on most of the other stuff.

 

[01:56:59.830]

So, yeah, very true to that end. Well, we are at about a two hour mark unless I missed anything. I mean, like I said, it was really come to order what you guys wanted to chat about since I’m the minority.

 

[01:57:14.170]

Hey, did somebody somebody sent me an email saying they had a guest co-host and I can’t find that email to save my soul. I’m just as I’m going to say was, are you I don’t want to find the fucking email. You know what?

 

[01:57:27.070]

Because I changed my email and you’re probably looking for one.

 

[01:57:30.310]

The new idea, I yeah, I’m now on the advisory board for the hotel group, and I’d like to invite the CEO of every hotel group to add to the show because it’s very exciting and innovating and what what they’re doing. And I’m excited to be a part of it. I think he’s he’ll make a fantastic guest. Ken Bittoun.

 

[01:57:57.970]

Sure. It’s great fun. Anyway, so good.

 

[01:58:03.880]

Cool. I’m glad we didn’t lose that because I’m not saying I know something for it. I can’t prove it.

 

[01:58:09.280]

And apparently I have a lot of podcasts I have to produce because I know I have a two part series because you just have a new one that just but there’s another two part series.

 

[01:58:17.260]

So he invited me to be on the advisory board after we made the podcast.

 

[01:58:25.660]

And then Lillia Guy. Your podcasts and I got Holly has a guest podcast or for a while Bob Anderson, he’s doing her podcast for her for right now. And then I know Dino’s be one. And then I got to pop Mignot today. So I’m won’t be Mr. Podcasts this afternoon.

 

[01:58:43.320]

I think you have a point. Yeah, I never asked you that.

 

[01:58:47.440]

Do you have to put it on my strategic list? OK, roadmap.

 

[01:58:53.200]

Hey, does small videos very quick videos on on LinkedIn that are excellent.

 

[01:59:00.280]

Yeah. I’ve had I’ve you know, it’s kind of a hodgepodge of things recently, so I try to try to do a little bit of video. Yeah.

 

[01:59:11.680]

It’s like you’re ready I guess to Amy. What’s that. When you ready to be a guest, let me know. Oh yeah.

 

[01:59:18.520]

I’ll be a guest on anybody’s.

 

[01:59:20.380]

I’ll take your organization and any time free promotion.

 

[01:59:28.360]

There you go. OK, fine. You don’t have your own podcast going on. Everybody’s podcast. Everything fine, I guess.

 

[01:59:37.090]

So with that in mind, Amy, if want to know more about getgo and you, where is it it can find you at our website is getgo group Dotcom. That’s EITE Geo group dot com. And you can find me on LinkedIn, Amy and Phonte, pretty active on there. So you want to reach me directly. That’s a great way to do it.

 

[01:59:56.060]

Call Mr. Del Carmen.

 

[02:00:00.640]

How simple is that. And I gave all kinds of links in the in the chat box as well as two articles because we were talking about women in hospitality. So I put two nice articles about women in hospitality and the links as well.

 

[02:00:17.590]

I put all those into the show notes as well as we have that in their context as well. Lilly, where can they find you?

 

[02:00:25.660]

I know, because sometimes I could be hard to find. You are hard to find.

 

[02:00:30.280]

Much know. Yeah, you’re like a wallflower when it comes to that.

 

[02:00:34.210]

Totally. Well, you can find us at our newly revamped website at TCR Services dot com. Also our sister company, Sync Up Enterprisers dot com, which is home to the Hospitality Revenue Management podcast. You can find all the past episodes and upcoming episodes here. Next week is going to be our twenty fifth episode, Silver Anniversary, so I’m excited about that.

 

[02:00:58.980]

Yeah.

 

[02:00:59.560]

By the way, you know that I don’t ever want to disappoint you, but you know who I don’t ever want to disappoint more than that. Disappointing you.

 

[02:01:07.680]

Sure.

 

[02:01:09.520]

Yes, actually is fabulous. If anybody needs help with content or social media or ghostwriting, just check out Transform writing dotcom because she’s pretty phenomenal and pretty organized as no.

 

[02:01:24.670]

Get up to make all your blogs so friendly to drive things on your website. So she’s. Yeah, she’s in here.

 

[02:01:34.650]

She’s pretty impressive. She’s pretty impressive. Yeah. Well, if you need that, I’ll hook. Yep. Yep.

 

[02:01:40.510]

Hey, anyway, for those of you to flip to, we had Tim my business. We are doing OK. Well it wasn’t on today. That’s OK.

 

[02:01:52.930]

Cool. So if you wanna know this show and the previous shows turn eighty six, although I did send in the memo to eighty six yesterday was actually show twenty seven. Today was my numeric message error. But for any of this and two hundred and eighty six previous shows you can go to hospital digital marketing dot com for such live but for sure to a number eighty seven. We were doing a podcast. We’ll have a short recap of that also. But hospital digital marketing dot com for such podcasts.

 

[02:02:19.120]

We will have a guest host coming up soon.

 

[02:02:21.160]

Just rumor is will organize that time.

 

[02:02:27.790]

Thank you. Tomorrow, as always for joining us on the chat. Marqusee, thank you as well. And for everyone else on the other channels, thank you so much for your following and your listenership. And just so you know, we are up to eleven languages that we translate the closed captioning for and thirty nine countries so far. So we’re giving international in our scope. More so. So with that. Thank you everyone for your time today. Sincerely appreciate that.

 

[02:02:49.420]

And we’ll talk to everyone next week. Let me through the Eastern U.S. time of the year. Thanks. Bye bye.

Founder / CEO of Hospitality Digital Marketing

About us and this blog

We are a digital marketing company with a focus on helping our customers achieve great results across several key areas.

Request a free quote

We offer professional digital marketing services to the hospitality industry.

Subscribe to our newsletter!

Privacy Policy Cookie Policy