All posts by Keith Thompson

The non-event, event

Career

Have you ever gone on a sales pitch, met a customer/client or went to an interview etc., and it did not turn out at all like you were expecting? Well it has happened to me many times and that is what I want to speak about in this blog post. When you are faced with a situation that “seems” to be a waste of time, take a step back and pause before you react. Regardless of how smart you think you are, you don’t know the future of each encounter and what God may have planned for you. The following story is a good example of what I mean.

At Hotel AG we are in the middle of something that may or may not be a great opportunity for us, but it all started with a failed meeting last fall in NY.

We took a meeting last fall in NY with one of the greatest guys you could ever meet. The meeting was for a specific purpose. We show up his office building for the meeting and are prepared with a great sales pitch and power point presentation and we have all the answers planned out. In short, we are ready.

The guy walks in and after the small talk of introductions we start with the pitch. Three minutes into the pitch, this guy holds up his hand and says ‘we would not be interested in doing that.” I stop and think geez,,, I have flown up here for this one purpose and within three minutes, he says no. I have wasted a day and spent a couple thousand dollars on this meeting.

I did what the prudent thing was to do. Salvage the meeting and see where it take us. We ended up going to lunch with the guy and really bonded and developed a very unexpected friendship. That same guy introduced us to another guy who introduced us to another situation may become one of the best things to ever happen for Hotel AG. Who would have ever expected that?

The point is to always listen to your inner heart before you react because just maybe, God is introducing you to a situation or putting you in a place that you didn’t even know was coming. KT

Helen Keller

Life

Helen Keller died in 1968 at the age of 88. Her story is remarkable for everyone that has ever felt sorry for themselves, thought they didn’t have the right opportunities in life, didn’t come from the right family, didn’t go to the right school, didn’t have the right education, didn’t have the right looks, and didn’t measure up. It’s a story for anyone who cannot find joy in the pursuit of life itself.

She was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, which is west of Huntsville. Helen was born healthy but contracted an illness when she was 19 months old that left her blind and deaf and was only able to communicate through hand signs. Imagine a 19 month old baby learning to communicate with hand signs. By age 6, she developed around 60 hand signs to communicate with her family. At one of the special schools she attended, she met a woman by the name of Anne Sullivan who was also visually impaired; she became Helen’s instructor and their friendship lasted for 49 years. She would spell words in Helen’s hand and from that miracle introduction, she learned how to communicate with the world.

She graduated from college with a Bachelor of Arts degree and went on to become a world famous speaker, author of 12 books, and founder of the Helen Keller Institute that helped many people with similar disabilities. Many movies have been created about her story and the Helen Keller Hospital in Sheffield, AL, is dedicated to her as well as a statute that bears a quotation from her is permanently displayed in the US Capital.

I will leave you with this. In one of her earliest speeches in 1916, the title of the speech was “Happiness.” In that speech, she spoke of being thankful for the faculties and abilities that she did possess and that the joy of service to others was really what fulfilled her. She said “helping your fellow man was the only excuse for being in this world and in the doing of things to help one’s fellow man, lay the secret of lasting happiness.” KT

Hello fear

Career, Life

The definition of fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is likely to cause pain. Common synonyms for fear include alarm, panic, agitation, trepidation, dread, consternation, dismay and distress.

Fear is that one thing that holds you back. I choose the term “one thing” because in most cases it is the one thing you are the most afraid of that can manifest itself in many ways and in many forms but it is my opinion that the root is usually found in the fear or anxiety attached to one thing.

Over the years I have hired and trained many hotel brokers. I wished I could tell you that all of them were successful and learned the business but that would incorrect. Everyone comes with their own customized set of luggage. I call it the baggage of life. It is the past pain and past failures that people carry with them through life. Unless this baggage is dealt with, you will carry it all the way to your funeral.

When I think of a person that has allowed fear to control them, I think of the metaphor of a lovely house on a beautiful street that termites have eaten the inside. The fear of action can cause someone to focus on cutting the grass and painting the shutters on a house that is falling apart on the inside. It looks good from the street but the inside is a mess. If the house is not fixed on the inside first, it will eventually began to fall apart on the outside. Many people you see today look good on the outside but are crumbling on the inside because of a fear that they have let overtake their life.

Fear is like a water leak in your house. It starts in one room and keeps spreading until it is all through the house. A water leak (fear) can be hidden for a while but at some point it will affect everything.

The only way I know to address a fear is to go at it head first. I am not saying if you have a fear of jumping off the roof, you should go jump off the roof. What I am saying is that if you have a fear that you know is holding you back in life, when it sticks its head up, call it by name and speak to it (not out loud) and tell it you refuse to be controlled by it any longer. If you are a believer, a little prayer on the subject is also good. The more you address it and rebuke it, the stronger your resistance will become and one day you will realize that the fear that once controlled you, doesn’t have a hold on you anymore. KT

Course correction

Career, Life

Not all course corrections are bad. Some in fact, save your life and put you in the place God can best use you.

Let’s say you are a college ball player who is destined to pay pro ball. Your hopes and dreams are all rolled up in the life you envision as a pro athlete. What if you get hurt and can’t play anymore? What do you do then?

Let’s say the company you have worked for many years gets sold or goes out of business. What do you do then?

Let’s say there are unexpected health issues. What do you do then?

Let’s say you lose your business or your job or you get transferred to another state. What do you do then?

Let’s say a friend or family member betrays or lies to you. What do you do then?

What I am trying to say is that the “then” in all these situations is where reality meets life. I have a plaque handing on my wall of Payne Stewart winning the US Open in June 1999. That October he boarded a private Learjet in Orlando heading to Dallas. Everyone on board died when there was a fault in the Oxygen supply on the plane. 4 hours later the plane ran out of fuel and crashed in South Dakota.

On the plaque hanging on my wall is a statement by Payne Steward. He said, “The thing about dreams is sometimes you get to live them out.” Payne didn’t get to live out his dreams. In the example above, the college athlete who got hurt didn’t get to live out his either. What happens then?

Why am I telling you this? Not every course correction is bad but they all make you look deep at what is important in your life. Many times the course correction enables you to do something else you would have never imagined yourself doing.

I had a course correction in 1990 when I almost went broke in the restaurant business that forced me to find something else to do. That is how I became a hotel broker. God knew all along that I was not supposed to be in the restaurant business, rather I was supposed to be a hotel broker. It took the loss of one direction to get my attention and move me in another direction.

So, not every course correction is bad. God knows where he wants you to be and you just have to be ok with his direction and not yours. KT

Get hired and don’t get fired

Career

Whether you think about this in context or not, getting hired and not getting fired is what we all strive for. Ha. Whatever your job is or whoever you work for, your main objective is to keep the job. You keep the job by being honest, hardworking, results oriented, helpful, and smart and being an advocate for the business. You lose the job or the business when you quit trying

In our business of selling hotels there are several important objectives. First and foremost is to do what you say you will do and to do it when you say you will. We do not have a crystal ball and cannot say with certainty what a hotel will actually sell for but we do try as best we can to give an expected value range in advance.

Another very important objective we have is to get hired and not get fired. What I mean by this is to be engaged to sell a hotel and throughout the sales process to keep the client informed and satisfied with you and your marketing efforts. Sometimes it takes longer to consummate a sale than originally expected. It is in those situations when you need to have extensions on your engagement agreement and your hope is that the client agrees to an extension because of the effort you have expended on his behalf.

It is my guess that many businesses and jobs are like this where you need to make yourself invaluable to the process. A common tendency in a job is to take it easy if the business is slow or there is not enough orders to keep everyone busy. I think it is in those times when you need to work your hardest to find work that helps you stay busy. Let’s say you work in a warehouse for example and the orders are light that day. Instead of sitting down and shooting the bull with the other people, start sweeping up or organizing shelves or any such number of activities that will make you look good when the boss comes around. He sees 5 guys just hanging out and 1 working, who do you think he will keep employed.

So the objective whether you are a hotel salesman, employee, mayor or a pastor of a church is to be honorable to yourself and your boss and always try to do your best so you can keep the job. KT