March is that transitional month between seasons.
We can get snow in the early morning and up to the
sunny sixties by 1 pm. Easter and Spring Break,
hearty croci and tulips, buds and shy strains of green
hearken the changes, but our Hospitality landscape
will be a challenge.
We still have Economists debating the definition of a
recession and where we are in that spiral; politicians
do not touch the topic. Most of us sullenly watch the
price of gasoline escalate, digest the high cost of
shopping for basics, and marvel at the number of "for
sale" signs, sprouting like daffodils. Hospitality
— brace yourselves!
Hopefully, we have learned the value of our Brand,
what it takes to burnish our reputation and promote
our excellence and differentiation, thus retaining that
Market edge.
This issue will try a
different presentation. Although we may be Content
starved, we are also Time constrained. Therefore, the
USA Today approach: tidy, topic snippets for your
delight and selection. Enjoy!
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TRAVEL AND CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE |
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Our Destination areas
are anticipating a changing dynamic, due to
Consumer "spend-down", heightened competition,
and reduced internal resources.
- Perhaps it is time to reconsider your
community paradigm and Value Proposition.
- Late last year, the State of Mississippi issued a
statement of Reliability for their Visitors. As State
Tourism Director, D. Craig Ray, advised, "Visitors
will be directed through our Tourism Portals to 'Look
for a Hospitality Certified Lodging on your next trip to
Mississippi to ensure your Guest Satisfaction'! Read about the Program and
consider how this initiative might impact your
Destination city, region, state, or island.
- On the Crowded Restaurant Landscape,
Reliability Also Has Play, Further Recognizing
Excellence. We designed a program with we8there, the largest
Patron Review web site in the world. We call it the
"Excellence in Dining" Program. Talk about the value
of Reliability — what is a stronger statement
than "Peer Reviewed and Quality Assured" to
influence a dining decision. Take a look.
- To Influence, You Need To Be Seen and
Heard, Otherwise, You Will Be Dismissed. You
need to keep your business "face" in the public
domain and advertise your Distinction, or people will
forget you. We have a thriving relationship with Hotel
Resource, the prominent Hospitality portal on the
Internet, which I encourage you to visit. This is a
means to keep your Brand alive in the global
marketplace through extensive distribution of your
Press Releases and strategic Internet Advertising. Consider this Source.
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MARKETING |
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Advertising Opportunities |
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This Newsletter reaches an over 7,000 and
growing,
hand-picked global audience. They are the decision
makers in their various Hospitality segments and
niches. You seek prominence in the Marketplace.
Consider us for your Logo or Banner Ad. Reasonable
cost for maximum exposure!
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DELIVERY ON THE PROMISE |
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So, we have now
effectively promoted our business(es). Visitors,
Guests and Patrons clamor for our attention, and we
must deliver. We turn to our Ambassadors —
our Staff, our resident Talent.
Human Resources Right-sized — the
"Right" People in the "Right" Slots. Do your
people have the traits for success, do you recruit
intelligently, do you develop your talent to maximize
your business? Might we present the Winslow Assessment
Report. This remarkable product will
transform your business, returning you
20–60% in Revenue Growth from your Sales
staff, improved Management execution and
employee productivity. We have partnered with Profit
Hunters to bring the Winslow Assessment Report to
you. Check it out with our Partner
www.profithunters.biz.
This year and forward,
your biggest challenge is the talent search and how
to develop that talent. We have some further thoughts
for you.
How to Attract the Next Generation
(The Best and Brightest) to Your
Business(es)
Creative Means to Recruit —
Tout Your Brand — You Are King Material at
Burger King:
With Hospitality the" revolving door" for employees,
particularly in our restaurants, the need to creatively
attract and retain Human Capital slogs on. However,
one large concern has a different campaign
afoot.
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Splendid Career Opportunities |
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Our Partner, Bruce Dingman (www.dingman.com), has some
wonderful opportunities in hand for the talent we
serve. Recently, he was chosen by
BusinessWeek.com as one of the "Top 50 Most
Influential Headhunters" in the world. Check out the
ongoing searches.
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TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT |
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Certainly, Training to
improve your Sales should be a priority right
now.
Strategic Partner, Carol Verret, of Carol Verret &
Associates Consulting & Training, is offering a Hotel
Sales seminar, I Hate Cold calls —
Web 2.0 and a New Paradigm of Hotel Sales,
open to hotel sales professionals across the
country.
Consider her business model: The seminars are
usually hosted by a management company with
multi-property presence in the region. One of their
properties hosts the program, providing the meeting
room, coffee breaks, AV and two nights'
accommodation for Ms. Verret. The host hotel can
send its entire sales force to the program
complimentary.
The management company associated with the host
hotel may send its sales associates from any or all of
their other hotels for 50% off the regular fee. Other
hotels in the market receive a discount on the fee,
when two or more from the same property
attend.
The next Seminar is scheduled for San Diego on
April 4 and following in LA on May 16. Tucson and
Portland have been confirmed, but no date has been
set.
For more information please contact Carol Verret at
(303) 618-4065 or email her at
carol@carolverret.com.
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RESTAURANTS |
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Wherefore the Print Media? |
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Run those Presses, please!
Newspapers are being sold off, circulation and
advertising dollars are way down, skilled reporters
and News Bureaus are displaced, and print is
moving quickly to electronic rendering of the news,
products and services. No silver bullets here
— cut costs, enhance revenue, manage
smarter and leaner. What has been surprising is
the lack of innovation and risk, with Marketing and
Advertising Executives still practicing the tried and
true, waiting for someone else to take the lead!
The Experience: Visitors and residents alike
want to live your city "Experience", that which makes
your community special. We help you create that
Experience.
This is a wonderful opportunity to give readers
(consumers) what they want (certified reliability),
advertisers maximum exposure (print and online),
community partners (CVB's, Chambers, Associations)
synergistic relationships (raise the Hospitality bar),
and newspapers an opportunity for new Revenue
Streams and prominence! We are talking a
Hospitality Portal! Plus, typically newspapers have
the most accessed Web Site in town — what a
platform! They are the "horse to ride". We have you
covered, with an example below of our product for
the Southeast.
We do all the work and deliver the Hospitality
Certified businesses; Newspapers make revenue
through their directed Advertising and Marketing
Programs of these businesses. Time to saddle up!
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FINANCING |
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Many of us feel the
insecurity and turmoil in the market.
Cameron Larkin, our Allied
Partner and Managing Director of Larkin
Hospitality Finance, has a different take, reflecting the
inherent optimism of hoteliers amid conflicting
economic news, where we are in the hotel business
cycle, and resulting financing challenges/
opportunities in the current commercial lending
environment.
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OPERATING EXPENSES |
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GREEN |
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HOSPITALS AND MEDICAL CENTERS |
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We tend to forget that
Hospitals and Health Care Centers are very similar to
Hotels in many aspects, with the biggest difference
being that their "Guests" really do not want to be
there. Now, a National Survey is rating those facilities
for Patient Satisfaction. Sound Familiar?
Study Finds Many
Patients Dissatisfied With Hospitals
We put together a Program several years ago to help the Health Care
Community improve their Reputation, their
community marketing, and Customer
Service.
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THE BRAND |
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This is where
it all
started, now the complete circle. This is your story,
your passion, what you stand for, what you say you
will deliver. As you pursue excellence, it is a good
idea to revisit the premises you have
crafted.
Keep Your Company Alive by
Rethinking Your Brand
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Resources on the Drawing Board |
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Hospitality Leaders need resources to refresh
their perspectives, learn new techniques and skills,
and keep ahead of the curve.
In concert with Hotel Resource.com and Carol Verret
and Associates, we are designing a Forum for
Excellence, Executive 3.0.com, bringing
together the finest minds and high level services to
help you better manage your business complexities.
Watch for the inauguration, coming shortly.
Additionally, our company will soon launch a new
web site, called "Hospitality-How-To". This
domain will be designed to answer your questions,
by providing a warehouse of resources and real time,
interactive answers from our global community, from
those who may have experienced the same or similar
problems and challenges you face. Stay tuned!
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Portfolio of Partners |
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What are your needs — Water Parks,
Employee Benefits, Hotel Design, Interactive Virtual
Tours? Perhaps F&B Inventory Systems, Spa or Club
Management or Realty Valuation? We have you
covered!
Hospitality Performance endeavors to continually
provide beneficial Products and Services to our
diverse Client base. Our Portfolio of Allied Partners
represent Value to the Hospitality Industry, offering a
variety of services, tools and answers to many of your
Management concerns. Take a
tour.
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ATTENTION: Meeting Planners. Our Senior Consultants have a multiple of Programs to present. Invigorate your audiences, challenge their sensibilities, elevate their professional development. Call on us! |
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Susan Swanson, the
founder of "Create", a Consulting Firm, brings a new
dimension to Organizational Development with her
emphasis on Innovation in the work and market
place. She skillfully facilitates the change paradigm,
utilizing Creativity and the Creative Problem Solving
process to attain company goals and align product,
service and business processes for success. She has
moved her expertise into Assisted Living
Communities, designing initiatives to further embrace
Elder Care Programs.
Peter
Hughes is president of High Performance
Leadership, providing management education,
organizational development, and focus on creating
outstanding leadership behaviors within the
organization. Peter helped us immensely with our
2006 Destination Development assignment in
Anguilla, BWI, bringing his Customer Service training
module to a very diverse island audience. His talents
were acclaimed by all participants.
Brecca Loh, principal of
Cobalt Strategic Partners, is a communications
specialist, leadership and development teacher, as
well as an organizational development expert. She is
dedicated to improving organizational performance
through maximizing the potential of client employees.
An avid believer in viewing "human capital" as one of
the strongest assets of an organization, she
understands that behavior and attitude impact
culture. Her teachings are dedicated to systematically
developing and correlating that asset into
measurable, tangible increases in service,
productivity and profitability.
Tony
Castro, a thirty year veteran in Hospitality,
brings his unique skills to any forum and audience.
Particularly, his assignments over the years with
Marriott (Corporate Director of Human Resources,
General Manager, and Restaurant Manager) in
addition to Consulting work with many other
Hospitality concerns provide a unique fluidity,
expertise and perspective to meet educational
needs. He is also recognized as a Certified Trainer
by both Homestead Studio Suites Hotels and
Wyndham Hotels. A firm believer that learning should
be enjoyable, he designed, developed and facilitated
an interactive Effective Employee Relations/Union
Avoidance program, which has been successfully
presented to line level management and supervisory
staffs. A graduate of the Cornell's School of Hotel
Administration, Tony provides the added dimension
of Training and Development programs delivered in
Spanish.
* Celebrating
Ten Years of Successful Consultative Services *
John R. Labruzzo,
CHA, was introduced to Hospitality through the
Culinary Arts as a busboy at Brennans Restaurant in
New Orleans and then a cook's apprentice at the
Royal Orleans Hotel. His thirty year career has led to
the highest levels in Hospitality with hotels, resorts
and property management concerns. His
entrepreneurial and intuitive management style has
created Brand Value and profitability for all his
clients. John's enthusiastic delivery and
down-to-earth approach is ideally suited for all types
of business groups from front line employees to top
management. His style reflects professional
experience as a former Senior Hotel Executive,
allowing him to address operations, sales and
marketing, finance and Human Resources issues
and topics. He is an expert on the dynamics of "Brand
In-culturation", which takes that Brand promise,
translated into sustainable programs and techniques
at the operating level, leading to substantial results.
John holds a BA from Southeastern Louisiana State
University and attended the Graduate School of
Business at Loyola.
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Recent Articles |
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Conclusion |
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Our visitor and guest still have high expectations, and
we must continue to strive to meet those demands
and create a memorable experience. We are ready to
help you deliver. My best regards and
thanks.
Thank you for your business and interest in
Hospitality Performance!
Please direct any comments you might have to me
personally at:
jrhendrie@aol.com.
Forward to a friend
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