#othersideinfullstride
Much has been written about how to deal with the current crisis. Cut your costs, modify your approach, innovate, take advantage of stimulus etc.
By now, you should be well down this path.
By now, we believe you should be turning your focus to the development and improvement of your business. Getting back to the fundamentals and tackling some of those projects you’ve never had time to fully flesh out.
Right now, we all have an amazing opportunity that we will unlikely ever get again. While the rooms and hallways are quiet, the phones aren’t ringing quite to the norm, and the pace of life has slowed to barely a walk, now is your time to grow!
Now, is the time to reinvent your business, like never before.
So, what should you do to prepare for the rebound?
What we’ve come up with is the 3 Stages of Hotel Performance Hacking to get you to the other side of this pandemic in full stride (not slowly waking up from hibernation!)
We call it Hotel Performance Hacking because that’s what needs to happen when you are in an unknown and volatile environment like we are in now. It is very much the same as growth hacking, a term commonly used in the entrepreneurial space.
A growth (or performance) hacker is someone who uses creative, low-cost strategies to help businesses acquire and retain customers. Growth hackers tend to be obsessive, curious and analytical:
For each property growth hacking is different and it’s about figuring out why you grow and looking for ways to make that happen on purpose.
These are the immediate reactions and adjustments you make to your business to survive. To stem the bleed and apply triage. Aside from all the fiscal stuff your accountant should be telling you, by now you should have most these in place.
Examples are rate and distribution adjustments, inventory alignment to demand, channel leveraging, front desk training, adjustments to your operation, so on and so on.
You can find plenty of advice within our recent articles: Panic Pause, Pivot; 5 Pills to avoid the Flu; Covid Tactical Roadmap. All this should already be complete.
The here and now. Making the best of a bad situation. Looking for the strategic actions you can take to keep the cashflow alive.
Examples of what you can be doing right now include:
This will be a constant ‘watch and act’ approach until the crisis subsides. Every bum in every bed counts right now, and you need to ensure you’re getting at least your fair market share.
This is where it is at, and certainly for our clients, this is where our focus is.
Once we’ve taken care of the immediate and medium-term priorities, we can now start to think like an entrepreneur, be more creative, be more thorough. Get onto that project, review that technology upgrade, expand your footprint, develop that market.
You’ve likely never had so much time on your hands to work on your business not in it. Much like a saying we heard the other day:
“When fishermen cannot go to sea, they repair nets.”
It’s time to repair the nets. But better than that, it is time to think of new ways to fish. It’s time to optimize, time to recreate, time to re-imagine your business.
Here’s a handful of practical ‘OVERT OPPORTUNITY’ activities we suggest:
Taking a view of your accommodation business literally from the consumers view. Grab a laptop, a tablet and a smartphone and see what the booker sees when they have needs or desires in your general direction.
Start with a Google search of “{your suburb} accommodation”. Check on multiple devices and follow the trail down each of the paths that are commonly available. Use the mindset as if you don’t know your property exists. Watch and learn, how early you appear, how accurate a representation of your property is out there, consider how it ‘motivates’ you to dig deeper, plus check how easy it is to actually transact with your hotel.
This activity will certainly uncover some areas for optimisation.
We’re hearing lots of talk around what’s the next big thing on the back of the pandemic, meaning how can this be turned into an opportunity. While we like this thinking, it’s not a one size fits all approach. We think it will be much more customised to your individual business. So stop looking for ‘the next big thing’ out there, and start looking for it within.
The fact is, no one knows what the future will look like, every hotel is unique and will need its own approach to market return.
Therefore, the best way to create a customised approach we believe is to facilitate a planning session with your team using our Future Proof your Hotel beyond Covid-19 guidelines.
This activity is really designed to help you arrive at a customised plan of attack, but one that potentially positions you well ahead of the marketplace and puts you on the front foot when demand returns.
Taking a more wholistic view (not just online visibility) and checking the pulse of your business while benchmarking it against the industry. A hotel health check should of course include occupancy, average rate & revpar along with all the online visibility factors like search, brand.com website and social proof. But should also cover pricing, messaging, revenue management and sales strategy. This type of review works by obviously pointing out your areas of deficiency and there prescribes the action required to address it.
Now is the time to consider an upgrade of your PMS, Channel Manager, CRM or perhaps some add-ons and enhancements to your existing technology stack. You have a perfect window of opportunity to research, strategise, implement and troubleshoot new technology solutions into your operation.
Be careful of not getting attracted to any ‘bright shiny objects’ though (like a moth to a flame), by ensuring any technology solution is tied in with your broader hotel performance strategy. In other words, don’t let technology lead your strategy. Use technology to leverage your strategy.
Rather than just going madly about the place, trying to re-invent yourself, we strongly advise that you need a plan first. You not only need an action plan but an execution plan with it (that is, a list of jobs to do, as well as a means to stay on track).
A solid plan, so you don’t end up back where you were 2 months ago, madly jumping from one activity to the next, barely keeping your breath as the pressure of the operation pulled you in every direction!
Build yourself a plan, with thought, with strategic reason, and then follow through on execution. Some of us are better at this than others.
Which Hotel Manager are you?
We believe there are 3 distinct types of Hotel Managers out there and depending on which one you are, will depend greatly on which course of action you choose.
Hotel Manager #1 – The Solo Superhero
“Point me in the right direction, I’ll work the rest out myself.”
You’re a DIY personality. You are capable and self sufficient in most areas, you just need to know the advice you’re following is legit.
Hotel Manager #2 – The Guided Go-Getter
“Build the roadmap for me, then just guide me a little”
Your execution skills are impeccable, you just need someone to keep you on track and help get you unstuck from time to time.
Hotel Manager #3 – The Collaborating Commander
“I want it done right the first time, and I want someone to help me roll it out”
It’s not that you aren’t capable, you just value your time and like to ‘stick to your knitting’. You value having someone to work alongside you and together, devising the solution and continually optimising the performance of that solution.
So, depending on which type of Hotel Manager you identify with the most, will determine what your next steps will be.
TYPE #1 you could take a look at the Hotel Growth Guru’s – our online training and support platform that helps you create your very own Master Strategy and Action Plan using our simple 9 step hotel Growth System.
TYPE #2 you could start with a Hotel Health Check which identifies your strengths and weaknesses, benchmarks you against the industry and provides you with a 20 point performance report card along with tangible actions you can begin to implement immediately, to set you on the improvement journey.
TYPE #3 you could go even deeper and have someone like us completed the whole process from start to finish. Receive a far more comprehensive health check, a detailed gap analysis report with a detailed list of recommendations and improvement suggestions. Then we get to work alongside you as we go about implementing the action plan and becoming a valuable partner in your business.
Just remember, we believe there are 3 stages to your recovery.
Stage 1 should already be completed.
Stage 2 is constantly monitoring and adjusting to the market place and where you need to keep your finger on the pulse for now.
Stage 3, is the stuff many will choose not to do. Many will find themselves too busy (even though they are not). Too pre-occupied, too worried, too frozen, too lazy or too much of an attitude like ‘I’ll just wait for the rebound’.
NOW, is the time to take ground, keep moving forward, optimise, improve, enhance, do better and all those other fluffy words that ultimately mean ACT NOW!
Over to you.
#othersideinfullstride #letsgetonwithit
Hotel Strategy Co. is a results-driven performance agency helping Hoteliers maximise the revenue and profits in their accommodation business.
We have a dedicated team of Revenue Managers, Distribution Managers, Number Crunchers, Online Strategists, Digital Marketers, Sales Managers and Performance Optimisation Specialists, waiting to work hard for you.
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A: 62 Bundawarrah Rd. Temora, NSW 2666, Australia
