After being on the road most of the end of September, it was really nice to stay local for the first week in October and finally getting to spend some time in person with our KTN team in Hollywood, which is thankfully still growing despite all the bad economic news.  My only trip this week was mostly leisure, a new local client, The Breakers Hotel in West Palm  Beach, had invited my wife Cathy and I up to experience this unique hotel in preparation for training which I’ll be doing in December.  Their Director of Sales, Jim Mostad had graciously extended this invitation, and since I had not been inside the hotel for over a decade was I ever in for a pleasant surprise!  They have somehow managed to blend it’s historic architectural design into what I would call “elegantly casual” ambiance.  Cathy and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner in their seafood restaurant and then strolled through the public areas marveling at the architecture, art work, and furnishings. 

The next day I had a very engaging meeting with Jim and his Director of Revenue, Jenny Haire, in their expansive rotunda dining room over the biggest and most diverse breakfast buffet I’ve seen.  Meantime, Cathy was able to enjoy a sunny morning at the resort.  Here’s a picture of us in front of the hotel’s original owner, Henry Flager, who’s descendants still run the resort as I understand, and then one of Cathy mesmerized at the floral display: 

                                 

My next trip was to bring me to Southern California to conduct the first of a series of workshops KTN is presenting for an exciting new client, Gemstone Hotels & Resorts.  This was my first experience in working with Gemstone, and my first impressions were great based on what I’d seen on their websites.  This was a particularly interesting workshop as it was attended by staff from several of their properties in the region, ranging from Lake Arrowhead Resort to the Hotel Mosaic in LA.  What  an interesting day it was exploring the subject of conversational selling for today’s over-informed, multi-tasking callers . It was also exciting to finally meet Sausha Sherbin, their Corporate Director of Training, in person and I was impressed that she invested her whole day participating with us.  Here’s a picture of me with the group that day; Sausha is on my immediate left:  

                                

Thankfully the road of this life I’ve chosen always seems to lead me back home just in time for the key moments, such as the laceName w:st="on">HollywoodlaceName> laceType w:st="on">HillslaceType> laceType w:st="on">Elementary schoollaceType> bookfair, which I arrived just in time from the airport to attend with our kids.  After enjoying the better part of a week back in the office it was time to head out again, this time back to New Brunswick to conduct another round of training for the Virtual Agent Services group that fields voice reservations for Kimpton Hotels.  Having met most of the agents while there to speak at their annual meeting last May, I knew it would be a really fun and engaging couple of days.  I was also looking forward to spending time with my main contact from Kimpton, which is Bernice McCurdy, their Vice President of Reservations  Bernice was such a great host in helping me navigate the lodging arrangements in the two beautiful small towns where the call centers are located and also in making sure I was well fed during my stay.  I was fascinated to learn that like my wife Cathy, she also hunts and had recently got her first moose, which she just happened to have a few pictures of to prove it!  Now I know that Cathy isn’t the only hotel corporate woman you’d also find in orange hunter’s gear!  Here’s my picture with Bernice, followed by my pictures with the groups at their two locations: 

                             

              


           

Instead of  heading home, my schedule had another nice detour which was to meet up with Cathy, who was in Orlando on business and mostly to attend a milestone birthday for her dear friend Claudia Grice, and to also enjoy another rare date night in Orlando.  Here’s a picture of Cathy and Claudia and also one of us together that the females in my office staff say I just have to post:


 

From Orlando I had one more stop for the month, which was to head to Madison, Wisconsin to conduct the opening keynote session for the Wisconsin Innkeeper’s Association.  Although I had traveled to WI before on business, and had sent my other trainers there over the years, this was one of four states in which I had yet not conducted training personally, which made iteven more special.  The location was also excellent, as they had me staying at a beautiful Hilton right across from a modern, top-notch conference center built right on a lake, across from the State Capital building.The occasion was the first day of the annual conference for the Wisconsin Innkeepers Association, and it looked to me like at least 300 people in attendance.  Conference openings are always a big challenge for a speaker, and starting first thing on a Monday isn’t always ideal as it can take longer to warm up an audience.  But that certainly wasn’t the case here, as I was greeted with a very receptive and engaging audience for my “So You REALLY Like Working With People?” speech.  It was also great to see the turnout for the two break-out sessions I presented later that day.  As an extra treat, I bumped into several people I’d not seen in a long time, including Kevin Gallagher, who I’d known as a client years ago at Adam’s Mark and who is now Operations and Project manager for laceName w:st="on">MarcuslaceName> laceName w:st="on">HotelslaceName>.  Here’s a picture of me with Kevin (on my right) along with Buck Drossart, General Manager of The Pointe on laceType w:st="on">LakelaceType> laceName w:st="on">MinocqualaceName>:  

                                      

Before long I was back at the airport and headed home to Florida for the rest of the week. Once again the travel gods were smiling as I was back in town for all the Halloween events at the kids school and of course trick-or-treating here in the neighborhood. Here’s a picture of Adam and Julia with Cathy: