August turned out to be a great month for my travels on all levels, both personally and professionally.  After all of the traveling I'd done during the first half of the year it was nice to work-in some personal time that allowed me to visit out of town family while also enjoying time with some of our closest friends. 

Thanks to my client and friend Pat Plumlee of Plumlee Gulf Beach Vacation Realty, I was able to start the month with a fabulous family vacation in a place that is so familiar in the St. Petersburg/Gulf Shores beach area.  I remember this area so well as the first sight I'd seen of the ocean as I visited my grandma as a first grader in 1967.  Since then I'm been blessed with memories of family vacations there, including twice before as a guest of Pat's who has been a loyal client for about a decade now it seems.  But this time was one of the most special visits ever as our family got to spend the better part of a week relaxing with our children and some of their closest friends.  Thanks to Pat Plumlee who extended special arrangements for the three families traveling with us, our Adam and Julia had one of the best summer vacations ever vacationing with 10 other kids from our school community.  Cathy and I also enjoyed relaxing with our friends and also getting to visit my local cousins Gary, Cindy and Laura and my dear and beloved Aunt Teeda who is my only surviving aunt.  Here is a picture of my family on the last night of our summer vacation: 

                                            

In addition to our traditional vacation in August, and a "Stay-cation" this summer due to our over-stuffed schedules, I also got to enjoy a terrifically fun and also productive "Work-cation" with the key members of our leadership team at KTN Training.  We had originally planned to meet at our home office in downtown Hollywood Florida, but thanks to Chris Crenshaw and his team at the Loews Miami Beach we were able to hold our meeting there.   This not only allowed us to help our  team personally indulge in the experience of becoming "Loews-ized" for themselves, but also provided a productive environment for our KTN meeting.  Here is a picture of me with some of our KTN team members that evening:
                             
                                       

Although this life on the road I have created for myself sometimes requires the sacrifice of not being able to be there, more often than not I always seem to be fortunate to be there for life's most important milestones.   This summer that included the first day of school for my Adam and Julia,  who have now started fourth and fifth grade respectively.  It is great to see  the enthusiasm they have at the onset of this school year, and one of my main personal goals is to be in the precious present as they complete their last years in grade school.   Here's their picture  on the first day:

                                   

As August progressed it was time to hit the road again and since it was the middle of our hot and rainy season here in South Florida I couldn't think of a better  place to have to go on a business trip than to Park City Utah!  Although I'd been to Salt Lake City many times and have frequently assigned my trainers to go there, I had never myself visited the destination.  It was amazing how quickly the drive went and I can imagine what an easy escape weekend that makes it given the air lift into Salt Lake City, and as I got to experience The Canyons resort area I realized that much more what a great destination it has become over the years. 

I have been welcomed many ways over the years as a hotel industry trainer but rarely if ever has the actual client, in this case Jay Martin, actually been waiting at the door!  Over the next two days it was exciting to conduct both hospitality/guest service excellence training for the front desk team and also reservations  sales training for his reservations sales staff.  Although I'd only met Jay one year ago when he attended the CRADR association conference where I was the guest speaker, we connected on many levels.  It was clear that he "gets it" when it come to the importance of staff training and individual coaching as the most important tools for reservations sales and hospitality excellence.  In addition to having a comprehensive new-agent onboarding program for his highly seasonal operation, Jay also personally monitors, records, and scores at least 3 calls per agent per month.  For those who have heard me preach about the reservations phone lines being your "store front window" to potential new customers, it was great to see this effort bringing about results in the real world. 

Jay Martin, Director of Reservations, can be seen to the far left in the first of these four photo's I took with my groups over two days:

           

     

 

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