I took a long term opportunity to become part of the future for a great resort and conference center along the Lake Erie shore. It affects me as an out-of-body experience right now because it has been a long time since I worked day-to-day in a resort. But I realized after a very short time…that I missed the bang and clatter and make-it-happen aspects of a focused sales effort at the property level.
Like other hotels and resorts all over the place, my new property has suffered through the worst year in recent history. Certain markets (the usual suspects) have “dried up”. A once stable return on repeat business is no more. Competitors have come in and taken business away.
After a couple of days, I sat down with my new sales team and told them some of the things that I have mentioned frequently in the past while giving presentations or in some of my writing. I mentioned how having a passion for your product shows in the way you sell it and several other things that I like to talk about to young sales people. I talked about goals and strategic plans as well.
It is hard for some people to foresee a positive future in today’s economy, but I among others think that is changing and following similar course to some of the trends of the last thirty years. I see a bright future for aggressive sales of value, and the ones that figure out how to bottle value and sell and market it properly will be successful.
After talking some more and maybe too long, I finally took a deep breath and looked around the room and told them that we should all be thankful for what we have. It may not be everything that we want, because we always want more, but today we should just be thankful for having an opportunity to do good work together in an environment that is supported by a superior product, great service and very nice people. Everyday we get to sell should serve as a reminder of that.
We all have our own set of issues. We all deal with stress from bills, health issues, and many other things. Life is not perfect, but in most cases it could be worse. On my first day, I said hello to one of the painters. It was a beautiful November day with the temperature in the 60s, geese were heading south overhead, the resort was putting up Christmas lights. I asked him how he was doing, and he said, “Any day above ground is certainly better than one below it. Look around, this is a pretty nice place.” We laughed and I agreed and took it to heart.
As I start each day in my new place, I am going to try and remember that and go from there before anything else. I am thankful for the things that I have and the opportunity before me. I hope to instill that in the nice people around me, but I don’t think I will have to work very hard because many of them already understand.
How true that is! I have said many times that no matter how bleak some things may seem, it is never as bad as you think and that the glass is ALWAYS half full.
Nice to see that in the perspective of a businessman like yourself, that you feel the same way.