Category Archives: Career

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

One yard line of life

Career, Life

I was on the phone today with one of our sellers and I said something that I had not planned to say. In business there are financial reasons for a decision and then there are personal reasons. The personal reasons in my experience outweigh the financial.

In the call, I told him about our granddaughters spending last night at our house and how this morning while I was drinking coffee, they both crawled up in my lap. I looked down at my babies and knew at that moment, this would be a memory I would carry for the rest of my life. I went on to tell our client that many selling decisions are about more than just money. I told him that when I get to the one yard line of life before being called home, I will not be thinking about our call together but I would be thinking about that morning in 2016 when both of my grand babies were sitting in my lap together.

Perspective is a powerful thing that God gives us along the way to keep us in line. In the decisions you make this week, month and year, try as best you can to add a little perspective to why you are making that decision. KT

Doing it right and keeping it simple

Career, Life

Doing things right is a very simple personal and business philosophy. It means doing the best you can. Once you have done your best, that is all you can do. When you make decisions, as long as you make the best decision you can at the time, I believe that is all anyone can expect of us. The truth is, we don’t always do the best we can and do not always make the best decision for a myriad of reasons. Some of those reasons are short term gain, ego, pride, self-satisfaction, revenge and any number of other bad factors to bring into a decision. Additionally, while we will not admit it to ourselves, we may just not be willing to try as hard as we can.

Keeping it simple is something you learn by experience. I have often told our sales people that the first 30 seconds of a conversation is the most critical part of selling. For better or worse, the people on the other end of the phone call or on the other end of a hand shake, instinctively make a decision on you within an unfairly short amount of time. That is why the first eye to eye meeting or the first phone call very often sets the stage for the relationship. This is something many people choose to overlook but we all know it is true. To prove my point, think of the last person you met and be honest with yourself on how quick you made assumptions on that individual. It is human nature to “size up” people you meet or speak to.

I got a call back today from a hotel owner with whom I had left a message. The first minute was who do you know and how is the weather and it’s a beautiful fall season etc. Then the guy says “I am returning your call.” This was the checkered flag that began my 30 seconds of opening pitch. I was through in 30 seconds with what I wanted to talk to him about and then I just hit the pause button. When I paused, he knew it was his turn to talk and he started telling me about his business and his family’s growth plans for the future. The call went well. After the call I thought about how if I had keep talking for 5 minutes, he would have lost interest.

I have a great friend of mine who is also a great client. We often laugh about the first conversation we had years ago. To hear him tell it, he could tell right away that I stuttered so he said he picked up on three words to tee off on then proceeded with the conversation. Ha. That was the first conversation we had and it must have worked because he and I have worked on many hotels and it all started with that first disjointed call.

When you do the best you can with each opportunity and you keep the complicated things simple, you will be much more satisfied in life, more relaxed in what you do and have more joy and accomplishment in your life. KT

The greatest business commercial of all time

Career

In life and in business there is a pitfall that is very easy to slip into. That pitfall is not calling and not connecting with your business clients or on the personal level, not connecting with your family.

Within the world of business, this habit is easy to slip into because of email, text, Facebook and other social media outlets. Without knowing it, you have replaced the face to face or voice with easier communications like emails or a text.

One of the greatest business commercials of all time was done for United Airlines in 1990. It was before the internet, emails, text and social media. The commercial starts with all the business leaders around a conference room table and the managing director says that their oldest client just fired them today. The reason was because the company had lost touch with this client. The director said, we are going to go see every client face to face and started handing out United Airlines tickets to his people. At the end of the commercial someone ask the director, who are you going to go see? He said, I am going to see the client that fired us today. The link to the commercial is just below and worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU2rpcAABbA

The point is to never let the true personal connections with a client or a family member be only through media. In life and in business, the magic happens when we get face to face. In business, I try to never forget that people hire who they like and who they trust. You cannot get either of those things through email or a text. KT