One of the greatest lessons I ever learned in business was from a man named Jack Ward. When I started selling hotels, I joined a firm called Hodges Ward. Jack Ward was, of course, one of the named partners.

If you have ever been in a sales organization, there are all types of brokers and staff. Some that are type A and hard charging and some are more type B and laid back. Among those types, some are organized, some are scattered, some have thick skin, and some are overly sensitive. Leading that kind of group takes a special kind of personality and the gift of patience.

Jack Ward was all of that. He was the most kind, thoughtful, intelligent, and fair man I had ever known. You would go into his office with some problem or issue, and his desk was covered from corner to corner with things that he needed to do. Jack would do the one thing that meant the most to all of us: he would put down whatever he was doing and focus intently on you and what your issue was. He simply gave you his attention and listened with those kind eyes and understanding heart to what you needed at that time.

I know for a fact that Jack always had many things he needed to get done and many projects that required his attention, but the thing I remember most is how he was always accessible to us.

So, if you are leading a company or have people that report to you, remember that most issues can be resolved before they become problems by simply listening to your people and being available to them. A smart man once told me that the greatest ability a leader can have is availability. KT

The first year I sold hotels, I met a hotel owner named Mike from South Georgia. Mike was the same age as I was, and he was looking for his second hotel to buy. Mike had owned his first hotel for 8-9 years.

We met at his hotel, and we started on a road trip to see several hotels. In the course of the trip, we began to talk a little about ourselves and our history. We become friends as we drove and talked.

The burning question I had for Mike was “how did you get started and how did you make it”? See, Mike and I were the same age, but yet he was doing great and I was broke and struggling in a new career.

He told me something that day that stopped me in my tracks.

In a hotel, you have people that run the office and front desk 24 hours a day. Then, you have people that clean the rooms, maintenance work, etc. The night shift at the front desk is slow, as you can imagine, but never completely quiet. There are calls from the guests, wrong number calls, and people calling for directions. You get what I am saying. The night shift is not super busy, but you would think a person working that shift would get several calls an hour.

When I asked Mike how he did it, he told me that for the first 7 years he worked the office desk during the day and his wife cleaned the rooms. He also did all maintenance himself. His wife would work the front desk for a few hours in the afternoon while Mike took a nap. Then Mike told me that for 7 years straight he worked most of the day at the front desk, but he also worked every shift through the night. Let me say that again, he worked every night shift for 7 years in addition to what he did during the day.

He said he had a cot behind the wall behind the front desk, and he would nap during calls through the night. Imagine every night getting 10-20 calls and waking up 10-20 times to address the situation.

So he worked during the day and every night for 7 years.

When he told me this, I was amazed and taken back at the commitment he made to be successful. I developed a great respect for Mike that day as a man and as an American father and husband.

When you look in your children’s eyes and see the trust they have in you as a father, it will drive you to do whatever it takes to see that your family and your children are taken care of. KT

Most of the time in business, shorter is better. We all know this, but too often we forget it.

As an example, when someone sends you a long business email do you read it? Now, if it is your daughter in college by all means you read every word, but in business, we more often skim over and form an opinion by the skimming process. You do it and I do it, so why would we still attempt to pack a whole definitive argument into an email?

Let’s say you are introducing a product through letter or email or even PowerPoint. I believe (just my opinion) is you have about 15 seconds to make an impression. If it is an email, keep it almost painfully short because the recipient will read it all. When you put five paragraphs before the main point, the reader will skim and maybe have the wrong impression.

I have gone to Baptist churches all my life, and I am always amazed and amused at how educated preachers can’t get a point across in less than a 45min-1hr sermon. I am talking about the sermon time from when he steps to the podium. The amusing part is the congregation mentally left 20 minutes ago, but the preacher kept going until it actually began to reverse the good they talked about. Look at really prominent pastors that you really enjoy and ask yourself how long are their sermons. The ones that get to the point in 20-25 minutes are the ones with the most success.

Sermon lengths are like business. Keep it on point, simple, short and your percentage of success will increase. If you try to talk them through every potential angle, you usually lose them halfway. On a business call, a good indication when you are talking too much is when they first try to interrupt you. They are telling you by the first interruption that you are losing them. A smart person will step back and change the approach rather than pushing forward.

We have a term we use at Hotel AG called SIBKIS. It means “See It Big Keep It Simple.” KT

This was taken from the USA Today on Wednesday, July 23. You probably will not want to read all this, but it is the history of Ford Motor Company up to the year 2000. If you enjoy this kind of chronological history, I think it is a good read. The main point of all this is that the business evolves and products change; what the customer wants is always a moving target. In a blog post last week, I spoke about keeping a business relevant and on point. The following read about Ford Motor Company is pretty insightful. KT

There is a book titled “Integrity Selling” that was written back in the early ’90s. I have a marked up copy at home. There are many great points the book makes but to me, the most important ones are the following:

(1) Find some common ground with your client, (2) don’t be phony, and (3) tell the truth without spin.

Number one deals with finding some common ground with your client. This means before you launch into your sales pitch, find out a little about the client. If you are meeting with him/her in their office, ask about the family pictures on their desk or the bike sitting in the corner, etc. This is so important to the success of the meeting. Start with a question like “How did you get into that type of business?” Most of the time the person will sit back and take a few moments to tell you about themselves. These are the most important things said in the entire meeting.

People don’t want to be sold to; people want to choose to do business with people that they like and trust. With very few exceptions, I have almost always met with people before they bought a hotel from me or sold a hotel through me.

Number two is easy to understand. Don’t try to be someone you are not. Even a child can see through it when someone is not being truthful. I find that if you don’t know the answer to a question, it is ok to say you don’t know the answer. What you don’t want to do is make it up.

Again, people do business with people they like and trust.

Lastly, number three deals with “spin.” You have seen and heard people try to answer a question to where it sounds better than the truth. Trust me, when you have to tell a client that you haven’t done what you said you would do, it only takes a couple of those conversations to get a PhD on what you won’t do again.

So selling, like everything else, takes integrity to do it right and do it long term. Make a commitment to integrity selling because you will not have to look over your shoulder or try to remember what you said. The truth is very easy to remember and very easy to keep up with. Lies, on the other hand, are not and will eventually catch up with you.

You have heard me say this and it’s so true: everyone is a sales person, whether you are in actual sales or you are a school teacher, pastor, doctor, receptionist, etc. You are selling yourself wherever you go in your work because people are choosing to buy what you are selling (yourself) in every job. Many times, the most intense sales jobs are not sales jobs at all. Think of a doctor, pastor or a teacher. They have to sell every time they meet someone because they are selling themselves in their profession and trying to gain the trust of the person they are talking to.

So, live life with integrity in all you do because the truth is much easier to remember. KT