They say “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

I certainly know the feeling as a business owner.  I’ve had my own brand of insanity on several occasions since starting this business.  However, I’ve noticed an interesting pattern.  When I focus on solving the root cause of reoccurring issues versus a band-aid solution, things start to happen!

I’d like to take you back about three or four years.  (Time flies for me. So honestly, I may be taking you back five years and it feels like only three.)  The concept of time as an entrepreneur is skewed.  Anyway…let’s go waaay back.  This was a time when my team exploded. We were doing hundreds of projects for properties, not just a few large-scale projects a year.  We had just launched our new lead scoring system and we were starting to work with an impressive amount of select service hotels to help them build their sales pipelines.

Although the sales opportunities we were discovering were solid, qualified, and could definitely produce business for the hotels over time, there was one major problem with these projects.  There was no one on the other end of the leads who could close a deal…  I was frustrated.  My team was frustrated.  Clearly, the hotel leadership was frustrated.  There were reoccurring patterns in the hurdles we were facing.  Our challenge was always one of the following:

1. The property sales manager that was in place wasn’t skilled at nurturing a sales lead through the buying process.
2. The sales manager that was there when we started our project left in the middle for another opportunity, or was let go due to poor performance that started long before we arrived.
3. The hotel never had a sales manager to begin with, therefore, our discovered sales opportunities went nowhere.

I was beyond frustrated by this, because at the end of the day, our lead generation process is only as good as the closed sales that come from what we discover.  Yet, our internal team didn’t have control over that piece with the way the business model was set up.  We were designed to work with hotels that had strong, skilled, and consistent sales teams in place.  We had the best intentions, the hotel leadership had the best intentions, but we were falling flat time and again by solving for a “symptom” versus a “root cause”.

Some may think I’m obsessed or even crazy, but this challenge would literally keep me awake at night.  I am fueled by delivering value to our customers. So when we kept seeing one project after another with amazing prospecting results but zero sales…it drove me absolutely crazy.  Hence, “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

One quiet evening at home, after the kids were in bed and the entire house was quiet, I broke out my journal, poured myself a glass of wine and began to write.  I decided to write a “what if” and “perfect scenario” as to how I could solve this epidemic for the select service hotel sales.  I was literally writing so fast I could barely keep up, and it was as if everything was downloading to me at once. When I paused from writing, I realized what I really wanted to do was not just put a band-aide solution together anymore.  I wanted to solve for the root cause!  From my experience, I knew that hotels needed consistent sales pipeline, and many of these select service hotels just didn’t have a pipeline for new business.  They weren’t having enough conversations with potential customer. What I quickly realized was, although that is what our partners were asking for…it’s not exactly everything they needed.  Although lead generation was a highly effective and valuable solution for many of our customers, it was not helpful for properties that had turnover and skill-set challenges.  Clearly, we needed an enhanced solution for those hotels. I’m not in business to just make a few bucks off someone else’s challenges. I’m here to create solutions for the root cause so they never have to face those challenges again.  Check out this video I made in the early days of drawing out the concept.

For the next several months, I designed the Sales4Hire business model, and over the past few years I’ve adjusted the model after testing it in various ways.  What most don’t understand is that this is NOT task force.  Sales4Hire is the antithesis of task force, and that is because I found that task force is just another band-aide solution for sales in the select service hotel category. It is just another body in a seat that will eventually leave and disrupt the sales process.

Sales4Hire is an Agency Model that brings consistency and a collaborative, team approach.  It works because the hotel is no longer held hostage by the fantasy of having a “rain-maker” in their sales seat.  Instead of simple raw talent and faith alone, the model delivers proven processes and systems for long-term sustainable results.

Over the past year our team has worked hard to perfect the model, made adjustments and put it all to the test. This/Our process has delivered incredible results for our partners.

• I recently had a meeting with one hotel owner/GM who was thrilled that we’ve delivered a 1.9% cost of sales in the B2B categories that sales has a direct impact on, and we’ve increased his LNR business YOY by over 25%.
• For another partner, we’ve booked over $400K in group revenue, and doubled their group business YOY.
• For even more recent results, just last week we closed a project worth $75K for one of our partners and closed four new local negotiated accounts. We are seeing measurable results weekly.

We are looking for clients who are ready to change this game, to try something different, and to end the insanity…