Hyatt & Governor of Mass

Alright,,,, this is getting a little out of hand.

Yes, Hyatt did a poor job in handling their effort to reduce costs but the Governor of Mass is not helping at all. In fact he is making things a lot worse.

I don’t think what Hyatt did was a great idea but I am at a loss for what else they can do right now.

The Governor throwing down like this is completely out of line. Pulling government travel from the Hyatt hotels in Mass if Hyatt don’t hire back the workers they let go is a far worse idea.

Hyatt are trying to stay profitable and keep the other 600+ workers they have in Mass employed. What corporate company do you know of keeps employees working when they are taking a loss?

The automotive companies due to due to strong unions are the best example I can think of. Well the Governor of Mass is trying to do to Hyatt what the automotive unions did to GM.

We all know how that worked out.

My guess is the governor is looking to throw some of the heat he is getting from doing a pretty poor job onto Hyatt. Pick a nice easy target, get people worked up, look like he is fighting for the common man and woman and he comes out of this smelling like roses.

Only problem is I don’t see Hyatt bending on this. I see the Governor eating it on this one. Hyatt has more money than he does and they will fight it. Hyatt wants to roll this out at more of their hotels. If they let the Governor of Mass win then they are going to be hobbled across the board for any cost cutting initiatives.
This is going to go the distance and the tax payer of Mass will pay for the pleasure.

He should stand by Hyatt as a major employer and tax payer in his state and work with them. If the Governor gets his way the hotels will continue to lose money and other employees will be laid off to offset the additional burden.

I don’t see these people getting as much assistance either. Governor, I don’t think the majority of the people laid off want to go back to work only to see their coworkers get laid off in their place. Chances are with the way business travel is going they may be let go again later. What are their chances of finding work because you pissed off their employer and the program Hyatt has in place right now to help them fiind new work is pulled?

Going to be interesting to see what hapens over the next couple of weeks but my money is on Hyatt.

Added value.

What as a hotel are you doing to give your potential customer added value? I am not talking about lower rates or free internet. I want to know what you are doing that tugs at their heart.

Do you have anything to tell your potential clients that will sway their decision other than what a great hotel you are?

If not you are just another venue saying the exact same thing and the people you need to survive can’t hear or see you.

Business as usual is not business as usual any more. You need to be remarkable. Your hotel needs to have a strong personality. If you can’t step out of line due to branding standards then your employees need to have one.

They want your hotel to survive so they can continue to work there and keep their jobs and homes. Your employees are the key to bringing in the new business that will make all the difference.

So what are you doing with them that is going to make your hotel stand out from the others? Better service, lower rates, more freebies and cleaner rooms are the price of entry.

What else are you doing??? If you are not doing anything you could try this.

Get your sales department together at 5pm for 1 hour. Tell them to write down 10 charities or community activites that they find of interest then send them home.

That night pick the top 10 that will give your hotel the biggest visibility in the area with the biggest potential for revenue growth.

Next day at 5pm get everyone together and have them do a confidential vote on which they would like to work on.

Before you read the results tell them that every day from 5pm till close you are all going to get together and work on this chosen project.

The people that make the biggest progress and have the best ideas to move this forward get to leave early once a week.
If it results in a new additional account or group booking through a contact made through this new effort they get additional commission.

No tell them the winner. Even if they don’t like the charity or project they want to go home early once a week or earn additional money.

Why do this,,, well your guys are exhausted from cold calling and hearing no every day all day.
The prospects with business already know everything about the hotel and are exhausted too and are barely listening to them.

This gives your team something to be excited about and shows the client you have more going on than they thought and they should pay you more attention than your competition.

Take a leap of faith and do something for someone other than yourself.

Worst case is you get the respect of your sales team, General Manager, local community; your potential clients and you help someone that needs it more than you.

Nice work!

Hyatt Hotels Oursourcing Housekeeping

Hyatt is taking a lot of flack for outsourcing their housekeeping depts in their Boston properties.

However, large corporations have been doing this for years. 90% of the consumer tech companies build everything in China and South America.

When was the last time we expressed outrage when we bought our new lap top for under $900?

Everyone wants a clean hotel room in a 4 star hotel for under $150. Everyone that has an investment portfolio wants it to perform and pay a dividend like it used to so they can retire.

Then hotel companies are going to have to make some tough calls.

The highest cost as we all know is payroll. Management have already taken paycuts from 5% – 20%. Staffing levels have already been cut as much as possible. The only thing left to do is hire a cheaper workforce.

Housekeeping are the hardest working dept in the building and they are key when it comes to keeping your customer service levels high. There are going to be issues and they will be touted as a sign that people are not happy and it is not working.

Only thing is this is not about people, this is about money.

We can expect a lot of new companies offering this kind of outplacement service to spring up and a lot more hotels following suit if this looks to be working and believe me they are going to make it work.
I know Hyatt backed up a little but this is not the last we have seen of this.

In the online world content is king. In the corporate world profit is king. Unless we can figure out a way to change the way the people with the money think we are going to have to get used to change.

We are just going to have to figure out a way to make that change work for us.

Parents Stop!

STOP!!!!!

Stop everything you are doing for an hour. Don’t give me any excuses that you just don’t have the time, your life is too crazy or you are so stressed out that you can’t take a breather. This is important so go to Domino’s and get a pizza and some crazy bread for $8 your kids will love it and you don’t have to cook or clean. There you go 1 hour.

Now make a list of the things you are killing yourself trying to do. Then cross half of them out and make a new list with what is left.

Tomorrow only try to do the things on that list.

Right before you go to bed list the excuses you have for not getting to everything on the new list.

If you can’t cut the excuses then cut the list some more.

If you can’t cut either and you are still stressed out you need to ask someone for help or to help you make some hard choices.

If you don’t you are going to look back and realized you missed your kids growing up and it will hit you harder than stress ever could.

Honesty with clients

Honesty with clients. Seems like the dumbest thing to say, of course you need to be honest with your client.

Well to be honest, I am seeing honesty taking a back seat way too much right now.

There is such pressure to perform at present that the temptation to overpromise is almost too much to bear. You HAVE TO make sure you get the sale or else you are out!!!

I get it, I am in sales and it is the toughest I have ever seen it, believe me I get it.

The only trouble with bending the truth a little is when it catches up to you and believe me it always catches up to you. This will be the ONLY time this client is going to buy from you. EVER.

Not only that his friends are not going to buy from you now either.

Honesty won out for me today. I knew if I was honest I would lose the deal and they would go elsewhere. However, I am not going to blow an entire career or my integrity over one deal.

So I manned up, came clean on exactley what we can and can’t do and waited for the “thanks but no thanks” but not only did I get the order, the client gave me two referrals that will probably order too.

Now, let me finish by saying I have lost deals in the past by being honest but I always, ALWAYS got the same client to buy from me later because they knew I meant every word I said and could deliver exactley what I promised.

Don’t sell yourself short, dig deep and don’t lose faith.

Never stop searching

The past two years of my life have been interesting. I learned a lot about myself and others. All of it was good.

Well, when I say good I mean I learned good stuff from it. It was a pretty painful process and 2 years later I have a far smaller ego and a much bigger heart.

I was sent to this site today.

www.charitywater.org

WOW….. Talk about making a change.

Scott, way to go brother!!!!

Hotels next big thing?

If you read my post yesterday you know I have a wee problem turning work off at the end of each day. As a result I have a million ideas about how to connect better with clients, shorten a lengthening sales cycle and what will be the next big thing for hotels.

Now, about half of these ideas are just not going to work. They are too expensive; too time consuming on the hotel side and the client side. Most of the rest are unrealistic and I stand the chance of having my boss doubt my sanity.

I do however have a couple that work very well.

I give full credit of these ideas to my boss. If it were not for them giving me the time and leeway to dream a little and to think about something from the back to the front I would not be able to try them out and make them work. My boss is remarkable.

So, if there is a boss out there and you have a couple sales grunts under you give them $50 and send them to the nearest restaurant. Tell them to take the traditional sales model you are using and turn it on its head. Tell them to work backwards and not to come back till they have 5 new ideas on how to sell to your clients.

They don’t have to be practical, they can be sky high fantasy but they will come back with one takeaway that will surprise you. Implement it into their sales efforts right away and watch the increase in their call volume and their confidence level.

They may not close as much as you want but right now for $50 and a half day off you will get a bunch of sales managers you would think just came back from a weeks vacation.

Oh, if they come back and don’t have any good ideas $50 just told you everything a very expensive consultant would have taken weeks to tell you.

Thoughts always welcome.

All work and no play,,,,,, you know the rest right?

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

The Shining was one of the scariest movies I have ever seen and one of the classic lines of all time hit home recently.

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”

We are all under a tremendous amount of pressure at work these days to perform. Not only to make the company a profit but just to keep our jobs.

I find myself thinking about work from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed at night.
How can I get hold of the decision maker? What questions am I not asking and how can I ask them in an order of progression that will help the contact realize that we have the best solution,,,,,,, you get the idea.

Now while I am never going anywhere near the extreme Jack did in the movie I know I am not spending enough time with my wife and kids. Even when I am with them I am not there. I am thinking about work, work, work..

I just overheard my daughter tell one of her friends that I am always working and don’t play enough. Ouch….. I am leaving my lap top at work and turning off all mobile devices after 6pm from now on.

For fun I typed in “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” and found some great stuff here.

As you can see this is not a new phenomenon it has been an ongoing struggle and this guy says it far better than I can so I am going to quote him blatantly.

It was quoted by the Egyptian sage Ptahhotep, who wrote in 2400 B.C.,

“One that reckons accounts all the day passes not a happy moment. One that gladdens his heart all the day provides not for his house. The bowman hits the mark, as the steersman reaches land, by diversity of aim. He that obeys his heart shall command.”

Yes even 4 thousand years ago the smart guys were telling us to watch out for a poor work life balance. What does it say about us all that we still can’t get it right….

What do you think?

One Buttock Playing,,,,, Benjamin Zander at TED

Amazing presentation at TED by Benjamin Zander. He is the conductor at the Boston Philharmonic and regarded as one of the best in the world.

Stick it out to minute 18. Don’t jump there without watching the prior 18 minutes. Let Benjamin set the stage and the mood or it will not move you the way it should.

Do the prep work, do the time, earn it,,,, and it will make all the difference in the world.

Enjoy.

Ben Stein ROCKS!!!!

Ben Stein ROCKS!

Ben Stein advocates the value of meetings and events on “CBS Sunday Morning”

I can’t say it better so won’t even try.

That is all.