After the blur of traveling to six cities in March, I was glad to see my travel schedule ease-up a bit for April. Aside from some regional sales calls, my only official trip brought me back to Duck, NC to once again work with Twiddy & Co., who is fast becoming our poster-child for reservations sales success. This being my third trip back after already conducting two rounds of reservations sales and e-mail sales workshops, I was very anxious to hear how things were progressing. It was really great to hear the good news from Jon Summerton, their VP of Operations, that they had been significantly increasing booking pace every month so far this year. Whereas they reported being about 25% behind booking pace for the summer 2009 season last December when we first started conducting the training and mystery shopping, through a lot of hard work on all levels they had amazingly drawn within striking distance of pace vs, last year. This was especially great news since I’ve grown quite attached to this client company and the wonderful people there. (By the way, if you're looking for a unique vacation opportunity this summer I would definitely suggest visiting them online at: www.Twiddy.com

This time I was there to conduct the hospitality and guest service training which was to be attended by the whole company, including housekeeping, maintenance, accounting, homeowner services, and of course the front desk reception team. It was really a great couple of days seeing so many familiar faces and also meeting some new ones. Below are some pictures from my trip. The first one is with their rental manager and supervisors who worked so very diligently to coach, train, and fully optimize their team (left to right): Lori, Linda Flannery (Rental Manager), Joanne, and Sara. 

                                              

Here’s a picture of me with some of my favorite participants (from left): Brooke, Courtney, Sara, Melanie, Jennie and Kristie.

                                      

Ron from maintainence was a little making it out for our first picture, so he got to do his very own photo shoot, which something tells me he must have really enjoyed!

                                      

Other than my week in NC, it was great to spend the rest of the month training our own new staff at KTN, as our little mystery shopping business is really growing now and we needed to add several new positions.  During this time in the office we were also able to forge ahead with our International expansion plans in Europe and elsehwere. 

It was also really great to be in town for some important school events. I got to see my son Adam earn a "Kids of Character" award and also my daughter Julia get another A Honor Roll recognition. I was also very happy to be in town for the annual Hollywood Hills Elementary Field Days event. Here are pictures of me with Adam and Julia that day: