Insights Type: Articles

By Kaitlin Dunn, Writer, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI)

Judi Holler, author of Fear Is My Homeboy, presented the keynote speech at HSMAI’s ROC 2019. Holler encourages people to embrace fear and get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Members of HSMAI’s Rising Sales Leader Council discussed Holler’s ideas along with a similarly themed article by Rainesford Stauffer on a recent call, during which they shared what has helped them take risks, push past self-doubt, and identify their professional strengths and weaknesses. Here are key takeaways from their discussion:

PUSHING YOURSELF

• “Each time I made those scary decisions, it made me more comfortable and more confident in myself in making the next scary decision. And I think that’s the process you need to go through. And that’s how you grow that self-confidence.”
• “When you push yourself beyond what you think you can do, you learn that the little things will help you get through the bigger things. When you’re not believing in yourself and you’re having that self-doubt, you have to remember that someone put you in that position because they believe you can accomplish this.”
• “It could be boring if you were never fearful. If you never felt intimidated, if you never felt that you were under-prepared, if you never felt that you were going to learn something from that meeting or that experience, you would absolutely be bored.”
• “Sometimes, we’re the hardest critics of ourselves. So, what I started doing a while back was making like a of things that I think are good, whether it be with work or personal, and a bad list. And with those bad lists, I’d try three new solutions until I found out how to make my bad things good. That really put me outside my comfort zone, especially in work. I will say it’s so jarring to see that on paper and be honest with yourself like that, But it propelled me so much further, getting uncomfortable and being super-honest.”

ASSESSING YOUR STRENGTHS

• “One of the best things that I learned from using those types of tests and finding out people’s strengths and weaknesses is play to those strengths. And that’s how I think you can really be successful as a leader. You knowing your own strength is good. What you do with your team’s strengths and weaknesses, and how you mesh that team together to work and get the job done quick, is what helps your team as a whole and helps you sell more. Once everybody understands their strengths, it really helps you get things done the right way.”
• “When you start looking at your strengths and your weaknesses, you often focus on the weaknesses. But instead of saying, ‘How do I fix that?,’ really look at your strengths as well and look at what’s causing those instead of what’s causing your weaknesses. Focusing on how you accomplish your positives can also help you bring your weaknesses up.”
• “What I love about a 360 assessment instead of some of the other strength assessments is that it gives you other people’s perceptions of what you are. And I believe in having outsight on how other people perceive you, not just how you personally think you are. I’ve been fortunate to have someone at work to help me with that, and I hope everybody at work has someone who can gut-check them and help with what you lose focus on.”

ACCEPTING REJECTION AND CRITICISM

• “At the end of the day, as long as I know I did everything I could, failure is not a problem. That means you tried. So, failure is a good thing.”
• “We’re salespeople. If you really, truly embrace sales, then failing at a sale should roll off your back. It shouldn’t be that hard for us to try things and fail. That’s what we do every day. Every time we pick up the phone to call someone, we might not get a call back. You should have some pretty tough skin if you’re in sales.”
• “Being in sales means getting rejected, which can suck, but it’s all a part of what we love. At least for me, the rejections become a challenge to do better, and it motivates me to get going.”
• “We want to receive positive feedback, but I also think we need to get ourselves to a point where we can embrace negative feedback as well, because it’s often not completely negative, it’s just constructive feedback on a way that you can tailor yourself to be more successful.”

By Kaitlin Dunn, Writer, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI)

We may not be as stressed as we were a year ago, but many hospitality professionals, including salespeople, are drained, just as the majority of their customers are. And when customers offload their heavy feelings on salespeople, it can be tough to avoid internalizing those feelings and becoming even more burnt out.

Members of HSMAI’s Rising Sales Leader Council recently discussed how they navigate these difficult conversations and release the stress that comes with them. Here are key takeaways from their conversation.

SHOWING EMPATHY

• “I think most of the time from my experience, people just want someone to listen. And if you do that, then I feel like that’s how you can connect with them, just by having empathy.”
• “During these times, the best situation is to just let them release whatever feelings they have and empathize with them. All they want to do is have someone to talk to. I talked to a guest a few days ago and she just unloaded for 45 minutes and I just sat there and listened. When she was done, she said, ‘Thank you so much. I haven’t had anyone that’s had the time to just sit there and listen to what have I been going through.’”

PRACTICING SELF-CARE

• “You give a lot in that interaction and you’re left with little afterwards. You feel kind of drained. My recommendation is taking a walk or FaceTiming with your baby, whatever helps you, but you need to ground yourself after those calls. It’s not okay to just keep powering through. You need to digest that interaction, so that it doesn’t internalize and go home with you.”
• “I make a fun little bingo card to cross off on personal releases. You have to find your personal release, whether it’s yoga or watching a movie or just taking a shower. I use that as a weekly reminder that I need to make at least one bingo this week and do a bit of self-care.”
• “I’m the worst at trying to do too many things and once you’re done with a long conversation, you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, that took forever. I have to make up for lost time.’ But instead, take a walk or go outside or get a nice tea. Just do something to reset your mind.”

USING HELPFUL METHODS TO NAVIGATE CONVERSATIONS

• “We have a tool that we use called LEAP — listen, empathize, ask, and produce. You listen first and show them empathy. And then just be able to ask some questions and find out if there’s something you can do for them. And that can lead to something to help with that issue, or it can help continue to build your strong business relationship, because maybe you’re able to turn the conversation back to business and what you both can do for each other.”
• “I use SNAP, which is stop, notice, ask, and pivot, which helps me with the emotional intelligence part of it. Because when you start internalizing that information, it starts making you less efficient with your day because you’re only thinking about that. The pause that comes first is really helpful.”
• “One thing that’s really helped me is this: I think all of us have done this in reading an email. We take a certain tone with it because it just seems like that’s the tone of the email. And then I can feel myself getting riled up in it, and I’ll say, ‘Nope, I’m just going to set it aside.’ And I’ll actually go back and reread it later and realize that they’re not saying what I interpreted. I know it’s basic and it’s something we talk about, but I’ve found myself misinterpreting something that can be taken out of context, and taking that pause helps me get perspective back.”

MAINTAINING PROFESSIONAL BOUNDARIES

• “We do have to remember that we aren’t therapists, that isn’t our job. We feel like we are, if there’s a client that really has something to say, but I think we do have to remember that it’s not our role as a professional in business to give them advice. Even if you’re friends with the client, they’re never really your friend, they’re your client first.”
• “I felt a lot of pressure to maintain that relationship with a longstanding client who was offloading with me. Sometimes you get put in a position where you have no choice. You have to listen. It leaves you in a situation where you don’t ever want to talk to them again and they’re going to be on property at one point. I didn’t like the way it left me feeling and I didn’t like this imprint our conversation left on me, but it is what it is.”

CHECKING IN AND HAVING THESE CONVERSATIONS IS IMPORTANT

• “You can’t trust what you see on social media. People can make things look really fantastic and social media may be an outlet for some people, but it’s important to really check in with them.”
• “It’s always good to try to find out and stay in touch with others and find out what is going on. We had a long-term client ghost us in the past few months, and we thought that it was on our side. When we finally were able to make a connection, it turned out that it was a personal issue that they were going through. It’s important to be sensitive to clients’ personal things, both COVID and non-COVID related.”
• “If you haven’t talked to somebody in a while that you work with or used to work with, it’s really important to check in on each other as well. Your direct team, your old team, I just really encourage that, because you never know what somebody is going through.”

How COVID has changed the lives of hospitality professionals for the better.

You probably don’t need any additional insights into how the pandemic has affected hospitality for the worse. Furloughs, layoffs, closings — you’ve been living the bad news for more than a year now.

Without discounting the pain and uncertainty that too much of our industry is still facing, it’s important also to look for the ways that the COVID crisis has helped us, directly or indirectly. This is something HSMAI has been tracking since the beginning; we’ve regularly polled our expert communities — including our advisory boards and Executive Roundtables — on the positive outcomes they’ve seen in adapting and responding to the pandemic.

Most often, those conversations have focused on professional strategies. But at our most recent series of Executive Roundtable programs — bringing together leaders in hotel sales, marketing, revenue optimization, loyalty, and technology from brands and HMCs — we asked participants: “In the last year, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?” Their answers show how closely work and home life have become intertwined, and what hospitality professionals have done to better enforce boundaries between the two, in the process changing their lives for the better.

Here are key responses from all eight Executive Roundtables:

As with everything related to the pandemic, we have no idea which of these changes will have a lasting or even permanent impact on the industry. But we can hope that a renewed focus on personal wellbeing is less than temporary.

By Robert Gilbert, CHME, CHBA, President and CEO, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI)

More than 300 hospitality students from 17 hospitality schools attended the HSMAI Greater New York Chapter’s Virtual Global Intercollegiate Spring Conference on April 5–8, 2021, to network, learn more about the industry, and hear from renowned speakers. Coordinated by New York University, Pennsylvania State University, and St. John’s University, the conference featured an opening keynote from one of the most dynamic leaders in hotel real estate: Art Adler, president and founder of Adler Hotel Advisors LLC.

During his presentation, Adler offered students a variety of insights into the evolving hospitality landscape as well as aspects of leadership that will be important to them as they move through their careers.

THE FUTURE OF THE INDUSTRY

Adler shared what he considers opportunities and threats facing the hospitality industry specifically around consolidation, branding, and distribution. While he thinks brand consolidation and proliferation will continue, there are still important considerations such as:

• Will brands become marginalized?
• What is truly important to consumers? Is it brand, experience, location, or something else?
• Will distribution systems such as Google, Amazon, and OTAs outflank the brands?
• When it comes to independent management companies: Is bigger better?

Adler’s overarching advice: “Follow the money.”

LEADERSHIP: MOTIVATING PEOPLE AND LESSONS LEARNED

After many decades in hospitality, Adler is well-versed on what it takes to be an impactful leader. He stressed the importance of employee retention, which has many benefits for an organization, including:

• Experience results in better employee judgement.
• Loyal employees translate to loyal customers.
• Losing key employees results in a loss of productivity and increased financial costs of finding and training new people.

But how can leadership motivate employees to stay? Adler noted that engagement drives retention on every level. His advice for engaging with employees included:

• Treat everyone from top to bottom with respect.
• Involve junior employees in internal meetings.
• Invest in training, including management training.
• Remember that your best salespeople are not necessarily your best managers.
• Interact cross-regionally and across hotels on every level.
• Small rewards and recognition matter.
• Use a manager/employee 360 feedback process.

Adler added that it is important to create a fun, inclusive, and collaborative environment that employees will want to be involved in. His tips for that included:

• Compensation drives behavior.
• Compensation and organizational structures must be consistent with fostering a team environment.
• Lead by example – put the team first and yourself last.
• Involve senior team members in setting strategy, as their buy-in is crucial for success.
• The power is in the team – teams should have goals and rewards as a group.
• Organizations need transparency from the top to the bottom.

Overall, Adler painted a rosy picture for students interested in having careers in hospitality. The growth and recovery of the industry over the next few years will provide significant growth opportunity for those who can make an impact in driving and managing revenues for hotels and hotel companies. The future of hospitality will be better than ever, and today’s students have a bright future to look forward to in the industry.