Things Corporate Hotel Auditors Tell me About Sales

While in town doing an audit on their southwest installation of one of the best resorts, once classified as in the "best ten in the world" we chatted under the wing of a B-17.
     "Things are awful, everywhere," he told me. Like I didn't already know. The local newspaper satisfies itself writing stories about rat-poop in  restaurants and picking nose-hairs out of the county supervisors lunch boxes for "high-profile news stories and on occasion, prints declining tax receipts from area hotels proving they are drowning in debt.
      Anyone who has ever been in the business or close to it knows when the water circles the drain. Management ALWAYS lies when confronted. Even the newsprint guys are smart enough to know that.
      Anywho, said auditor opines that when the water level in the lifeboat rises, the survivors watch the captain cut the notch on the inside of the boat. " Sales is always the first to go," he says.
      No kidding, I retort. Hotel Management has always been rooted in the 13th Century, the dungeons of the chain mail dark ages. Any monkey can sit on their wallet, it's quite easy to train them to do that. So the water finally hits the notch on the inside of the boat, and if the Sales Department has the smarts to have already warmed up their collective resumes, the captain "invites them to get wet.
      If not, that's what the knife is for. If he is any kind of human being, the surgery is done quietly, in his office$. Usually not, though.
      Remember Esquire Magazine's "Stanley Bing"? Everything he ever wrote was true, on point, and I can verify. I was there. The bloodletting (an expression usually coined by mass firings) was done at this point in the hotel biz: Sales first, throat cuts, over board.
     Then Marketing followed by advertising - a General Manager I once knew said, " I guess a sales person is like a billboard, you never really know what value they give you." He started as a cook, then a bell boy, front desk clerk, and so on.
     Another general manager I once knew told me the biggest mistake he ever made was telling the head of the sales department, Yes! He was a chef.
     The Chief Executive Officer (the 'big guy') of a major hotel management company headquartered in the Dallas Fort Worth area never ran a hotel.
      There are creative ways to remedy the disastrous slump in hospitality: don't treat hotels and resorts as investment vehicles. In Europe, they were once known as careers, institutions of learning, creations of a hospitality experience. Their goal was NOT just profit.
      Lastly, sales is the generator of traffic, these are the people who should be kept on to the last. If they are utilized , new and more creative measures can bring in to add to the revenue base.
      But, then again, Management has got to have the creativity to try it. The 7 unholy words need to be scuttled.
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The End of an Era?

Several Decades ago, in the airline sales era, when de-regulation hit, it became evident to all those with a half gallon of intelligence that the future held doom for the legions of airline sales people employed everywhere in the schedule business.
    I remember those, in the battle of wits who were lightly armed, saying, " they will always need someone to deliver brochures," who later disappeared into the smoke, along with the front line sales troops, the myriad of sales offices, the inept District Sales Managers - all of it went away.
   Call it, "right sizing." Call it, Bored of Directors cutting expenses so that their own pay-back in stock returns stayed high so polo pony feed could still be afordable. Oh well, such was the day.
   Digress not, flash forward, now to the hotel business. It was only a decade ago, that the big companies: Omni, Radisson, Holiday Inn, tedium ad naseum and their various franchises that traded Director of Sales (DOS) like toilet paper, under wear or what ever example comfortable to you, but for some time now, the titular head of the long-gone sales department has vanished.
   Also, has the well paid sales staffers. Hotel management has never really been what you might call, "sharp," when it comes to promotion, sales or marketing, most owners confuse the last term with Saturday's activities at the local Albertsons.
   Scratch the average General Manager and you'll find a DOS trying  to get out. They know they want to be one, but just can't quite figure out how to smile and make the troops happy at the same time without drawing blood.
   Tough for them to do.
   Anywho, if the current financial disaster continues, and Washington's politicies seem to push us that was, in my opinion, the flock of medium hostelries and high end pricey resorts in big trouble (hiding from bankruptcy at this writing) will continue and their owners will shy away from hiring any superman (women) to save them.
   So, fugghheeddaaabbouuttiiittt. Been there, done that. Save yourself the grief. Or, as an ex-wife once said, $80,000 a year x 3 months= ?
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In the Hotel Sales Business, Everybody needs a "Rabbi"

So...you think you want to be in "Hotel Sales" do you? There is an old expression in the biz world, everybody needs a Rabbi. Some call it a mentor, some a big brother, back in " the day," we used to call it a go-to guy or girl who knew us inside out. Knew us..everything about us, better than our wives, husbands (almost), the problems in the office, personalities, politics, ugh!
    I'm telling you, IF you want to get into hotel sales, you had better gear-up.
Because in the hotel sales office, no matter how big and small politics is there,
get used to it.
    This column, blog, scandal sheet, whatever you want to call it, consider it, rely on it - is from me - I've been there, suffered the slings and arrows, got the experience, know the dark alleys, carried the guns and knives, fought my way through it.
    Why now, you ask?
    The average hotel is the only modern day existant of the fuedal system I can think of - The General Manager (mangler, I used to call him/her) that I can think of: his rule is law. Forget fair. What he says is law. You work his farm and do his bidding. Few if anyone ever get away with anything.
    The economic crush we just came through crippled hotel sales to a degree worse than I have ever seen since I entered it in the 1960's.
    Now, for the first time, hotel GM's fired Director of Sales. Just canned them wholesale. Many hotels have just dismissed sales staffs and shut entire offices just to save money.
    Make sense? Of course not. Just recently, in the last few weeks, they have now begun to hire them back. BEWARE, the cycle has begun all over again, same tactics, same approach at drawing YOU into a no win game.
   YOU are not a winner, and will never be.
    This blog is designed to forewarn you against all the tricks, problems and pitfalls you will face, many headed your way as you begin your NEW career in the "glamorous" new adventure in HOTEL SALES.
    Be afraid. Be cautious. And...check in with me every couple of days for a new slant on what to watch out for.
    Your favorite Rabbi
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