I made time today to relax and take in all of the changes at my hotel. It’s nice to give yourself a break and do something that you enjoy once in a while. Gives you something to look forward to as well.

The next three weekends I will be working. So I wanted today to kick back and try not to think about anything….I would like to say to clear my head. Nothing like a nice long walk on the beach.

The changes at the hotel are bothering me some. I know that the Catering Sales Manager will be either changing positions or leaving the hotel. I think of her as my partner and we work well together. But she is resistant to the new Opera System and the new policies that have been implemented.

The new Management Team has one rule – you either do it or there’s the door. It’s written on the wall crystal clear. Out of 17 Managers that were with us prior to the new Team coming in, only 5 of us are left. FIVE. They have their own people and I heard the GM say that he was building his dream team. I can not figure out where I stand? I have made it through several “sweeps” and I have made it through every time. But I just can’t read these people.

I posted my resume on-line through a popular site and submitted two jobs that I thought sounded good. And I sent an email with my cover letter and resume attached to all the head hunter contacts that I had. Always keep them….you never know.

I’m disappointed that it had to come to this. I love the property and the staff. Maybe I spent too much time thinking today….or maybe I just had enough. I breezed through all of my blogs and it made me realize that it was most likely time to move on. Or maybe I should make myself a drink and call it night.

To some Sales People they wouldn’t care or they would leave because of a salary increase. But for me it’s much more. It’s a big decision….look at the economy. Most hotels will fall into their slow season with the Holidays and through March. I need to be careful. I have 1 weeks vacation, health insurance, direct deposit into 2 accounts……the property is 15 minutes from the house…….I haven’t stopped thinking. Seems like so many positives but I’m miserable.

The top reason why I am checking out the market is because I just want to sell. I’m fine with Opera and I have leads ready. My office space is still barely unusable, my computer resources are terrible and I feel like I’m walking on egg shells. All I want to do is sell. I don’t mind helping, working late, attending last minute all day trade shows, but during my “prime selling time – 9:30am – 11:30am and 1:00pm – 4:30ish pm”, I SHOULD BE LEFT ALONE. Between these times it should be prospecting only. How am I going to make budget if I have interference during time to prospect?

So I’m going to continue to focus and do a good job. In the meantime I will check out the market. There is no harm in keeping an eye out there to see what’s going on.

Have a great Sunday!

Pure Energy

Today I was pretty busy. I did some soliciting over the phone this morning working on trying to get some appointments for next week. Finally all of my letters went out and are completed. And my traces are caught up. Since we don’t have any sales program in the office, I still use the old trace system writing down the group name on index cards. We even still use the big “bibles” for our function bookings. Pretty amazing and what a pain. I waited for my tour bus to arrive tonight…est 5pm…just 16 rooms and found out that they weren’t arriving until after 10pm. Everything was all ready for them so I left to go home about 6:30pm.

I have almost 16 years experience in the hotel industry and I have worked in every department with the exception of Housekeeping….can’t even keep my own home clean! My most recent hotel – full service mid class – is just under 350 rooms with 15,000 square feet of flexible meeting space.

We are located 2 miles of an airport so we draw a lot of business from the airlines and distress passengers. The hotel is newly renovated but still has area’s that could look better and there are projects that we are still working on. They renovated for over 3 years so a lot that has been done is looking worn now. There was no preventative maintenance program ever in place. Yes, I have never experienced a 3 years renovation plan either until now.

I’ve been there almost 2 years to date working mostly as Director of Sales in a 3.5 man office – p/t secretary, 2 catering sm and me the DOS…by 2008 we were down to 1 catering sm (1 had to be let go) and myself and finally I got more hours for the secretary to work with the Catering sm. I mostly booked SMERFE groups. We did increase sales but not enough although we did make budget 9x out of 12. Still many service issues and rude staff. When the new GM came aboard about 2 months ago, I simply was tired of being beat up by my guest’s and the back stabbing, gosh. I asked to be a Sales Manager and for them to bring in someone new to handle this mess.

My new boss is pretty cool and I like her. So I was asked to work in Corporate Transient Segment which I did for 2 weeks and then I was asked to take on the SMERFE Sales Manager position that they were interviewing for. Although at first I was a bit offended, but when I thought about it I realized that I really enjoyed working with the groups….so I’m settled now and plugging away. I have the gift of patience and I’m very friendly so I fit well with all types of SMERFE clients.

Most of the Management Team was let go and new people are being brought in. At first I felt like I was walking on eggs shells each day as these new people were so hard to read. They were and still are always behind closed doors and you just don’t know what is going on or if you are going to be the next one fired. I’m in my 40′s now and I simply want to settle down, book tons of business and have some fun.

I don’t have an interest in hotel hopping anymore as like I did when I was younger simply to make a few bucks more. I did think about looking for a new sales job but my positive benefits list simply out weighed the negative. I like the staff and I know the product and I want to be a part of the team that turns this hotel around. I don’t feel like that everyday though….

Good luck selling tomorrow. I’ll be back.