Classmates

Recently I stopped in at the website classmates.com and took a look at those listed from my high school. It was fun looking at some current pictures of people I knew back in the early 1980's. Good old Generation X.

Today I received an e-mail from one of those classmates. It was fun to hear from her and I just finished sending her an e-mail giving her the extremely condensed version of my life since graduation.

The e-mail was longer than I expected, but it was actually a good exercise to review the successes I have had in my life.

In his book, The Success Principles, Jack Canfield recommends that you "acknowledge your positive past." He points out that we tend to remember our failures more than the successes because the failures in our past usually carry more emotions at the time. That is what programs our subconscious mind, emotions. So, the subconscious tends to keep track of the failures.

Jack Canfield suggests keeping a journal, or a list, of our successes. When things don't go quite right, we can read our list and remember the things we accomplished. Positive reinforcement works very well with our employees, it can work just as well on yourself.

Try an exercise from The Success Principles. Divide your life into three parts. List three major successes for each part of your life. From learning to ride a bike to the big promotion at work. See how good you start to feel about yourself. If you take it to the next level, expand the list to 100 successes.

I am going for the list of 100.

Still Some Toolboxes Left

My CD-ROM, Hotel Manager's Toolbox, is full of useful Excel worksheets, PDF forms, and sample letters for the hotel manager. These are things I have created throughout my career and some of my past hotels still use these tools today.

I have a few of them left.

It has been suggested that I raise the price. I will keep the price the same, for now.

Go to THIS PAGE to place your order.

Rejection is a Myth

I just learned that rejection is a myth. It really doesn’t mean anything and it really has no actual bearing on your life. What it all boils down to is the way you look at it. They way you decide to think about it and how you react to rejection.

This is how I have come to understand it.

Rejection is a part of life. We are rejected all the time throughout the day. The exact rejection doesn’t matter because it did not change anything in you life. Nothing is different after the rejection than it was before.

You ask somebody for something, they say ‘no’. You didn’t have it before you asked, you still don’t have it, and so nothing has changed. The rejection didn’t cause anything to happen in your life, like it never was, like it didn’t exist, like a myth.

Let’s say Frank asked Sara out to dinner. Sara declined he invitation. Frank didn’t have anybody to eat dinner with before he asked her, he didn’t have anybody to eat dinner with after he asked her. Nothing actually changed in Frank’s life.

From now on I am going to work on letting all rejections go. They don’t change my current state of affairs, so they don’t do anything to cause me any harm. My life continues as before and there is no reason to dwell on it, no reason t get all worked up over it, no reason to keep me from asking again.

Rejection is a myth.

Hospitality

Hospitality is defined in one dictionary, Wordnet by Princeton University, in a way that I really like. It says hospitality is “kindness in welcoming guests or strangers.” For most of us, most of the time, the guests who come to our hotels are strangers to us. By using the one simple word, kindness, we find hospitality described in an easy to remember form that all of us can understand. We can approach any guest contact situation with kindness. I find that the word kindness evokes a pleasant and positive feeling for people when they hear it. To apply kindness to hospitality really helps anybody understand what is meant by hospitable service.

The overall environment to give our guests the best stay possible is one of kindness, cordial, and generous hospitality. An environment that is welcoming and informative with no problems. To avoid potential problems have information ready if the guest needs it, but don’t force the information on guests who don’t want it.

Generation X likes to gather information and if you can provide the information they are asking for, when they ask for it, then you become a hero to the Gen X guest. You take one more step to proving that you deserve their loyalty. Anticipating needs is the best way to reduce, or eliminate, problems before they occur.

Not too long ago I was in Portland, Oregon, to conduct a seminar at the Holiday Inn Portland Airport. The printer sent out the workbooks for the seminar one day later than I expected. So, at 10:00 o’clock the night before the seminar, I was in desperate need for a FedEx Kinko’s store to print some emergency copies of the seminar workbook. I asked at the front desk where I could find the Kinko’s and the desk clerk knew the location of the store. She then opened a file drawer and pulled out a piece of paper which she handed to me. It had exact, detailed directions to the Kinko’s store. It started with ‘turn left out of the hotel driveway…’ and it included distances between each turn. I drove to the Kinko’s store as if I had made the trip a hundred times before. That hotel anticipated my needs and prepared the information ahead of time to satisfy my need. That was something I did not expect. They exceeded my expectations by preparing for my needs.

For more information about Generation X and their hotel travel patterns, as well as some tips on coaching Gen X, my eBook is available for download.
http://www.freewebs.com/borderlandhosp/xcellentserviceebook.htm

Talk about a long hotel stay

I just read this article about a couple who stayed in a hotel room for 22 years. The elderly couple said it was cheaper than an old-folks home and they get looked after. The article reported that they paid $238,270 over the years. I figure that comes to about $30 a night. Obviously they are getting X-cellent Guest Service.

Here is a link to the article:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22402935-5005961,00.html



This reminds me of an idea I had at one time. I heard on the radio where a station made a million dollar guarantee. They said if you pay them one million dollars, they guarantee to play your song on the radio.

I thought why not do that at my hotel? Offer a $50,000 guarantee. Tell people if they want to pay the hotel $50,000 (about $136 per night) we would guarantee to have their room ready for them at any time they dropped in, for one full year.

I never did promote the idea, but I still think it might be a good gimmick. Maybe I will have the chance to try it later in my career.

Thinking of a Past Workmate

When I was FOM at the Hampton Inn I-10 West, Phoenix, I worked with Jeff who was our Sales Director.

Jeff has been on my mind recently for no specific reason. I really don't know why he popped in there. He and I had a great working relationship. The two of us ran the entire hotel at a time when we had no GM, no Executive Housekeeper, and no Maintenance. It was him and me taking care of the whole place for a couple of weeks until our home office hired a new Exec Housekeeper and Maintenance. Our new GM arrived a week or two after that.

But, for those two weeks it was just me and Jeff keeping the place running. We had the Room Attendants and Front Desk (less the full time Night Audit) staff and one breakfast hostess. The way we did it was to set up two roll-a-way beds in the meeting room and he would sleep for a few hours while I was managing the hotel, then I would sleep for a few hours while he did the manager thing. We would go to our respective homes just long enough to take a shower and change clothes.

One day it was time for me to wake him up, we were going to deliver our weekly paperwork to the home office on the other side of town. So, I woke him up and he went into the little bathroom in the meeting room and I heard him say, "Oh man, I've got sheet face." I was punchy from lack of sleep for a few days and his comment just sent me in hysterics. I laughed about that comment the rest of the day. Every time I thought about it I would laugh just as hard as I did at that moment. Jeff kept looking at me saying, "It's not that funny."

I think what made it funny to me was (1) I never heard that term before, and (2) it made me think of a description of somebody being drunk. When they are S*#% Faced.

Anyway, Jeff was on my mind lately and I wanted to post about that fun memory.

Jeff, if you happen to see this... E-mail me. Let's catch up.

Will

Success Principles

I am currently reading The Success Principles by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer. The first chapter gave me insight right from the get-go. Mr. Canfield says that in order for us to make our life better, to get to where we want to be, we need to take 100% responsibility for absolutely everything in our life. Everything we have, whether we like it or don’t like it, it is our responsibility, 100%, no exceptions.

This goes right along with the ancient Hawaiian system Ho’oponopono that Joe Vitale wrote about in his book Zero Limits. So, when I read the part about 100% responsibilities it was not a new concept to me. But, Mr. Canfield included a formula to help clarify the subject.

E + R = O

Event (E) plus our Response (R) = the Outcome (O).

The way we respond to any event will affect the outcome, or final results. How we react to any given event is what has brought us to the place we currently are. If we don’t like the way things have worked out so far… change the way we respond to things. This is the only way to change, or improve, the outcome.

If your habits continually bring about undesired results in your life, then to change the results you must change those habits. Remember the old saying about insanity being defined as continuing the same behavior and expecting a different result.

This also means no more blame. You can’t blame anybody or anything else for anything in your life that you don’t like. 100% responsibility really means 100% responsibility. You aren’t a victim anymore, you can’t demand others to feel sorry for you, you are responsible. I know this can be a tough pill to swallow. This may be a rude wake up call for some people, but it is the truth.

I can see so many ways this attitude will improve things. For example, if you are 100% responsible then there is no need to complain. It’s not anybody else’s responsibility so why complain about it? If you are not complaining, others may like to be around you more, it also helps to raise your own emotional state to a more positive place because you are not dwelling on the negatives by complaining.

Already I find excitement in this book. It will help to improve anybody’s life. I look forward to the changes and improvements in my life with the things I will learn and implement.

Thank you, Jack Canfield, for writing this book.

Service = Action

As I have posted before, Service is doing that which others need but are unable to do for them selves. Or it can be doing what other would rather not do for them selves. Either way, service is still doing something for another.

The key here is action. Service means to do something, and doing something requires action. To do means to act.

In my famous service rule, “Do whatever it takes to make the guest (or customer) happy” the key word is “Do.”

This word implies that action needs to be taken. This action is on the shoulders of the staff member who had the initial contact with the customer.

The idea is to do something so the guest does not need to wait for a manager to be tracked down. If the employee has the ability and knows what the best course of action might be, then let them take that action on their own behalf.

After all, most of the time they know what the manager will do, so let them do it and take care of the guest so the manager can do manager type things.

As long as the guest is happy, then proper service has been rendered. The right thing was done. The correct course of action was taken.

My Fish Story

Service is doing that which others need but are unable to do for them selves. Or it can be doing what other would rather not do for them selves. Either way, service is still doing something for another.

In the hotel industry it is the service that will separate you from the other hotels in your area as well as other hotels in the world. Could your hotel be known around the world for your service? Of course it could. Absolutely.

I mean if a small fish market in Seattle, Washington, could become world famous why not your small hotel? Last year I visited Pike’s Place Fish Market (yeah, the place where they throw the fish) even though I do not like fish. I am the only one in my family who wants to order a burger at Red Lobster. I never really had a liking for any form of seafood.

Anyway, I went to Pike’s Place specifically to see the world famous fish market and to experience the service, if only by association. I was surprised that it was smaller than I expected. All the stories made it sound so much bigger than it actually was.

Yet the stories about the kind of service they provide were no exaggeration. They really do make the customers feel great. They really do have fun in their work and that fun rubs off on the customers. They have a great time at work and the customers (and the observers) have a great time just being there.

If you have not read the book “Fish” I would recommend it. The book is fun, just like the place.

Another Attitude Quote

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.” William James (1842 - 1910)

This is so true in my case. I have seen some of my worse situations suddenly turn around simply because I focused on positive thoughts. Look for the positive in every situation, even the devastating ones. I heard an interview with Dr. Joe Vitale and he said that ten years after a major, devastating event in your life, you can look back and see the positive that resulted from that situation when at the time you can’t see the positive. Then he went on to say why not look for the positive when the situation occurred? If you can see it ten years later, why not see it now? Take advantage of the fact that you can alter the attitudes of mind right away and skip over long periods of dread.

A poster one of my teachers had in the classroom in high school had the old saying on it, ‘when life gives you lemons make lemonade.” I remember that poster pretty clearly. It made sense to me at the time, but now it carries even greater meaning to me, now that I have the experience.