I’m intimidated by the hoteliers I train
When I started at Social Tables nine months ago, I didn’t know much of anything about hotels. I thought they were a pricey place to sleep. While that may be true in many cases, I’ve come to learn that hotels offer so much more than just a cushy bed.
That’s not to say I’m now some kind of hotels expert. Far from it.
In order to make my hotel-specific trainings resonate, though, I need to thoroughly understand the day-to-day experience of my audience: hoteliers. By picking the brains of my colleagues, attending industry events, working check-in, and helping hotel employees plan a space’s layout, I’ve arrived at a handful of universal hotel truths that guide my interactions with our customers.
1. Every hotel is different.
Each hotel has its own quirks and unique style of doing business. Naturally, some of this is informed by the ownership, management, and brand that oversee operations, as well as simply the market that the hotel serves.
A consequence of this is that while there is a loose sense of hierarchy, sometimes it can be difficult to understand how job responsibilities are distributed. The line frequently gets very blurry for those who use Social Tables the most: group sales, catering sales, executive meeting specialists, convention services, etc.
(In some hotels, there are just one or two catering managers, but in others there can be dozens organized within a more complex, clearly defined hierarchy.)
It’s simply impossible to know what any given hotel’s workforce organization is without discussing it with them. One of the best questions I’ve learned to ask to tease this information out of our customers is: “So do you both book and cook your events?” (h/t Justin)
Still, my greatest fear when interacting with customers is that they’ll see through my thin veneer of wannabe expertise and lose trust in me as an authority on how to use the software in their day-to-day workflow. If that happens, the training becomes worthless in their eyes, and I fall one step further from becoming an industry thought leader.
2. Hotels share a few common traits.
Even though each hotel is different from the next, they all share a few common traits. Employee turnover affects every aspect of the business. From what I’ve observed, finding quality employees is a challenge and holding onto them long-term is even more difficult.
Even though turnover is high, I’ve consistently encountered a huge teamwork mentality. Most hoteliers I’ve encountered demonstrate a great sense of pride when describing their event space to me during calls and trainings. The pressure hoteliers face on a weekly basis to ensure their customers’ events flow smoothly is so high that it requires everyone to pitch in and help out. That sense of teamwork transforms the team into a family.
Recently, an acquaintance of mine interested in pitching his fledgling business to hotels contacted me to learn more about the industry. I was a little taken aback by his request, but when we ended up having an hour-long conversation, I realized just how much I’d absorbed from my dealings with Social Tables customers over the past nine months.
There’s always something new to learn about hotels, though. Even though they are similar in so many ways, each property is a new experience! #eventprof
P.S. If you have any input or criticism of what I’ve written, let me know! I’m very open to hearing your thoughts.
