Meet Me

I am often asked why I only work with business owners. Well I get a real buzz from business owners primarily because you are committed.
You have often put your life savings into your business and if you say they will do something you usually do.

Moreover I really appreciate your daily struggle and I want to help you succeed. I too work for myself and I understand that there is a daily practical imperative that just does not go away.

My experience tells me that nearly everyone is born with the inclination and ability to be successful. But what happens is that we acquire ‘Elephants in the Room’. You can ignore them or lock them away but they are still with you and they drain away your energy.

What form do these clever Elephants take?

These are the main types that I have come across but I am sure that there are species yet to be discovered:

• Skill Shortage,
• Competitive Pressure
• Unclear Strategy
• No Free Time
• Procrastination
• Fear of Failure
• Disillusion
• Weight of Expectations
• Excessive Financial Burden
• Past Efforts Unsuccessful

I see it as my role to help you banish these Elephants to go and live with someone else.

Much of my career has been in a corporate environment, during which time I have launched over 20 new hotels, restaurants and pub businesses.

But I spent far too long in corporate life and I grew to feel very uncomfortable in the ‘company car’ culture; but yes I know I did stay and take the offered new BMW!

Anyway, I was catapulted into self employment not by choice, although when my job was made redundant after 14 years I realised that I should have taken the decision myself, a long time ago.

Not knowing what I was going to do with the rest of my life came as a real shock. I had spent my career giving marketing advice to hotel operators and sales teams in places as far afield as Fiji, Tahiti, New Zealand, Netherlands and UK so what could I now do?

To say that I ‘fell into’ mentoring independent hoteliers is probably a bit ingenuous. But it was a real coincidence that I knew someone who knew an owner that was having a real struggle making enough revenue from his new rooms to justify his extra rent. Was he close to walking out and handing back the keys? Probably.

After a few months of us working together things were really looking up and I seemed to have developed a system that enabled the marketing and mentoring skills that I had acquired over 25 years in the hotel business to be directed to the benefit of independent operators (http://www.hotelmentoring.co.uk)

Anyway, one client does not a business make, so I was still not much further forward until someone said that I should write a book. I laughed but did nevertheless send a proposal to a publisher who said “OK send us the manuscript by October and we’ll publish it”.

So I shut myself away for a solid 3 months, typed 1100 words every day and delivered what is now ‘Putting Heads on Beds – the complete practical guide to marketing your independent hotel or guest accommodation’. (http://www.puttingheadsonbeds.co.uk)

The real revelation to me as I wrote the book was how little I really knew. But having researched, read and digested every thing that was out there I feel a lot more prepared to be a marketing mentor.

Since the book was published in mid-2006 I have coached and mentored owners of units from 3 to 50 rooms. I have helped owners new to the hotel industry and banished their ‘Skill Shortage’ Elephant and I helped banish the ‘Unclear Strategy’ Elephant for owners who are definitely more experienced operators than me.

I have had my share of failures too. Sometimes the questions I ask cause people to review their whole business and whether it is really suitable for them. Occasionally the ‘Excessive Financial Burden’ Elephant just will not go away. I understand how hard it is to concentrate on plans for a better future when the brewery is refusing to deliver for a busy weekend!

As a mentor I am not your therapist but more of a sergeant-major. But I can’t really make you do anything you don’t want to do and some of my clients have just not been prepared to get on with it. I class this as failure, but maybe the outcomes have been what the clients really want?

I can be on your shoulder encouraging you and helping you but you have to have the motivation to do it yourself. I am not your parent.

Speaking of parents, I have 5 children of my own and my main concern is to see them all happy and content. They all left home a long time ago and 2 are married. My wife and I are lucky enough to have 5 grandchildren, although we have to travel to Greece to see 2 of them.

Please feel free to contact me by telephone, e-mail or more traditional means.

Hotel Profit Systems
7 Chancerygate Business Centre
Transport Way
Oxford
OX4 6HE
United Kingdom

Telephone: +44 (0) 1865 772394

E mail: michael@hotelprofitsystems.com