Hyatt Government Blog: February 2012

Brett began his hospitality career with Millennium Hotels and Resorts in Boston where he was assigned to “explore” the government segment. With relationships cemented, Brett took his show on the road to our nation’s capital where he served as Area Manager of Government Sales for Kimpton Hotels in Washington. In November of 2006, Brett was awarded the highly coveted “Kimpton Idol” Award, an honor equivalent to Sales Manager of the Year.
In an interest to serve all of his clients’ needs, near or far, big or small, Brett founded Hotel Lobbyists in 2007. Now, with many relationships ten years in the making, the firm uses a foundation of unrivaled industry relationships and savvy business smarts to assist clients with their needs whatever and wherever they lie.
In addition, Brett has been a member of the Society of Government Meeting Professionals since 2001 and has served on the National Capital Chapter’s (NATCAP) board of directors in numerous capacities since 2002. In 2009 Brett was appointed to the association’s Gilmer Board of Trustees, an advisory body that serves the national board of directors on special matters. In 2010 he was awarded the association’s highest honor, the Sam Gilmer Supplier of the Year Award due to his contributions on both a local and national level.
Brett has spoken and taught at a number of national conferences and has been asked to speak before convention bureau membership in two major US cities. A respected industry leader, his services may be free, but his experience and expertise are priceless.

BRETT’S WORDS OF WISDOM FOR HOTELS:
· Attend everything. The only thing you can guarantee by not going is that you won’t meet a potential business prospect. I accept every invitation for in person appointments. I remember how hard it was to make them when I was on the hotel side and, so long as I’m not otherwise occupied, I’ll gladly agree to a meeting!
· While in person appointments are priceless, email is going to get you further than a phone call. For one, planners don’t have time to spend even just a few moments with every hotel they’re working with concurrently. Think if that planner was only working with 10 hotels and each wanted just 10 minutes of their time. Could you spare 2 hours of your day? Secondly, even if we have a productive and pleasant phone conversation, I’m going to need you to summarize that in an email. Not because I wasn’t paying attention, but because I’m charged with making sure I get it exactly right for my end user and I can’t do that unless it’s in writing. And finally, phone is unnatural these days. With the amount that your clients multi-task, you simply do not have their undivided attention when on the phone. At least with email, they can dedicate their response to you at a time that’s most convenient to them.

· Proposals don’t need to be super glamorous or laden with 10MB files. Simple, clean, and addressing all the critical points of my RFP will get you a lot farther.

Speed helps too. I appreciate greatly those hotels that are able to respond to my leads with time to spare. It doesn’t mean I can guarantee my client can move any quicker than I promised on the RFP, but it means we can at least keep to that schedule.

· When bidding on government groups, be mindful that these groups can pay up to the federal per diem. It doesn’t necessarily garner more attention to beat the per diem. So if there’s an opportunity to offer a rate lower than per diem, I’d much rather you offer added value in the following order – comp internet, comp breakfast, other comp F&B, or comp parking. This way you’re not losing rate and more importantly, the ADR of the city isn’t compromised. A sure fire way to find yourself with a lower per diem next year is to consistently offer rates below per diem this year.

BRETT’S PERSPECTIVE ON 2011
The words “government shutdown” are not the most commerce friendly or business optimistic words. Indeed business should likely be trailing behind pace from this time last year. Agencies are hesitant to enter into any agreements right now while funding is on hold. Programs about to materialize may be subject to terrible attrition and possible cancellation. In my estimation, this will last another 60 days or so. Once agencies have their funding in place, business is likely to boom. In the end, 2012 may wind up being just fine, but programs will have shorter booking windows and thus sales managers may find themselves oddly busy this summer. At least, I’m hopeful that will be the case.

QUICK TIPS FROM JEANNIE AND CHRIS

Here are some helpful tips when sending e-mails:
1. Write a meaningful subject line.
*People who get a lot of e-mails scan the subject line in oder to decide whether to open, file, forward or trash a message.

2. Keep the message focused.
* Often recipients only read partway through a long message hit reply as soon as they have somethine to contribute and forget to keep reading. This is part of human nature.

3. Try to avoid attachments
* Rather than attaching a file that your reader will have to download and open in a separate program, you will probably get faster results if you just copy-paste the most important part of the document into the body of your message. A lot of Governmetn planners can not open attachments.

4. Identify yourself clearly.
*When contacting someone new, always include your name, occupation, and any other important indentification information in the first few sentences.

5. Don't assume privacy
*Praise in public and criticize in private. Don't sent anything over e-mail that you would't want posted - with your name attached - in the break room.

6. Respond prompty

Introduced to someone you might have met before and forgotten? Say “It’s nice to see you” (rather than “meet you”), since that works in either case.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

SGMP COMING TO NEW ORLEANS - update by Jeannie Carlsen

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