What Luxury Hotels Need To Change To Stay Relevant

Times are changing and what was a recipe for success only a few years ago doesn’t necessarily attract new customers now. I started my career in hospitality at the Hotel Imperial in Vienna, which is by any definition one of the finest luxury hotels in Europe. The hotel was originally built as a palace and later transformed to one of the most prestigious hotels in the world. I was fascinated by the expensive silverware, the elegant design of the furniture, the fine craftmanship of the hotel, the high standard of service and dedication, and the luxury that was displayed in every little detail of the hotel experience…

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Hotel Imperial Vienna

Continue reading What Luxury Hotels Need To Change To Stay Relevant →

Jeffrey is Leading the Dance to Perfection!

Have you ever experienced pure service excellence? It’s when you get asked exactly the right questions, being offered the right products, it’s when everything feels so right, and it feels like you are dancing while being led by a true professional! It happens when you walk into the Apple store on 5th Avenue, dine at Per Se in the Time Warner Center… the experience is perfect from beginning to end, a perfect dance!

Getting your pictures taken by Jeffrey Bennett of JLBWEDDING.COM is no different! My fiancée and I decided to get our engagement pictures taken a few months ago and wanted to have Vintage New York as our theme. New York is where we first met, fell in love and it would always have a special place in our heart, so we figured we should invest in making this a lasting memory.

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Click on the picture above for more!

We googled for the right photographer, but most of them were pretty much the same, they all offered to take beautiful pictures in exchange for money… that’s it, and nothing more. Until we found Jeffrey Bennett‘s pictures of a couple in New York that he took a few years ago online, and both of us agreed instantly that we loved how he was able to capture the moment in its pure elegance and simplicity, not just a beautiful picture, but a real emotion. Why do I write about this?  Not because I am getting paid for it or because I want him to take our wedding pictures as well and am already trying to bargain for a good price by doing this… hold on, on a second thought, no I am kidding. I am writing this because my fiancée and I were so amazed by how he was able to lead us through this experience and come up with this breathtaking pictures as a result of it.

My greatest fear was probably how uncomfortable my fiancée would always get by anyone taking pictures of her, and how she could possibly make it through the day by getting her pictures taken all day long in New York City dressed up in vintage cloths. But Jeffrey arrived and any worries or concerns were gone within minutes. Not only did he know exactly what we wanted, but he also was able to lead us there with confidence.

Being able to lead people is necessary in any business if you want to be successful. Being able to show empathy and putting yourself in your customers shoes, while infusing comfort and confidence is what differentiates good from great artists. I strongly believe that Jeffrey‘s personal skills are what led to this beautiful product. His technical and artistic skills may enable him to be a good photographer, but his people skills that can be seen in his pictures shown in the comfort and confidence of his customers make him in my opinion an artist second to none!

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Steve Jobs’ Most Memorable Speech

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment of failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

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Above is a taste of Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address and one of the Top 10 Commencement Speeches of all times. It’s also most motivating and encouraging when having to face the uncomfortable situations in life and when having to make the tough decisions that really matter and make a difference. Watch the full speech by clicking on video below.

Continue reading Steve Jobs’ Most Memorable Speech →

My Take on SoulCycle

I just returned from my first SoulCycle experience at Soul West Village and have to admit that I feel great, absolutely exhausted, but great! While striving to achieve a healthy work-life balance, I was always looking to workout more often (who doesn’t, right?), and more importantly on a consistent basis. I would never come up with the energy to workout by myself.

So a couple of months ago I discovered the Niketown Running Club and would run in Central Park twice a week. I was fascinated by the encouraging feeling of running in a group, and by being pushed to do more by the fellow runners. I recently moved from Midtown to West Village, further away from Niketown, and with it the original excitement to commit myself to run weekly started fading away.

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Continue reading My Take on SoulCycle →

How to Fire an Employee

Having to fire an employee is never an easy or pleasant thing to do. You spend a lot of time and efforts searching for the right person for the job, conducted numerous interviews, focused a lot of attention and resources on the training of the new-hire, and strived to grow and develop the employee to help you in return growing your business. That being said firing an employee should only happen after you tried to counsel and help the employee to improve.

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Once you tried every avenue and termination is the last option, it’s the right thing for your organization, the other employees and in many cases for the employee being let go as well. Continue reading How to Fire an Employee →

The Power of ‘Thank You’

I first heard about the power of frequently writing ‘thank you’ notes a couple of weeks ago at a training about leadership. The instructor of the training made a point of highlighting the power of saying thank you for a job well done, and how effective ‘thank you’ notes are for appreciation and recognition.

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Motivated and inspired by the training I started writing these notes for a couple of days until my excitement started fading away, and I just stopped doing it. I felt that it really wasn’t that important, and that people wouldn’t care anyway. Until last weekend… Continue reading The Power of ‘Thank You’ →

What I Learned from ‘The Startup Kids’

The Startup Kids is an excellent documentary about young entrepreneurs starting their own businesses. It talks about entrepreneurship and how successes are the consequences of failures.

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So what does it take to be a Startup Kid and build your own business? Continue reading What I Learned from ‘The Startup Kids’ →

How To Improve Your Guest Surveys The Fast Way

How did you enjoy your stay with us?

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Image courtesy by Jeroen van Oostrom at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

No matter if you are working in a hotel or are a frequent traveller chances are that you asked or heard this question over and over again. Many times it’s the question asked most upon check-out and your way out of the hotel. Continue reading How To Improve Your Guest Surveys The Fast Way →

How Do You Get People To Like You

Working in the hotel industry just like any other service industry it’s all about people, it’s about one person respecting another person.

It’s about people trusting each other, because if there is no trust between people, efficiency and productivity will go down to zero.

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Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So how do you get people to like you, or better yet, how do you get people to want to work with you and for you? And I am not talking about a popularity contest, I am talking about respecting another person, respecting his or her values and beliefs. Continue reading How Do You Get People To Like You →

Are You Really Busy or Just Lazy?

Being busy is just another form of laziness!

‘Excuse me? I am running around the entire day putting out fires and getting things done!’ This would have most likely been my response to above statement just two years ago when working more than 12 hours a day and seven days a week. Two years ago I honestly believed that I added value every minute of all those extra hours worked.

As Tim Ferris describes it in The 4-Hour Workweek ‘Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action’, and what this means is that being busy is only a sign of not being able to prioritize tasks and being able to focus on the important stuff.

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Continue reading Are You Really Busy or Just Lazy? →

How to Get Promoted in 3 Steps

You are eager to get promoted and move on to the next step. You are constantly comparing yourself to your peers, are impatient about your own job situation and cannot wait for something exciting in your career to happen. You want to get promoted!

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Image courtesy of dream designs at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Every once in a while when your personal life calms down a little and work isn’t as busy for a change, you’ll get the feeling that it’s time for something new… that you’re standing still and that something new and exciting needs to happen for you! Continue reading How to Get Promoted in 3 Steps →

How To Make Feedback Effective

Giving and receiving feedback can be a gift, as it can help you build or strengthen a relationship, if done right, or it can damage a relation, or be career hindering and de-motivating.

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Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Concerns with giving & receiving feedback:

When receiving feedback our potential concerns are that we fear criticism or our reaction to feedback and that we are nervous about having to hear something that might make us feel uncomfortable. When giving feedback we could fear that we hurt the other person’s feelings or that the other person might get defensive… and just like when receiving feedback, we could be nervous about giving it. Continue reading How To Make Feedback Effective →

You Are The CEO of You!

Congratulations on being the CEO of what should be the most important corporation for you, congratulations on being the CEO of ‘You’! Understanding yourself as a business, that requires planning, investment and exercise is the foundation for a balanced and fulfilling professional and personal ‘career’.

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Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.Net

What’s important to keep in mind as the CEO of ‘Yourself, Inc.’: Continue reading You Are The CEO of You! →

212° the extra degree

At 211 degrees, water is hot. At 212 degrees, water starts boiling. With boiling water comes steam, and with steam you can power a locomotive. It is that one extra degree that makes all the difference, and it is that one extra degree that separates the good from the great!

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Image courtesy of Victor Habbick at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How often did you have the feeling of frustration and lost motivation because you couldn’t seem to achieve your goals, and that no matter how much efforts you put in and how hard you tried, nothing was going to change? … chances are that you were sitting right at 211 degrees, and all it would have taken for you to succeed was that one extra degree.

Much too often we give up right before that moment when we would have accomplished everything what we strived for, and we just needed to keep trying. If you want to get ahead, become great at what you do and be successful in achieving your goals you’ll need to keep going when it seems to be the toughest and not turn around.

The 30 most important minutes of your day

It’s your 30 minutes lunch break! You either believed it to be an interruption of your day as you had so much work to be done, or the highlight as you were able to step out of your busy day for a moment to take a deep breath!

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Image courtesy of sirikul at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

But one way or the other, it turns out that you were wrong. Talking to my dear friend McKinley the other day, who follows this blog loyally from the beginning, and listening to him talking about the importance of not only never sitting alone while having lunch in the staff canteen, but also making a point of always sitting with different people, and use this half an hour to connect with people and build or strengthen relationships, opened my eyes. Continue reading The 30 most important minutes of your day →

5 Benefits of Effective Complaint Management

Things go wrong all the time and when they do, it’s important to recognize and fix the problem, to follow-up with everyone involved and learn from it so it doesn’t happen again and again. That’s easier said than done since most managers prefer to keep themselves busy by putting out fires and look like heroes, rather than to face the real challenges, the root causes of the fires, and to make the tough decisions that would really change things to the better. But one way or the other customer complaints are unavoidable and depending on how effectively your team manages them it will make or break your organization.

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Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Besides the obvious benefit of having a problem temporarily go away and the pain that comes with it, and turning an upset customer into a happy one, the 5 main benefits of effective complaint management are:

  1. It creates a customer focused culture. Having your team understand the true value of every guest who is walking through your doors is fundamental for the success and long-term profitability of your business. Understanding that a guest is not an interruption of your work, but the reason that you have a job is crucial.
  2. It reduces the operational cost. Effectively managing a complaint and ensuring that the guest is satisfied with your service recovery, will reduce your expenses and cost in the long-rung, as you may otherwise end up having to reimburse more than necessary to keep the guest from talking bad about your business.
  3. It reduces the cost of winning new customers and increases customer loyalty. The return rate of a guest that was satisfied with his or her stay at your hotel is less than the one who experienced a problem at your hotel that was solved to his satisfaction. Why? … simply because your customers know that things can go wrong, but it’s important that when they do, that they can trust your organization to take ownership and get it right.
  4. It reduces any brand and market damage. Solving a guest complaint to the customers satisfaction not yours, hopefully stops your client from talking bad about your business or commenting negatively about the service experience on social media.
  5. It enhances the customer experience and increases sales and profitability. A happy guest as a result of effective complaint management will spend more at your hotel, stay longer and more often. Even more importantly a happy guest will tell his or her friends about it and act as a brand advocate.

Question: Can you think of any other examples of effective complaint management?

The 7 Deadly Sins Of Complaint Management

Getting a guest complaint is always an opportunity to turn an unsatisfied customer into a loyal advocate of your business. Understanding the value of focusing on training your employees on how to handle guest complaints and effectively manage guest expectations to prevent complaints from occurring in the first place does not only boost a customer focused environment, it also fosters a winning culture.

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Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

While we hopefully always have the best intentions in mind when dealing with an upset customer, the outcome may not always be positive. Better understanding the 7 deadly sins of complaint management will help us to be more conscious of the do’s and do not’s when facing an angry customer the next time. Continue reading The 7 Deadly Sins Of Complaint Management →

If You Want Your Business to Improve, Do It the P&G Way!

Are you just pretending that you want to know what’s wrong in your business that you can improve it, or do you really want to hear the hurtful truth and are ready to make the uncomfortable decisions that are necessary?

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Image courtesy of nokhook_buchachon at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Either your managers are conducting superficial meetings pretending that they want to learn what’s wrong in their business so that they can learn from it and fix it, or they really want to know what’s wrong but their middle managers are filtering reality and telling them only what they want to hear so they can look good in front of their bosses. Either way any necessary progress and healthy change is being made impossible. Continue reading If You Want Your Business to Improve, Do It the P&G Way! →

3 Reasons You Should Start Your Own Blog Today

Publishing your own blog or website as in AlexanderKellermann.com or HoteliersOfTomorrow.com couldn’t be any easier and if you’re interested in getting started within only 15 minutes just click on the image below.

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The 3 main reasons why you should start your own blog today are:

  1. Your own blog gives you a platform to share your ideas and expertise with others. In sharing your knowledge and in providing useful suggestions you can help others grow and develop and this feeling is incredibly fulfilling and enriching.
  2. You broaden your audience and with it your influence. Your own blog or platform literally enables you to share your opinions and thoughts with the entire world.
  3. You continue to grow. Maintaining your own blog is a lot of work and requires you to constantly stay updated with what’s new in your field of expertise.

I am sure you’ll find your own reasons to start a blog and hopefully will find it as enriching as I do.