Monday, October 3, 2016
Hotel Sales Rabbi: HOTEL SALES AND WELLS FARGO SCANDAL
Hotel Sales Rabbi: HOTEL SALES AND WELLS FARGO SCANDAL: If you are in ANY large hotel sales department, reading about Wells Fargo's illegal scandal of phony tactics, you're probably laughi...
HOTEL SALES AND WELLS FARGO SCANDAL
If you are in ANY large hotel sales department, reading about Wells Fargo's illegal scandal of phony tactics, you're probably laughing up your sleeve this morning.
Seems as if the Congress has discovered the banking boys have FORCED unreasonably high sales quotas on the bank sales people that they have opened millions of phoney accounts in order to reach those goals.
Imagine that, eh? Phonating up paperwork (and moving around $$) to cover your quota, just to keep your job? (who'd a thought?)
Hotel sales departments have been doing this for DECADES. Stockholders scream for more dough, they pressure the CEO and the Board of Directors. they in turn make it known to the sales troops - 33% increase next year OR, YOU'RE OUT OF A JOB.
Never mind that an audit of the competition shows a 5 to an 8% increase!! WE WANT 33. Your bosses have a long list of ex-employees at the unemployment lines to prove it.
What happened at Wells Fargo as a result? They fired all the sales people who did this I could have fore-told this. Wells had a whistle blower. Now, I'm suggesting that the Hotel business needs one, too
If it did, there may be a possibility that costs to the hotel AND GUESTS could go down.
###
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Seems as if the Congress has discovered the banking boys have FORCED unreasonably high sales quotas on the bank sales people that they have opened millions of phoney accounts in order to reach those goals.
Imagine that, eh? Phonating up paperwork (and moving around $$) to cover your quota, just to keep your job? (who'd a thought?)
Hotel sales departments have been doing this for DECADES. Stockholders scream for more dough, they pressure the CEO and the Board of Directors. they in turn make it known to the sales troops - 33% increase next year OR, YOU'RE OUT OF A JOB.
Never mind that an audit of the competition shows a 5 to an 8% increase!! WE WANT 33. Your bosses have a long list of ex-employees at the unemployment lines to prove it.
What happened at Wells Fargo as a result? They fired all the sales people who did this I could have fore-told this. Wells had a whistle blower. Now, I'm suggesting that the Hotel business needs one, too
If it did, there may be a possibility that costs to the hotel AND GUESTS could go down.
###
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
End of an ERA - Sales & Marketing
They say everything comes in a circle. Even in the time of Christ, ancient Innkeepers had someone out in the desert flogging their digs to the locals. In the 20th Century, some anti-deluvian attempts (cocktail waitresses in short skirts with brochures) hustled in the hustings blindly covered the neighborhood. Now and then, for the sheer lack of weight, they fell up. I worked for one in Denver.
Bad News.
The Hospitality Business got "sophisticated" in late 20th Century and a bit in this one with the infusion of Europeans, who, by and large, always thought they were better than Americans at pouring wine, serving dinner, draping towels over their arms and teaching us "Mericans" a thing or two bout service.....sure.
So, we got Belgians (mini-Nazis), Danes, some Nazi-like,French, Eastern Europeans, (garlic on everything), Italians (Jesus!), and a smattering of others everyone had a better idea than everyone else - and they all were unified in hating the Americans. We just were poor, sub-standard morons, however, "trainable."
In my experience, hotels had the history of hiring the least educated, porly experienced lower waged rung of American workers. In many cases I saw them abused as to their rights on the job, and, uneducated, they accepted the unfair treatment and continued laboring under those conditions. Towards the end of the 20th Century, a degree of legal sophistication had arrived in the industry, law suits blossomed, HR departments got smart(er) and so did some of the lower waged workers.
Sales and marketing people did not. Always considered the "Kleenex" division of Hospitality, they were often fired or hired on the spot making any career plans impossible. It was uncommon to find a person at one hotel in that slot longer than two years. A massive shift in the national economy would drag down travel patterns, the hotel manager would fire the sales dept to protect his own job in the eyes of his boss, then move on to hire " better " people. This continued forever. Today, those Generator positions have pretty much dissolved now and shifted to other lower salaried positions, eliminating the headache for hotel General Managers. As a career, I would no longer recommend it.
###
Bad News.
The Hospitality Business got "sophisticated" in late 20th Century and a bit in this one with the infusion of Europeans, who, by and large, always thought they were better than Americans at pouring wine, serving dinner, draping towels over their arms and teaching us "Mericans" a thing or two bout service.....sure.
So, we got Belgians (mini-Nazis), Danes, some Nazi-like,French, Eastern Europeans, (garlic on everything), Italians (Jesus!), and a smattering of others everyone had a better idea than everyone else - and they all were unified in hating the Americans. We just were poor, sub-standard morons, however, "trainable."
In my experience, hotels had the history of hiring the least educated, porly experienced lower waged rung of American workers. In many cases I saw them abused as to their rights on the job, and, uneducated, they accepted the unfair treatment and continued laboring under those conditions. Towards the end of the 20th Century, a degree of legal sophistication had arrived in the industry, law suits blossomed, HR departments got smart(er) and so did some of the lower waged workers.
Sales and marketing people did not. Always considered the "Kleenex" division of Hospitality, they were often fired or hired on the spot making any career plans impossible. It was uncommon to find a person at one hotel in that slot longer than two years. A massive shift in the national economy would drag down travel patterns, the hotel manager would fire the sales dept to protect his own job in the eyes of his boss, then move on to hire " better " people. This continued forever. Today, those Generator positions have pretty much dissolved now and shifted to other lower salaried positions, eliminating the headache for hotel General Managers. As a career, I would no longer recommend it.
###
Friday, October 23, 2015
HOTEL SALES - GOOD PLACE TO EARN A LIVING
I'm retired, so, consider the source. A buddy of mine once told me, that sitting on a log, retired for a few years, he began pondering his live after a few years and he viewed everything from the long end of a prism and saw things differently: what was worth it, what wasn't.
I'm at that stage.
Off and on, I bounced in and out of hotel sales as I married, has some children, moved about the country, made mistakes, suffered the ills of the economy, bad choices in jobs....you know what I mean - life!
When it is good, it is very good. When it is bad, your ship rocks a lot, you hold on, protect what you've got, keep food on the table. Hotel sales for me was like having an extra loaded gun in the house - just in case. When the cyclical economy dumped, ( " we're RIGHTSIZING") and you're a casualty, one of the places you can grab onto is some hungry hotel sales department hungry for someone to lead them out of a hole.
That was me. I spent a lot of my career 'fixing' hotel sales and marketing departments, that by the time I got into my fifties, I had the reputation as the " mechanic," or The Fixer." I even hired on one job as a consultant for a year to straighten out a 400 room full service downtown convention hotel whose occupancy was in the "teens."
In between, I've done a bunch of other things, been able meet my obligations as father, husband, provider, kept everybody fed, clothed, happy, somewhat entertained. To the point, I wasn't. Working in hotel sales and marketing, largely wasn't a challenge. It was just a job. If I had it all to do over again, I would avoid it like swallowing ground glass.
Some guys just get their jollies off wearing a kitchen white coat fooling around with pastries and pushing around high school drop outs and silver ware. More power to them. It was not meaningful. I personally watched a kitchen manager die of a heart attack while medics feverishly tried to save him as the General Manager and Director of Marketing stood six feet away, watching, discussing their occupancy figures for the week.
Working in a hotel is nothing more than a job. It is not the light of the world, you do not walk on water, shed light unto the masses. You serve chicken to 600 people. Get all the money you can, go home early and look out for yourself.
###
I'm at that stage.
Off and on, I bounced in and out of hotel sales as I married, has some children, moved about the country, made mistakes, suffered the ills of the economy, bad choices in jobs....you know what I mean - life!
When it is good, it is very good. When it is bad, your ship rocks a lot, you hold on, protect what you've got, keep food on the table. Hotel sales for me was like having an extra loaded gun in the house - just in case. When the cyclical economy dumped, ( " we're RIGHTSIZING") and you're a casualty, one of the places you can grab onto is some hungry hotel sales department hungry for someone to lead them out of a hole.
That was me. I spent a lot of my career 'fixing' hotel sales and marketing departments, that by the time I got into my fifties, I had the reputation as the " mechanic," or The Fixer." I even hired on one job as a consultant for a year to straighten out a 400 room full service downtown convention hotel whose occupancy was in the "teens."
In between, I've done a bunch of other things, been able meet my obligations as father, husband, provider, kept everybody fed, clothed, happy, somewhat entertained. To the point, I wasn't. Working in hotel sales and marketing, largely wasn't a challenge. It was just a job. If I had it all to do over again, I would avoid it like swallowing ground glass.
Some guys just get their jollies off wearing a kitchen white coat fooling around with pastries and pushing around high school drop outs and silver ware. More power to them. It was not meaningful. I personally watched a kitchen manager die of a heart attack while medics feverishly tried to save him as the General Manager and Director of Marketing stood six feet away, watching, discussing their occupancy figures for the week.
Working in a hotel is nothing more than a job. It is not the light of the world, you do not walk on water, shed light unto the masses. You serve chicken to 600 people. Get all the money you can, go home early and look out for yourself.
###
Friday, August 14, 2015
WHY I LEFT RADISSON
Once I was the ass't DOS/M at the Radisson Hotel Denver, now changed hands a half dozen times. It sits on Court Street, downtown. At the time, it was the largest hotel in 12 states. There was 10 people in the sales department.
First year there they gave me $27k a year!! Imagine that? I made my goals by August. Second year, I sold 45% of the entire house business 1100 rooms. All association contract business. Raise?
$32k.
I never left the house on trips, never filed an expense report. All the other sales people did. I asked for a salary raise review. My boss said, " Nah, they don't want to pay a sales person that kind of money."
Early the third year I met one of Rad's VP and I asked him a question: " do you know the top 10 sales people in Radisson nationwide?" NO, he says.
" I'm #5, " I tell him.
" Oh, congratulations," he says. And leaves my office.
###
First year there they gave me $27k a year!! Imagine that? I made my goals by August. Second year, I sold 45% of the entire house business 1100 rooms. All association contract business. Raise?
$32k.
I never left the house on trips, never filed an expense report. All the other sales people did. I asked for a salary raise review. My boss said, " Nah, they don't want to pay a sales person that kind of money."
Early the third year I met one of Rad's VP and I asked him a question: " do you know the top 10 sales people in Radisson nationwide?" NO, he says.
" I'm #5, " I tell him.
" Oh, congratulations," he says. And leaves my office.
###
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Salaries and Negotiations
Ok, pay up, right? This is written long after I've left the "industry." Take this with a grain of salt, will ya?
If you're looking for the big bucks in hotel sales, it's not there. If you're in F & B, line cook, a cashier in the retail restaurant, or you've got a snappy personality at the front desk, or cashier, you've got a better than average chance at moving into sales.
BUT, remember, you've got to be POSITIVE in thought, word, deed. DO NOT BE NEGATIVE. There are three ways to look, assess and talk about anything. Not at all, negative, and cheery, lighthearted, happy and positive.
Got it? The last one gets you into the sales department and a bigger salary. All other departments are wages ( hourly), sales - salary. You get paid by the month. You ask for dollars per month. Those dollars you ask for depend on how big your hotel/motel/hovel is.
If you work at a 300 room hotel, that's a good size, and this is the 21st Century, When you discuss salary, save that for the LAST thing in the interview. Push it off to the very last. Sell yourself first during the interview, " this is what I can do for YOUR HOTEL," then the last thing is " this is what I NEED to do it."
I'd suggest you start at $1800 a month and negotiate down. He will probably gasp at that figure (tactic). As you slide down, ask for something - days off lunch privileges, think of something for
each give=away. Here you demonstrate your " power of negotiation." Got it.y ?
They may so NO. If they do, get up, be gracious, thank them for a wonderful interview and walk away. (Go interview someplace else and tell no one.) If you're good enough there, you are to elsewhere as well.
###
If you're looking for the big bucks in hotel sales, it's not there. If you're in F & B, line cook, a cashier in the retail restaurant, or you've got a snappy personality at the front desk, or cashier, you've got a better than average chance at moving into sales.
BUT, remember, you've got to be POSITIVE in thought, word, deed. DO NOT BE NEGATIVE. There are three ways to look, assess and talk about anything. Not at all, negative, and cheery, lighthearted, happy and positive.
Got it? The last one gets you into the sales department and a bigger salary. All other departments are wages ( hourly), sales - salary. You get paid by the month. You ask for dollars per month. Those dollars you ask for depend on how big your hotel/motel/hovel is.
If you work at a 300 room hotel, that's a good size, and this is the 21st Century, When you discuss salary, save that for the LAST thing in the interview. Push it off to the very last. Sell yourself first during the interview, " this is what I can do for YOUR HOTEL," then the last thing is " this is what I NEED to do it."
I'd suggest you start at $1800 a month and negotiate down. He will probably gasp at that figure (tactic). As you slide down, ask for something - days off lunch privileges, think of something for
each give=away. Here you demonstrate your " power of negotiation." Got it.y ?
They may so NO. If they do, get up, be gracious, thank them for a wonderful interview and walk away. (Go interview someplace else and tell no one.) If you're good enough there, you are to elsewhere as well.
###
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Salaries in Hotel Sales - How to negotiate
If you're new to hotel sales, and I suspect if you are, your last job was in the front desk, checking people in, or as a cashier in the restaurant, you probably looked at the hotel sales job as an enviable " promotion" up the ladder towards success, right?
Understand who you will be negotiating with: a general Manager in all probability will be an ex-chef, line cook, operations manager from what is known as " the back of the house" in the hotel business.
His practical experience in dealing wit people face to face is this: " heads in beds, baby - YOU go get em." And that's pretty much how you can expect to be treated. Hotel General Managers last time I looked are still the last bastion of total control freaks of thei kingdoms. What they say goes. In hotels, Inns, any establishments of 300 rooms or less, don't expect a G.M. with a college degree to go around spouting Plato, or a high degree of public intelligence.
To whit, a life-long friend of mine, former Area Director over 26 Holiday Inns tells me of a story of one such 300 room hotel where the GM and his faltering numbers employed 4 20+ something single "chicks" to run around " enticing" male clients over for lunch and a hotel tour to sell the on using their hotel.
Understand, all 4 kids didn't know a rack rate from a master key, but his favorite qualification was a short skirt and pretty face will go farther to fill a room than an education. That was just 3 years ago.
In my vast experience, I was lucky to find a half dozen GMs who could speak English properly, let alone manage people: it was ego and control that managed bricks and mortar, not an education from college.
Negotiation: If you're desperate, (single mom, kids at home, DO NOT TELL THEM) You make your own peace with that. Tell them you're desperate, you'll get a low salary AND an occasional offer for a higher salary pinned to one of the pillows in one of those bedrooms over your head. (just trust me on that will you?) If you're a stalwart, set a figure, and stick to it.
If they say, Yes, right away, ask, " does that include......then ask for something additional, anything. If they say yes, do it again. Ditto, ditto, ditto.
When you hit the wall, say to him, " you have my assurances that our salary agreement is confidential between us." And let it go.
Lastly, in a hotel, everyone gossips, it's endemic. .........DON'T. Not ever, don't trust anyone, and I mean it. I don't care if they seal it in blood, it will wind up in the GM's secretary's desk who will rat you out to the boss. Be 1001% professional and confess nothing to anyone, no matter how much you want to.
If you're a man, stay away from the women, that is the surest way to get fired. If you dally with one of the staff, everyone will know it by the time you get back to your desk. Trust me. The Hotel Business attracts psychological low self esteemers.
###
Understand who you will be negotiating with: a general Manager in all probability will be an ex-chef, line cook, operations manager from what is known as " the back of the house" in the hotel business.
His practical experience in dealing wit people face to face is this: " heads in beds, baby - YOU go get em." And that's pretty much how you can expect to be treated. Hotel General Managers last time I looked are still the last bastion of total control freaks of thei kingdoms. What they say goes. In hotels, Inns, any establishments of 300 rooms or less, don't expect a G.M. with a college degree to go around spouting Plato, or a high degree of public intelligence.
To whit, a life-long friend of mine, former Area Director over 26 Holiday Inns tells me of a story of one such 300 room hotel where the GM and his faltering numbers employed 4 20+ something single "chicks" to run around " enticing" male clients over for lunch and a hotel tour to sell the on using their hotel.
Understand, all 4 kids didn't know a rack rate from a master key, but his favorite qualification was a short skirt and pretty face will go farther to fill a room than an education. That was just 3 years ago.
In my vast experience, I was lucky to find a half dozen GMs who could speak English properly, let alone manage people: it was ego and control that managed bricks and mortar, not an education from college.
Negotiation: If you're desperate, (single mom, kids at home, DO NOT TELL THEM) You make your own peace with that. Tell them you're desperate, you'll get a low salary AND an occasional offer for a higher salary pinned to one of the pillows in one of those bedrooms over your head. (just trust me on that will you?) If you're a stalwart, set a figure, and stick to it.
If they say, Yes, right away, ask, " does that include......then ask for something additional, anything. If they say yes, do it again. Ditto, ditto, ditto.
When you hit the wall, say to him, " you have my assurances that our salary agreement is confidential between us." And let it go.
Lastly, in a hotel, everyone gossips, it's endemic. .........DON'T. Not ever, don't trust anyone, and I mean it. I don't care if they seal it in blood, it will wind up in the GM's secretary's desk who will rat you out to the boss. Be 1001% professional and confess nothing to anyone, no matter how much you want to.
If you're a man, stay away from the women, that is the surest way to get fired. If you dally with one of the staff, everyone will know it by the time you get back to your desk. Trust me. The Hotel Business attracts psychological low self esteemers.
###
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