After spending most of January on the road, it was good to have my travel schedule slow down a bit for the rest of the month when I returned from training in Canada on February 6.  (See previous entry.)  First up was a day trip to be a guest speaker at the Navis (technologies) Narrowcast User's conference.   Although  it was my third time sitting through conference this year, the information shared was still insightful for me, and it's amazing to see how much progress so many of their clients have had in increasing their call conversion ratios beyond numbers even imaginable for most vacation rental companies.  As always, it was great to see my friend Kyle Buehner, President of Navis, and his great team of sales consultants, and to reconnect with so many old clients, such as Rosalind at Century 21/Thomas Vacation Rentals and many others.

Next up was another familiar audience, as my travels brought me back to my home away from home in Orlando at The Peabody Hotel.  Although I've enjoyed so many vacation memories there with the family, this was to be just a day trip to conduct an advanced level reservations training for their call center staff for Peabody Hotels.  It was great to see how much progress they've made in the past year, and that they aspire to even higher levels of sales excellence.  I think this had to have been the best workshop experience I've had there to date, which says a lot.  Here's a picture of me with the two groups that day:

        

My third trip of the month took me back into the heart of Winter, but fortunately I missed any more snow or ice and just had to deal with -15 degree weather (the high the first day) which still isn't easy for a guy with thin Florida blood!  But the trip was well worth it and fortunately I went right from the airport to the cab to the hotel.  Even more fortunate was that the front desk staff at my hotel was smart enough to recommend that I NOT walk across the parking lot to the convenience store to purchase a single cold beer, as I would have surely had frostbite!  (They instead managed to find one from the conference planner, which was appreciated at the end of such a long day!)  The occasion was to be the closing speaker at the GM's conference for ETC Enterprises.  It was great to be working with Nathan Sieve again, as we had done business before at my old company and stayed in touch when I've been a guest speaker at the Americinn conferences.  It was also great to see how well they have done with their own extended stay brands, such as the GrandStay extended stay brand.  What a terrific group of energetic, inspired, and in-touch GM's I had to work with that day and it was good to see that they found my messages relevant to their everyday operations.  Here's a picture of me with the group that day:

                               

My last trip of the month would have been the easiest and most enjoyable, as I was on non-stops to/from Las Vegas to be the closing keynote speaker for Hotel & Motel Management Magazine's HOTELWORLD conference, had it not been that I had about 10 hours of work to do from my guest room.  This prevented me from enjoying some downtime with my good friend Jeff Higley, who is the Editor and also who was organizing the conference, which was especially unfortunate as it was to be his last event in the job he held for 11 years.  Oh well, at least I had a nice view from my window, and at least Jeff is staying in the hospitality industry as he transitions on to work for Smith Travel Research as they look to launch industry publications in coming months.  And it was also quite fun to be a part of this first-ever (now to be annual) event, which was held in conjunction with Hospitality Week in Las Vegas.  Although the groups were small in the breakouts and even for my closing keynote, as it was hard to compete with the Nightclub/Cocktail industry trade show that was happening at the same time, it was great to see those in attendance reacting so positively to my messages about the "Five Principles For Personal Fulfillment In Hospitality Excellence" from my "So You REALLY Like Working With People?" keynote.  Here's a picture of me presenting, along with one of me with my pal Jeff Higley:

        

 

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