Meetings Intelligence Exchange

I had lunch with a pretty sharp insurance executive the other day. She was in the process of contracting a $700,000 meeting with one of our member hotels.

Like many she drastically reduced their meetings over the last two years to reduce expenses and avoid the “negative publicity of meeting.”

She knew how much money they saved but she hasn’t tried to measure the negative affect of not meeting, not building relationships with their customers and not rewarding their top producers with incentive travel.

But she did know one thing, “that her guys aren’t feeling the love.” She didn’t have to ask them….they told her.

So without wasting much time her plan to show her guys some love is on! They’re meeting, meeting at resorts and incorporating great content + education into their agenda.

Isn’t it time to show your guys some love?

To your success,

Tim Ryan

I’ve had a bunch of our members ask if I think the meetings industry will see a recovery soon. I answer with a confident “yes.”

Here are a few of my leading indicators (some are more scientific than others:)

-Ford announced a $2.7 billion profit for 2009 vs. a loss of $14.7 billion last year. Sure GM and Chrysler are in the dumps but when Ford increases their meeting and incentive programs their competitors are sure to follow.

-NBC has sold $650 million of national advertising (and still counting) for the Winter Olympics, and expects to reach the level of previous Winter Olympics ($740-$930 million.) If companies are advertising to attract customers, business travel will soon follow.

-Super Bowl hospitality is on the mend…it was more than just Miami!

-I’ve received a ton of “out of office” replies to my emails, many include notes about the meeting they’re attending.

-The bellmen at one of my favorite hotels tell me they’re working more hours and expect to have a good spring.

-Six tournaments into the PGA Tour and the only question is “when do you think Tiger will return?” It’s not about why companies are sponsoring tournaments, entertaining customers and rewarding their top achievers with tickets and hospitality (let’s face it we know you get a great ROI on these events.)

I like to mix a few facts with a bunch of “gut feel indicators.” If you have any gut feel indicators of your own please share them with us.

Wolfgang Jilka from Meadwood just emailed me an interesting article from the WSJ.

“Don’t use the R-Word: Hotels Find Trick to Business Bookings.”

Tell us…if a property removes “resort” from their name are you more likely to book it?

It’s the week after New Years, I’ve been hustling all week getting all kids of projects done. It’ll be at least 6 months before the best of this weeks work starts to pay off.

I also had some time to reflect on how wild and wacky the meetings business has been the last two years and am really excited to start a new decade. Who knows what we’ll be working on in 2019, but I have some thoughts on what 2010 has in store for us.

-Hotel Bankruptcies will continue at a pace not seen since the savings & loan crisis of the mid 1980’s. Hotels and resorts will change owners and reduce service and staffing levels just to survive. All have the potential to disrupt your plans to execute a flawless meeting.

-Hotel Sales Managers will begin to “job hop.” Most haven’t earned an incentive or a salary increase for two years and will be lured to their competitors by the prospect of greener pastures. Hotels will compete to keep and attract top talent.

-Planners will receive fewer responses to their RFP’s. Sure hotels need the business however they don’t need and won’t respond to the unrealistic requests and demands they’ve been receiving.

-Group room rates will increase. Lets face hotels have squeezed all the inefficiencies and costs from their expenses and raising are about the only way left to survive.

-If you cancel a contracted meeting expect to pay the full cancellation fee. Most hoteliers are over the negotiation of “rescheduling” a contracted meeting one to two years from the original dates just to keep the business. Business has changed; they need the money and the business now.

-Attrition fees will continue to be waived or negotiated during contract negotiations. If you don’t contract this concession don’t expect to renegotiate if you don’t deliver the numbers you promised.

-More Trade and Professional Associations will ask their members to invite and pay for “their” customers to attend the associations meetings.

-Offering exceptional educational content is more important than ever before. Explain how your business and your customers business is going to change over the next 5 years and watch how the “return on your meetings investment” skyrockets.

-Short term continues to be the norm. For better or worse the next 90 days may be the most important to your business.

-Business will realize it’s acceptable and necessary to travel, meet and entertain customers (but not until late 2010 or early 2011.)

Happy New Year, and here’s to you in your mission to advance in your own corner of the world during this crazy time.

Tim Ryan

While I was pouring over the recent hotel reviews and intelligence that our meeting planner members have shared my mind wandered from the “the good, the bad and the ugly” of hotels and meetings to “In-N-Out Burger.” Not because I was hungry for a double-double, but because I was reminded of a terrific success story.

For those of you who don’t spend a lot of time in California In-N-Out Burger is well know for their grilled hamburgers, basket of fries and tasty chocolate shakes. Driving along Highway 101 you are bound to encounter one.

They’re open late but on this night (after leaving a San Jose Sharks vs. Calgary Flames hockey game) we realized weren’t going to make it before closing.

So we did what any group of hungry guys would do to ensure a good snack. We called information from our smart phone and asked them to connect us to the closest In-N-Out Burger. Our phone must have been smart because it connected us to In-N-Out’s Corporate Headquarters. And yes, even minutes before midnight a live person answered the phone. In the world of automated greetings and voice mail hell who’d have thought?

We explained our dilemma, four hungry guys driving home and likely to miss closing time by a mere 15 minutes, could they stay open for us?

Here comes the unbelievable part.

They didn’t stay open…they did one better.

The operator took our order and told us to drive up to the front door of their store (which is 300 miles north of the corporate office operator we were speaking to) and pick up our food.

At 12:15 am we pulled up to the front door, picked up our food, paid the bill and gave them what had to be their biggest tip of the night.

Talk about over delivering and exceeding expectations. They earned four customers for life.

So as I return to “the good, the bad and the ugly” of hotel reviews I smile knowing that someone at In-N-Out Burger gets it.

If you know someone else who “gets it” please share it in a hotel review at www.meetingsintel.com.

To your success,

Tim Ryan

Walking into my first meeting last Friday morning I was pulled into the office of a very excited and animated Director of Sales (of one of the higher rated hotels in the Meetings Intelligence Exchange.) As I entered her office I realized she was on the speakerphone with a woman who was equally excited.

I was invited to listen in as the customer confirmed the hotel had won their $400,000 piece of business (that will arrive in four months.) At the last minute two competing hotels dropped their prices almost 50% when they realized they were about to lose the business.

I thought it was pretty cool that the hotel with the higher price won the business and the customer stuck with the hotel she trusted even when she could have saved thousands of dollars at another.

It was nice to see one of my customers having a great day.

My next meeting canceled.

Having a couple of extra hours was a welcome surprise so I decided to call some of my trusted “insiders” to see how their business was doing. If one of my customers was having a great day I was hoping others were also.

Dan is a mentor and one of the best salesmen I know. I asked, how’s your business?

It sucks! This week I have groups in Costa Rica, Europe and New York and everywhere we go people tell us their business s_ _ _ _ too.

Three programs on three different continents in the same week is his s _ _ _ _y reality but it didn’t sound bad to me.

Next I phoned one of my “go to people” that I can always count on to get the job done when the pressure is on.

How’s your business Deb?

It’s ok. I’m working on a few things, but it’s taking a heck of a long time and a lot of people to get things done.

Her “few things” are 11 contracts worth $3.5 million. All will travel within nine months.

Then I caught up with a Special Events Director who orchestrates three major events each year. Three weeks ago she decided to take on a fourth (so she could have some fun managing $5 million in catering functions over seven days.)

I know business is still pretty rough, but I’m beginning to think the glass really is half full.

How about you? Tell me what you think at blog.meetingsintel.com.

The Optimist,

Tim Ryan

I was recently reminded why we need to over communicate and execute as promised during challenging times.

I planned for a long travel day across the country that started with a two-hour ride to the airport then two connections that would take me from coastal North Carolina to Monterey California.

The trip was punctuated by bad weather, poor communication and poor execution that began 10 minutes before we were scheduled to land when the pilot advised us that due to fog we were diverting to Fresno.

Who knows why we couldn’t divert to closer airports such as San Jose or San Francisco but at 11pm and after 12 hours of travel I’m ok with giving the airline the benefit of the doubt that it was safer for us to land in Fresno instead of SJC or SFO.

The pilot announced he was checking with the corporate office to determine if we would wait for the fog to lift and fly back to Monterey or if they would bus us there. In 20 minutes he would let us know. After a long day traveling either option was acceptable to me. I was OK with a bus ride knowing I could recline a seat, get some sleep, and not worry about driving. Renting a car wasn’t an option since the rental companies had closed.

One hour passed and he advised us that we would not fly to Monterey and that the airline was paying for our taxi to Monterey.

Now this was a first for me, a 3-½ hour, $375 taxi ride.

Now as you can imagine the story gets better:

-Waited for our luggage for 30 minutes
-Waited for a taxi for another 30 minutes
-Shared it with four other passengers
-Had to give our driver (who just moved from Philadelphia to Fresno) directions
-Fell asleep then awoke to see that the driver was going the wrong way (the passenger in the front seat gave him different directions) and we had to back track
-Arrived in Monterey to a beautiful moonlit night (or should I say early morning)

I pondered how this experience could have been improved by great communication and execution.

What if:
-The pilot advised us of their decision within 20 minutes as promised and not 60 minutes?
-Our luggage was available when we got to baggage claim and we didn’t have to wait again?
-Airline personnel were available to assist with our luggage?
-The airline chartered buses as initially offered?
-Taxis were waiting for us once we claimed our luggage instead of having to wait again?
-Drivers knew the best route from Fresno to Monterey?

Is this too much to expect?

As we drove across central California I was reminded that as we face challenges in our business we must keep our employees and customers informed, communicate more than we do when times are good, execute our plan to perfection and minimize any inconvenience to our customers.

And if we do they’ll stand by us in challenging times and appreciate our solutions.

Some of you know my daughter. She’s 7 years old, going on 15 and she’s got me wrapped around her finger.

Earlier this year she asked, “Can I spend the summer at Grandmas house?” (Grandma only live 3,000 miles and 3 connections across the country…but I thought what the heck lets give it a try.)

So she packed her suitcase, forgot some clothes on purpose because she knew grandma would take her shopping and we flew across the country to rendezvous with Grandma.

She’s 3 weeks into her summer vacation and growing more confident every day. I spoke with her last night and she told me everything she’s doing and why she’s having such a great trip.

I told her how proud I was of her.

And she asked, “Why are you so proud of me…because I traveled?”

I didn’t expect that question but it got me thinking about people and companies who are starting to travel again.

When she and Grandma left me at the airport I traveled to the U.S. Open Golf Championship at Bethpage NY. Thirty-Nine companies had large hospitality tents and entertained during the tournament. Only a few chose not to display their company name at the entrance.

Bloomberg News wrote two articles about companies entertaining at the Open and neither of them ripped anyone for attending or entertaining customers at our nations championship. And I didn’t see any negative articles or TV, or any politicians pontificating about the curses of entertaining customers or top performers.

And this week one of our hotel subscribers contracted close to $3,000,000 of new group business.

Yes, I’m proud of my daughter for traveling, and for everyone who is booking a meeting, rewarding their top performers, entertaining their top customers and conducting meetings.

Whether you agree or disagree with Republicans or Democrats (and politics is a subject I try to avoid) you have to agree “the times they are a changing.” Not the same way Bob Dylan saw it, but changing none the less.

And the meetings industry is changing too.

We’ve ran scared from the AIG firestorm, hunkered down to avoid the negatively publicity of conducting a meeting, and fought back against politicians criticism of meetings.

So as I was running through my list of crazy ideas (and wondering which might actually work) I kept thinking about hiring some of the most vocal politicians and some of the brightest minds in public office to speak at our customers meetings. And instead of paying them customary speaker fees, I’d make a donation to a charitable organization or scholarship fund in their name. I wonder if they’d accept?

And if they would speak at our meetings, share their vision for the next four years, educate us on their areas of expertise, and suggest how the changes they’re implementing might affect our business would anyone in the press or government criticize us for having a meeting?

I feel like I’ve been in a boxing match with a fighter who’s much stronger than me. I’ve played by the rules. He’s on steroids.

1st Round: The economy begins to slow down, but I’m holding my own.

2nd Round: AIG accepts government bail out money then gets slammed for conducing a meeting at the St. Regis Monarch Beach. I duck and weave and I avoid getting hit hard. 

3rd Round: Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy and the tsunami of cancellations build. I get knocked down but find a way to get up to deal with a wave of cancellations that last six months.

4th Round: The Travel Industry Association rallies, Government rhetoric against meetings subsides. I’ve found my second wind and contract three new pieces of business.

5th Round: My kids vacation in Mexico for 10 days and my daughter returns with a bad cough. A Swine Flu Pandemic is declared and we lose two groups that won’t travel internationally. She’s feeling much better (and that makes up for the lost business!)

6th Round: I’m getting tired and thirsty. As I dust off from the 5th Round cancellations we’re asked to help relocate two meetings from Mexico (that won’t travel there because of the Swine Flu) and we’ll make more money in round 6 than we lost in round 5.

7th Round: May 7,2009 USA Today, front-page headline, “Struggling GM hosts buyers at spa.” Helicopters circle the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa trying to catch GM doing something wrong, (instead of asking how many contracts they signed, cars they leased, or what was their ROI on meeting with 500 of their biggest fleet customers.) But lets face it, after taking billions of our tax dollars they should have held the meeting in Detroit.

8th Round: Had to lay-off five very qualified employees, not because they did something wrong. They were the victims of millions of dollars of cancelled meetings and upcoming bookings that are 30% down from last year.

Who knows what I’ll have to overcome in the 9th round.

Whatever it is and whenever this fight ends I’m confident I’ll be using these lemons to make a nice big glass of lemonade. 

Be successful!

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