Hotel Bankruptcies - Tucson, Arizona

In sunny Tucson, it's easier to count the luxury hotels that are " toes up " than the ones that are doing good business at all.
    Let's talk about the much vaunted Doubletree Hotel on south Alvernon Way in the geometric center of Tucson. Yesterday's news reports in the Arizona Daily Star say that hotel will now to into bankruptcy to avoid an auction sale which was due in two months, July 2011.
   We are talking about what was once the premiere convention hotel in town less than 30 years ago. Today it missed over 20 million in loan payments. Now in bankruptcy, a hint to folks who are thinking of a job in a hotel in bankruptcy: ANY hotel in bankruptcy.
    Do not do it. I have personal experience here. If you are in sales - leave. If you are desperate for a job, and this presents an opening for you - go to Circle K. Having a hotel on your resume that was in bankruptcy is poison for downline interviews, especially if your responsibility is in sales.
   First question; ' tell me, how did you influence the financial outcome of your hotel, since they eventually went bankrupt?" PS you don't want to work for the GM who asks you that question, anyway, he loves to pin the tail on YOU, donkey, so stay away.
   Most of the hotel sales people who are in place during the bankruptcy will stay there, probably, but, getting money for promotions, outside sales activities, travel, and other such normal duties will be cut, or eliminated all together. Sales calls, locally, look to hanging leaflets in parking lots, local blitzes, 1960's stuff, phones, phones, phones.
   Boring, boring. Warm up your resumes, no matter what the GM says, which during this period if you're still there, your newest best friend will be the GM, warm, friendly and fuzzy. It's not a bad idea to play best-friend, too, for as long as it lasts.
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Hotels and Resorts (high end) in Tucson, Arizona

For those Hospitality Professionals desiring to get-away-from-it-all and flee to the desert in southern Arizona, fughettabout it as they say in north Jersey.
   Here in "the old Pueblo," Tucson, it is easier to count the hotels and high end resorts that are NOT in receivership or actually up for auction as I write, than are in good working financial order.
   If you get a head-hunter call waxing on about a 'tremendous' opportunity, check it out. Do "your homework" now more than ever. Especially for the super-resorts here in the north end of Tucson, high up in the hills overlooking the city.
   I don't care what they say, and neither should you. Most, at this writing are missing their mortgage payments. Most have a shadow of their former sales departments. The old trick of Director of Marketing and a Director of Sales are now doing double duty at the same salary levels. Look for 14 hour days. Ask the usual questions: last years quotas, % increases for this years. You know what to do. Productions for 2011 are bottoming out, not climbing out. In forclosure? Who wants to work in a shop being run by a bank? I've done that and it was one of the worst experiences I've had. You have to go to a bank "clerk" to voucher a petty cash check to buy envelopes, let alone advertising for a dinner promotion. Ask for $50 and they have a heart attack.
   Trust me, that is not sales, let alone marketing. Here, you will develop a first class drinking problem with the bean counters.
   If you do come here on an interview, ask to see the resumes of the troops already in house, ask for complete control of hire/fire. Bet you don't get it. IF you get full move money, you know they are serious, but remember the salary promises: $ xx,xxx per year times 9 months = what? as an old girlfriend of mine used to say. A long wait in the unemployment line.
   Most hotel companys are hiring outfits that try to bust unemployment claims these days.
   In all liklihood, if you're out, it will be on a "for cause" claim. Ah, the good old days when everybody was good hearted and honest, eh?
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Hotels, Hotel Sales, Arizona "Boycott," SB 1070, Tedium Ad Naseum

Now it is Arizona's turn, so says our Whacko local newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star. Sunday, May 1st headlines our state is in the crosshairs of the country's liberal agenda, "boycott" Arizona because of SB 1070, the state's law making it an option for the state's law officers to question traffic violators as to their 'potential' immigration status.
    Enter Babs Streisand, Jane Fonda and a whole host of far-left loonies (somebody wake up Meryl, the overweight lout on the Capitol One commercials) so they can fine-tune the indignation and get their face-time revved up.
    I, myownself, have not thrown my card in the pot on this one yet, let me tell you why. During the Colorado Amendment II imbroglio (the Christian Right, Colorado Springs Amendment that made it to the ballot denying gays the right to everything including walking and chewing gum in public), that threw the same black eye on Colorado for a couple of years.
   Convention business went into the round file as I struggled to command a small battalion of hotel sales people in the largest hotel west of the Mississippi in Denver. Now, get this: everyone I spoke to, as well as the troops I councilled with said the same thing - everyone picked on Colorado. "Meeting Professionals in New York City threw dinner rolls at the ONE association head that promised to go to Denver," (closed quotes.)
   One gay association executive in south Carolina spoke to me about his own group who declared their abstinence from Denver. I brought his attention to his own state's declaration against gay marriage and anti-civil rights, and he retorts thusly, " you don't have to remind ME that I live in south Carolina, but, they  tell me we are not going, and THAT'S THAT."
   So, rationality in these heady times plays NO part in dizzy, swirling, emotionally charged issues of the day, I guess. And that includes a state filled with illegal aliens, companies that employ them, "ethnic studies" with secret curriculae that the public cannot read, and comes now, a national boycott of Arizona whose only sin is to try to protect it's own border in light of the Federal Governments failure to do so.
    Am I right, or not? Maybe I'm just swinging at shadows. As the comedian Dennis Miller used to say, "that's my opinion, I could be wrong."
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Salary Negotiations - FOR THE NEW SALES HIRE

No matter what anyone tells you, the General Manager sets the salary. You hear differently, they lie.
    If anyone in the hiring process every says, during the intial talk - " this is what the job pays, " $ X dollars a month! That's it, no more." You, then, have three choices:

• If you're starving, accept the inevitable, go through with the interview, tell the jerk what he needs to hear to get your next job, and keep looking while you work for him, or,
• Nrgotiate with him by saying, "Ok, then this is the highest goal I will aceept based on your highest salary offered, - $ X, thousands of dollars of room revenue per year, no more." Or,
• Get up, smile nicely, shake the dummy's hand and tell him as you exit professionally that the interview's is over that the low salary indicates a lack of commitment on the part of hotel, and, when the GM decides that someday, if he does, - call YOU.
• Then leave. If he's smart, you won't make the door.
• If you make it to the street, you shouldn't work there anyway.

My experience: I made it all the way to the rear door of the cab, followed by the Vice President who offered me the job. I accepted it in the back seat. He told me to start the moment my planed arrived back in my home city. I got what I wanted in salary.

Years later, in that same hotel, as General Manager, I won an award from the chain's VP as the third most improved in the entire chain for revenue improvement - in the entire US, and the franchise net profit champ.

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Things NOT to say during a Hotel Sales Interview

1 What's the salary....Never ask for money during first interviews. I don't care how broke your are. Here, the first one that blinks, loses. If the General Manager says, " ok, peasant, the job pays no more than car fare, lunch money and a few bucks to keep you out of the poor house," you get up, shake his hand and politely say,

• You know, it's been a pleasure meeting someone of your caliber, anyone bigger laying around?
• What did you say my responsibilities were? And you want me to work for WHAT???
• Call me when you're serious, please...
• How many sales people did you say you had in this position in the last week, month, six months, year?

You get the idea.
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Interviewing for a NEW hotel sales position

Questions YOU should ask:

• Who is my immediate boss?
• How often will sales meetings take me away from my primary duties?
• How many sales managers (that's code for representatives, you don't manage ANYONE but yourselves) have their been in this job before me in the last year?
• What are my goals for the year?
• What were the goals for the same period last year?
• What was the percentage increase for the market area (all of the hotels you compete against) just this past year? That is called the "competitive set." You need to know this because last years 'goals' and this years may be as high as 33% higher, and the total of your competing hotel may only have gained 5 or 6 %. Doesn't make sense, does it. B E W A R E. Like pushing a peanut up a hill with you nose.
• What is OUR competitive set? (five hotels, three, ten, twenty?) These are the hotels you will have to worry about.
• Who is on your "team." These are the people you will sell with, also the people you must watch out for, some sales people will steal your accounts, lie, cheat and swindle you for credit.
• Ask the question, does your Director of Sales DOS have a territorial assignment? (if he or she does, ask the General Manager how the DOS assigns various accounts to each sales manager. (chances are they 'cherry-pick' the best ones for themselves and throw YOU the pits)

More to come later, angels.
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Breaking into Sales in Hotels - Watch out for "Traps"

Here are the trap-doors, hidden cameras, the leaks, spies, ears that you'll never see. Beware, there are no friends.
    I am your "Rabbi" trust no other. The common mistake you make first entering a "professional" sales career in the Hotel Biz is - it isn't. Spies are everywhere. Gossip rules the day in the sales department. Trust no one. Sneeze at your desk and the bellman one hundred feet away will know to rush you a box of kleenex.
   Everyone will pump you for personal information, swear to God to keep it confidential, and spread it around to everyone on the pipeline within an hour. Trust me.
   Use this knowledge to your advantage. Don't think so? Tell your trusted "leak" a falsehood. Not a big one, a small one: your sister has crossed eyes and they are purple. Check out the feed back. I'll bet you hear about it by the end of the second day. I did.
   Trust me, I am the only one you can.
   The General Manager of a hotel is fuedal ruler of the hotel, his/her secretary, no matter how friendly, actually runs the place, and will feed all info you tell her immediately to the GM, no matter what she says or swears to you. Confidentiality be damned. Remember, there is NO such thing inside a hotel executive office.
   Human Resources, (personnel office) is not now, or ever will be your friend. My advice is to avoid them at all costs until you have a personnel matter where a lawsuit may raise it's ugly head with another employee.
   If you are considering a lawsuit, say NOTHING to HR. They are NOT your friends, consult your own personal attorney and say zero, nada, zip to ANYONE inside the hotel every at any time.
   Remember, you are playing poker with HR, and you never want to show HR your own hand.
   More later.
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