Now that’s NOT what I’m talking about.

I can’t get the concept of delighting and surprising my customers, guests, or members out of my thoughts. Every day as a customer I hear how I’m going to be delighted or surprised. Just yesterday the message recording from a vendor went on and on about how important I was to them, about excellent customer service being the core of their value statement, how I would receive premium service from the next available customer service operator and that my wait was estimated at six minutes. Later in the day I was reading classified employment ads and a hospitality company is using as their marketing tag “committed to delighting customers every day”. I’ve visited a number of this chain’s outlets. Trust me when I say, I’m not a difficult customer. Life is too short to get my boxers all up in a bind over a meal out. But you can also trust me when I say, I’ve never been delighted by this company’s product or their customer service.

When I talk about delighting and surprising customers, I don’t think we have to go to some obscure level of attention. I think we need to simply treat others as we would like to be treated. I’ve had to occasion to go to a bar where bar snacks are served at the actual bar, but are not provided at the tables. I love it when my server brings a bowl of snacks to my table or at least asks if they could bring some to the table. When I’m in line at the hardware checkout, I love it when the owner/manager opens the second register and tells his customers that he’d gladly take care of them. When I go to pick up an order at a local company, if I have more than one bag, a clerk always at least offers to carry the packages to the car for me.

What I’m NOT talking about is corporate mumbo jumbo marketing tags with no substance. Don’t tell me you care and then send my call to a non-English speaking rep after I wait 2 minutes listening to your propaganda and then to crappy loud music for six more minutes. Anyone can put that crap on the letterhead or job posting. What I AM talking about is genuine care for their fellow human being, and taking care of one another. That delights me. Let me put it another way. If you’re gonna show up to the dance, don’t stand there and tell me about your years of dance lessons, be prepared to dance!

To Surprise and Delight

So every Sunday for years I’ve listened to public radio’s Krista Tippett’s interviews. First when I was doing breakfast for guests at my Inn. It was a very casual laid morning, with a buffet of coffee cakes, muffins, sweet butter, house jam & jellies, juices, and coffee as a first course, there was always time between making the next set of omelets. Since leaving that life, on Sunday mornings I’m more able to focus on the entire program and now appreciate them even more. Last Sunday she interviewed Seth Godin. Now I knew of Mr. Godin, but only vaguely. He was that internet guy, writer, thoughtful…yeah yeah yeah. However, since listening on Sunday, I’ve gone to his website, signed up for his daily blog updates, because there are a few of his remarks that just stick. You know those ideas that come into your mind, and for some reason, your mind won’t let go!

He described the change from a small business economy some decades ago, to that of big business where my parents and others of their generation went to work. They enjoyed the stability of a big brother employer, steady job, steady income, steady benefits, unheard of health benefits!, just do as told, when as told, and expect to enjoy the golden years. And it worked. There are lots of retirement communities, many in warmer climates, where folks enjoy their later years.

My 85 year old mother shared an interesting story Sunday while we were listening. She was a factory worker for some 30 years. At a meeting with management she and others were told to understand how lucky they were to be working all those years at one job, because the future generation would certainly not have that luxury. They would work an average of 14 jobs in that time. Hmmmm….everything makes me think.

As Mr. Godin shared, times are again changing, as there are fewer and fewer big business employers and we are once again left to our own to create our own futures. How frightening is that! But here we are…..many trying to earn a living, at some enterprise that will earn them at least sufficient money to put food on the table and a roof over their family’s heads.

Here’s the part that has caught my attention. In this new world order, we can’t just show up. From Seth Godin’s Sunday blog, just “Showing up and taking notes isn't your job. Your job is to surprise and delight and to change the agenda. Your job is to escalate, reset expectations and make us delighted….” Surprise and delight; that’s what I have stuck in my mind. It’s a tall order, well worth pursuing, but how on earth?

“I think I want to have my own B&B”…. oh really?

People regularly tell me they think they want to have their own B&B and I’m asked how to go about it. Just this weekend the subject came up again. As the economy continues to change there are fewer big brother businesses, and we’re individually required to create our own opportunities. I’ve always referred people to the Professional Association of Innkeepers or to a few real estate business consultants who offer workshops to help folks get started.

However, there would appear to be a preliminary need for people to make some choices before they invest their valuable time, energy, and money to explore the business of Innkeeping in earnest. I’m going to break the process down into a five areas of discovery and post them here over the next few weeks. I’ll explore these five areas:
• Lifestyle. This is a century’s old niche business with a very specific lifestyle. We’ll explore the way innkeepers live their lives while taking care of their guests. They are often times sharing the same spaces as their guests, which can lead to some challenges that require a very special disposition.
• Goals. Everyone who considers their own business should consider the specific goals for their business. Is it a primary or secondary income goal? Tax planning, goal? Etc. The answers to those questions and a host of other goal questions will help avoid bad decisions.
• Research. Folks often come to the idea for their business without much research. I’ll explore the type of research that will help you understand the validity of your dream business.
• Due Diligence. What are the questions to ask? The experience to get? The education to have? The “expertise” to trust?
• Plan Development. Writing a full fledged business plan will help anyone considering their dream business solidify their ideas into a road map for success. Does your plan reflect your goals?

Look for these posts each of the five next Mondays. At the end of these five posts, you’ll either decide this business if not for you, or you’ll come away with a clear action plan to further pursue your dreams.

A Call About Photographs

I was fascinated by a recent phone call. We’re about to launch an update to the website using a couple of new services for both the listing properties and their potential guests. We’re partnering with Jumping Rocks Photography to supply a broad collection of images from Inns and bed & breakfast properties from around the country. Their work is terrific, providing an accurate look at today’s hospitality options from our segment of the industry. But I digress, back to the phone call. The caller was interested to know from where we gathered the “stock images” on the new test site! Said caller went on to say the images were beautifully done, very clear, very representative of hospitality, romantic in tone, sophisticated, and finally shared that he thought even the food, which he thinks is a real challenge to photograph, looked amazingly delicious. I assured my caller that the images were in fact provided by Jumping Rocks Photography, who specialized in capturing the flavor of today’s Inns and bed & breakfasts from across the country. I further assured him they were true representations of the environments of these properties, not air-brushed or photo shopped to make the experience look potentially better than would actually be experienced by any future guest. The caller was amazed, simply amazed that there were places around the country that provided such great environments, food, and obvious extraordinary hospitality! We finished our business and I went about the rest of by day. But the exchange has come back to me time and again in the few days that have passed. Are there a lot of people who might not recognize that the images on so many property’s websites are images of the actual property and experience? Have we collectively done so poor a job sharing our experiences that people outside our sphere of influence don’t believe us? Are Inns and Bed & Breakfasts really so small an industry that the general public would more easily believe an air mattress on a bare floor is more likely the experience than the images that are painstaking produced in an effort to show the very contradictory actuality? Have the owners and operators of these professionally operated businesses gone so far beyond the public’s expectations that the average consumer doesn’t identify the images as reality? Or, are the Jumping Rocks photos just that good?! When I was an Innkeeper myself I went to any number of professional development workshops that encouraged us to under sell and over deliver. It made sense at the time. We would use phrases like, “we’re just a beautiful example of the period, offering warm hospitality and an abundant breakfast so no one goes away from the table hungry”. In fact, we were a five star, five diamond property with the highest quality of amenity, service, and extraordinary food. We wanted to provide that “wow” factor, far exceeding any expectations our guests might have had, and it worked every time. I took a call from a potential guest one evening who wanted to know if she was calling a “Bed and Dread”. I’ve told this story many times during my innkeeping days. I replied asking the caller what she was asking, because I didn’t understand the question. During the course of a brief conversation, she went on to explain, that while she’d never stayed at a B&B, she’d heard horror stories…..somewhere, not entirely sure where, and had vowed years ago to avoid B&Bs because of the stories she’d heard. Based on anecdotal stories, she’d discounted an entire segment of my industry! We owned and operated two properties, a large bed and breakfast and a small hotel. They were across the street from one another and identical in amenity, style, and service in practically every way. So I booked her a room in the hotel. I followed up with her while she stayed with us. She had a terrific stay, was thankful that we had hotel rooms available, and was planning to make a reservation for a year later before she left us! I will never forget the story, nor understand what she saw as the difference in her mind. Maybe as an industry we’re doing ourselves a dis-service. We’re underselling ourselves in an effort to wow our guests. But in the meantime the general public, potential guests, are not getting a true image of all the fabulousness that are the Inns and Bed & Breakfasts around the country. We have the photographs to prove fabulousness! It’s time Inns and Bed & Breakfasts toot their horns, and I don’t mean with a whimpy kazoo, but with the full power and force of 76 trombones and 110 cornets! This segment is truly, for a wide variety of reasons, a truly better way to stay, in fact by any measure it’s the only way to stay!

Why Bed and Breakfast Bashing?

Now and again I come across negative remarks about bed and breakfasts aka B&Bs via social media, online reviews, newsprint, or during the course of conversation. This segment of the lodging industry seems to be a target for this sort of negativity and I’m not entirely sure why. Any of us can experience a less than satisfactory overnight stay in any segment of the industry, no matter the price, location, style, or reputation. Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to travel a great deal. I’ve visited nearly every state in the continental United States and most Canadian provinces. In those years I have stayed overnight in everything from the most modest, to luxurious world class award winning accommodations. From these experiences I’ve come to know that good or bad experiences know no boundaries by way of type or cost of stay. What I’ve come to appreciate about bed and breakfast inns is the personal investment the owners and their staff have in the quality of my experience. These folks are the staff that I interact with while I’m in their facility. They’ve helped me with a reservation, cleaned my room, worked in the garden, planned and prepared the food I will consume, and on and on. The facility, furnishings, amenities, services, cleanliness, and menus, are a matter of pride in ownership for these business men and women. I know proprietors who have painstaking selected every detail for their guests i.e. the quality of pillow, fabric content for bedding, menu selections and specific food items. They may even grow some of the foods they use. They are personally mortified if every detail of every guest experience doesn’t meet their highest of standard. These same entrepreneurs often take their pride well beyond the boundaries of their real estate and further invest in their local, regional, or national community. During these same years, I’ve become more and more suspect of larger more industrial properties and ownership. I doubt a corporate officer of a large commercial property, franchise or not has helped me with travel plans. Reservations are often made at central services at some off site location. Housekeeping staff is large and impersonal. Rooms have a cookie cutter look and even less to my liking a cookie cutter smell that seems to travel with me home. “That” smell hits me in square in the face when I open my overnight bag. Dark colored, highly patterned acetate bed covers give me the creeps. What’s hiding in that pattern, color and slick surface? The food is commercial and sometimes needs to be unwrapped, nuked, and consumed from a foam container. Or worse yet, it’s extraordinarily expensive and hard to find, hidden away in a very fancy intimidating space. Finally, it seems I can never find anyone if I have a need. Extra towels can be a housekeeping production. I’m sure there are required ongoing education classes, but I wonder how that translates to my personal experience in such a large facility. This comparison reminds me of my recent eye exam. When the doctor gives you two intensity choices of lense and asks the question, “Now which is better? This, or this? For me, bed and breakfasts are clearly a better way to stay. I like the intimacy. I’m not talking about intimacy that some people have described as that overbearing nosey innkeeper or staff member. I’ve never had that experience in the hundreds of places I’ve stayed overnight. I’m talking about knowing the environment and have a sense of comfort with the people in that environment. I’ve kept a diary for many years, recording my travel experiences. I’ve met some great people, seen some great parts of the country, and enjoyed unimaginable foods. I think I may revisit those travel diaries and share some of the best experiences here.

Change.

At American Bed and Breakfast Inns we’re about to launch a new service. It was clear a year ago that a change of some sort had to be made because the business wasn’t performing for us as we’d planned. It seemed we had one of two choices, either abandon the project or look for added value. We decided we couldn’t give up……possibly because I’m just stubborn, but I prefer to think there is niche for the service we offer. Being on the threshold of change has had me thinking about the simple concept of change. Many years ago a business consultant said

"If you always do what you always did, you’ll like always get what you always got".

Brilliant huh?! I’ve used it many times facilitating strategic planning sessions for organizations around the country. On one hand, if you’re completely satisfied with the result of your behavior, then by all means always do what you do and enjoy the satisfactory results you always get. If on the other hand………then change may be necessary. Case in point #1: Those who embrace change with a clear purpose and goal. Some dear friends started a business some twenty plus years ago. It was located in a seasonal community and they were not happy with the seasonality of the business for a variety of reasons; too many to go into here. Suffice it to say, a change was needed if they were going to be satisfied with the results of their endeavor. So they went to work to change their own mindset and that of fellow business owners. It took years to do, but with concerted, disciplined efforts, they achieved the change they sought and the results in their business far exceeded their initial expectations. They were the voice of change. In those same years they reviewed every aspect of their daily operations and constantly looked for better and more efficient ways to do the hundreds of daily tasks involved in their work. They refined their operations until the business ran like a fine oiled machine. Again, through their planned disciplined efforts toward change for efficiency, they reaped financial rewards far beyond their expectations. Case in point #2: Those who don’t consider change as an option. I visited with a friend yesterday who was lamenting the woes of an enterprise that has struggled for many years. In fact, by all accounts for the last thirty years the enterprise has largely done the same things they have always done, and has consistently struggled to keep their doors open. I asked what changes they had considered, what plans they had to work toward success. They have determined that it’s an industry wide problem, and that if they can just hold out long enough for their competitors to go out of business, their business will then flourish. They have waited thirty years and are satisfied to simply wait for outside forces to determine their success or continued failure. We all know that change is inevitable. Babies are born. People die. Businesses open. Businesses close. Public officials are elected or defeated. Some would say,

"It is what it is. It’s going to be what it’s going to be"

However, as I think about example after example, it seems managed change makes a bit more sense in those situations where we hold some degree of influence for our destiny. I’m talking about substantive behavior change to what it is we do and how we do it. Not merely a new coat of paint or a new logo. That’s like putting lipstick on a pig. After the effort, you’re still stuck with a pig. I for one have decided to embrace change. There are some elements of life that I find less than satisfying. I’m on a mission to work through a plan for change and am committed to be disciplined sufficiently to work the plan. As a dear friend said to me years ago,

"A man without a plan is planning to fail"

I’m not prepared to fail just yet. Are there change you should consider?