Look For The Uncomfortable – Melissa Matthews

 

 

Transcript:

Wed, May 4, 2022

SUMMARY KEYWORDS 
hospitality , sales , people , industry , crm , hotel , position , find , career , life , properties , general manager , opportunity , melissa , revenue , support , years , day , important , job

SPEAKERS
Melissa Matthews & Christopher Smith

Intro
Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith, talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack. Listen to find out how the best of the best achieve success with their team and CRM technology. And remember, unless you are the lead dog, the view never changes.

Christopher Smith
Welcome to sales lead dog, today I have joining me, Melissa Matthews. Melissa, welcome to sales lead dog.

Melissa Matthews
I’m happy to be here.

Christopher Smith
Yeah, my favorite a little problem speaking today. Apparently stumbling over the sales lead dog name. Super excited to have you here on the podcast. Melissa. Melissa, tell us a little bit about your current role and your company azul.

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, so I ended up Vice President of Sales for azul Hospitality Group, we are a San Diego based hotel management company. We are one of the largest unencumbered management companies in Southern California, which essentially means that we don’t typically have any type of investment or ownership stake in the properties that we’re managing. So, our management agreements were are with either private individual owners or they are with more REIT type owners that have properties that they need managed by a hotel management company. So that’s what a goal is. And I oversee sales and revenue. And I work with a really talented group of individuals at the property level, as well as our corporate office and just ensure that we’re meeting all of the expectations of our ownership group in terms of top line presidents, or top line revenue.

Christopher Smith
I was really excited to have him on the show because we get a lot of, I would say more traditional type businesses we’ve never had anyone on around hospitality and your company’s business model. It’s I’m really excited to have you on and talk about sales and learn maybe how they’re different from maybe more or say traditional but different from other sales models or companies and how they’re trying to sell. Yeah. First question I have for you is about your website. So, Zillow has a really cool website. And if you go to our team page, you know, they’ve got the whole profile there. And if you click on the person’s profile, it flips and it plays a little, little video. Yeah. How did you pick the video that you have linked to your bio?

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, so we have a really talented Vice President of Marketing and E commerce. And so, she was really instrumental and re launching that website, it actually I want to say, re launched maybe six months ago. And just knowing all of our different personality, she really wanted to do something a little bit fun. And so, she went through and found some gifts and some celebrities and ideas that kind of matched all of our personalities. And so yeah, mine is. I’m a big supporter of celebrating all wins. And so yeah, I think it’s appropriate for lunch.

Christopher Smith
Let’s see, that’s what I was wondering, did you pick that, or someone picked up for you? For me? Yeah. Because it’s I went to every one of them because I wanted to see once I saw yours, I wanted to see everyone else’s, it really gives you a little bit of a window into their person. It was it’s a lot of fun. I love it is a great idea.

Melissa Matthews
When she says she originally put them together and she sent them out to all of us and asked for our feedback on whether we thought ours was appropriate to our personality and as well as everyone else’s. And hands down. It was 100% Like you’ve nailed everyone’s personality to it.

Christopher Smith
It’s great. I may rip that idea off at some point. I think it’s a great idea. So, Melissa, your whole careers really It looks like it’s been spent in hospitality. How did you get your start in sales are actually let me back up here for a second? I’m jumping ahead of myself. When it comes to you’ve had a lot of success in hospitality sales. When you think back over your career, what are the three things that have really driven that success you’ve achieved?

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, the first one I would say is I’ve had some really amazing mentors. I’m always looking for mentors to guide me in terms of not just knowledge, but just their experiences and how they came up throughout their career. So, I didn’t I didn’t set out in my life to be in hospitality. I kind of fell into it, but I would say probably 94 So one of the people in hospitality fell into it. But I had some really great people along the way that helped pull me up with them. And I’m a real big supporter of making sure that you’re paying it back and paying it forward. And so, I would say that that’s probably the first one is in terms of expertise, some really great advice in my career. So, one of them was make sure that you’re shining and moving on, don’t stay too stagnant and one position. So, once you’re really at the pinnacle, you feel like you’ve learned all that you need to learn and your current position, don’t be afraid to push yourself and look for that next challenge is always look for the uncomfortable. So, I’ve really tried to do that in my career. And then the, the other one, I would say in terms of just amazing advice, which I really try to follow every day is Don’t look for the salary, follow the position. So, make sure that you’re always asking for more opportunity, more learning more job development, more tasks, and responsibilities and the positions and the money will follow. If you just focus on that.

Christopher Smith
You get some really good advice. Was that all from the same person? Or are those different people?

Melissa Matthews
Different people? Yeah, different people?

Christopher Smith
Yeah, if you had to pick out one of your mentors is there one that kind of rises to the top?

Melissa Matthews
Oh, my gosh, there’s so many, I would say my first director of sales, she was the one that told me her name Kim McCarthy, she is an amazing individual, I learned so much from her in my first position here in San Diego, she was the one that told me shine and move on sign and move on. And I think that is so relevant for everything that we do in life is just fine. And then look for the next thing. Like once you start to become too comfortable, then you’re not learning anymore. So, continue to move on.

Christopher Smith
That’s tremendous. And I remember my dad shared something like that with, you know, he got to a position of a VP at a company he was working at. And it’s kind of funny how you think like, oh, I’m gonna get there and that, like, it’s going to be so awesome. He said, I was so bored, that I wasn’t in the fight anymore. And so that was his time to move on.

Melissa Matthews
I think if this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that in the uncomfortable life, the knowledge and like all of the true real learning experiences. And I would say that I have learned probably more in the past two years than I learned in the prior 80 of my careers, and it’s been an uncomfortable time. But looking back on it, I think its skill sets and knowledge that I wouldn’t have gained otherwise. So always look for the silver linings and positive and everything.

Christopher Smith
So, you fell into sales? What did you want to do? Or what was your dream job before you ended up in sales?

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, I really wanted to be an international affairs, I went to university for international affairs, I thought that I was going to go work for the United Nations, or maybe the Peace Corps or something, and really just wanted to solve world hunger and create world peace. And I graduated from university, and I did that for a while. And it’s Washington DC. And I worked for an amazing nonprofit organization called the National Council on us Arab relations, and they’re still around to this day, over 200 years, really supporting the American interests in the Middle East, which is so important as we know right now, and I absolutely loved that job. I organized conferences for students like me who had interests in that field, as well as help organize congressional visits for congressmen and senators here in the United States that wanted to go over to the Middle East and learn more about the politics and the culture to ensure that the American interests were being promoted within those regions. And, you know, then the world happens and 911 and, you know, funding for those types of organizations kind of fell by the wayside. And I moved back to Atlanta and was living with my parents after being out of the house for almost six years. And it was very humbling, being unemployed, and looking for a job and I had really tried to stay in that field and looks for a number of different positions and just couldn’t find anything. And I was sitting actually in a pub one day after just a terrible, terrible interview where I thought I was gonna get it and then No, at the very end, after about 12 interviews, they told me they were in a hiring freeze and I was very disappointed and there was a really pleasant woman sitting next to me at the bar and she said, I have a sales coordinator position open at a hotel If you’re interested in and I said, I’m definitely interested, I don’t know what it does or how much it pays. But I’ll be there tomorrow. And so, I went in Brighton early my resume, and she hired me on the spot, because when can you start, like right now start right now, in hindsight, it, it really turned out to be the best place. For me. It’s such a career that I’m really passionate about. I love working with people. And it gives me the opportunity to interact with so many different types of guests and owners and all that. So, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Christopher Smith
If you were going to be mentoring young Melissa, the young version of you in that first role. What’s the piece of advice or the one lesson you you wish you had been told back then?

Melissa Matthews
I would say with a lot of the young people coming into the industry now, I, I would say it’s while the industry has progressed, there’s still a very old school mentality that everyone starts at the bottom. And I think that’s one of the things that really makes the industry so special is that you don’t need a college degree. You don’t need to spend $100,000 on university fees and go into debt and not being able to buy a house and all of those things. You can start at the front, start as a housekeeper start with valet and grow up to be the president and general manager or CEO of a company one day in hospitality and that those exists. And that’s how the majority of people come up. So, I would say that just go in, start at the bottom, work your way up. Always ask for more. And if you’re dedicated and you’re willing to take on more tasks, you can move out very easily very quickly in the industry.

Christopher Smith
No, that’s really cool. What’s the craziest sales stories you have from your days in sales?

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, so I’m actually a really special one. But I’ll tell parts and then a really crazy one that was not successful. That was very eye opening. So, the first one was I had a great opportunity here in San Diego, to work with an organization that was celebrating the life of the marine that had been lost, actually, I’m sorry with the US Navy SEALs that had been lost in Afghanistan. And it was based on a book by Marcus Luttrell that he wrote, called the lone survivor. And it was the largest loss of life of any Navy SEAL unit on a given day. And it was just a really tragic story. But through that opportunity, we were able to work with the city here in San Diego Petco Park in a memorial and we had a massive baseball event around it with 10s of 1000s of people that came in to support these families and really show them that their sacrifices meant something and to this day, I still get choked up at being able to be involved in something like that. I you know, I feel very strongly about service and giving back to people. So that was probably one of the most special things that I was able to do in my career in hospitality. Very cool, right. Very, very cool. I actually had a memorial back that they made with all of the men stains on it, and Marcus Luttrell signed it for me, which was really

Christopher Smith
Yeah, that’s an amazing story. Just amazing people.

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, yeah. The second one, it was my very first hospitality position at that hotel that hired me at the start, and I discovered my very first manager on duty, which is essentially every manager serves at least one operational shift. Typically, a week or a month or since I was serving my first one, I had only been in hospitality for about two weeks, I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time. But as leaders were on duty, stay overnight and one of the rooms and you’re there for emergencies. And so about two o’clock in the morning, I went to bed until the front desk called me community face. I woke up the next morning at six to check and make sure everything was good. And all of the lobby furniture gone. And so, I asked the night auditor what happened to the lobby furniture and she said oh, the movers payment was a brand new hotel they had just recently opened about a year prior. She said the movers came in and took everything they said that they had delivered the wrong furniture and that they were going to bring the new furniture back and I was like oh my gosh, and I just kept thinking I hope that’s

Melissa Matthews
yeah, it was very, very upsetting to hit. They hit about four hotels in the Atlanta area that night and we were happened to be one of them. And of course, my very first manager on duty position. I was like oh my god, I’m gonna get fired over this. But he’s pretty understanding.

Christopher Smith
I tell you, so many scam artists out there, and they’re really good at it. Really? That’s crazy. That’s crazy. So. So tell me about your transition into sales leadership. Why do you think they tapped you for leadership in your first leadership position?

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, I think I was hungry. You know, at the time, I’ve always been hungry I have in my career has always been driven to be that straight A student VM, as many organizations as possible, do as much civic organizations as I can. And so, when I started in the industry, I knew that I was starting from the ground floor, and I really wanted to work up as quickly as possible. So, I went to everyone in the hotel, and I sat with them and tell me what you do. What do you love about your job? What don’t you love about your job? What can you teach me in this moment, and I was really fortunate that people took the time to really sit with me? And I think that if you go in with that type of attitude, but people are really willing to help, and I asked her a lot of help. And I asked a lot of questions, and make sure that I was able to recoup knowledge as quickly as possible. And I still, I still try to do that to this day. So, like I said, I said, one thing I love about the hospitality industry is that you don’t need to come in with experience. And I think that’s a little bit of a misnomer. Sometimes, you know, students will go to school for hospitality for four years, they’ll come out with $100,000 in debt, and they think that they’re going to be a general manager, and that just doesn’t happen. So, save your money, learn on the job, that’s where you’re gonna get the most amount of knowledge and skills. And like I said, as long as you’re hungry, people typically will, they’ll, they’ll take the time. And if you’re making a mistake, just apologize for element, accept it and ask how can I do it differently? Or better in the future? What would you have done? So, I do that a lot.

Christopher Smith
Right? How when it comes to hospitality, what is your approach to selling? How does How do your sales team sell? That might be different from other industries?

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, I, you know, I sell style is probably very similar. It’s all about relationships, and hospitality. And people will do business with people that they like. So, you know, you really need to know everything that there is to know about your customer and connect with them on a personal level outside of the business. So, you know, what our kids are doing, or their kids names are their first day, all of those things, really build that relationship and make sure that you’re developing the report before you start selling something, I think so the people that struggle in hospitality sales are the ones that are focused on bright space in space. And, and they’re, you know, looking to get through the cell as quickly as possible. And that just doesn’t happen. If you really take the time to nurture a relationship with a customer. They’ll give you business for the lifetime, and they’ll follow you. So whatever hotel you go, and whatever city you’re in, because they enjoy doing business for you. And I’ve had that with people that have followed me around in my career. And even though they weren’t necessarily looking in San Diego, or looking for a Hyatt or Marriott or Hilton, or whatever the brands it, because they enjoyed doing business with me previously, then they’ll continue to bring business to wherever I’m going, which is why it’s so important to keep yourself people happy. When they leave.

Christopher Smith
So yeah, so your sales team, what’s your philosophy or approach to building your sales team?

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, it’s all about cell culture for me. So, I really want to be the absolute number one desired management company to work for. And I think that we’re quickly gaining that type of relationship. And it’s because we invest in training, we invest in culture, we’re consistently looking at our incentive plans and making sure that they are not just in our industry that said there, but in the sales industry, because we’re also competing with medical sales and tech sales, and, you know, all of those things. So, I think that’s really hit to make sure that we’re mentoring training, giving the support that they need, that we’re compassionate understanding when there are personal and lifestyle changes, that we’re consistently looking for people who want to move up, move around, whether it’s moving cities, in hotels, moving jobs. We have a lot of salespeople that move out of sales and go into operations and become general managers. So just making sure that we keep the lines of communication open and that we’re really invested in them as a whole person. They’re not just in their professional, but in their mental their health, their wellness, their family life, and all of those things as well.

Christopher Smith
What’s the hardest part of your job?

Melissa Matthews
Oh my gosh, right now it’s finding that, I would say that we’ve lost a lot of hospitality industry associates of an entire industry. And again, they’ve moved to other medical tests, you know, any other industry that you can think of, but they’re leaving hospitality. And I think that’s a real shame. I think as an industry, we have a long way to go to re earn the trust that we’ve lost over the past couple of years. And I think the, you know, the massive layoffs across the whole industry and hotels closing. And all of that was so distressed, disrupted. And such a just started from a place of distrust for people who had been working with the same company or working in this industry for 2030 years. And it really allowed them to look at other industries that they might not have looked at previously. So that that’s my biggest challenge right now is convincing people that hospitality while you know, we’re still in the grind of it right now, it is a fun place to be and that they should want to be here because, you know, we’re great people, and we work with great people, and every day is different. And it’s all about, you know, servicing your guests and making sure that we’re still focusing on our associates and just reminding them of why this is a fun place to be. So that’s my challenge right now finding people if you know anyone, please send them my way, have a number of

Christopher Smith
properties to sell. When it comes to building out your team, and I think a big part of a sales leaders job is to provide people a path for growth and opportunity and advanced opportunities. What are you looking for in your team? Just to tell you, it’s time to tap them on the shoulder and say, hey, let’s talk about a new role for you in leadership.

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, I mean, we are growing honestly, so fast right now that it’s hard to keep up. When I started with a goal, I think we had six properties. And now we’ve got 42, we gained 23 over the pandemic. So, what you’re saying is really relevant to us right now, it’s defined as people that do want to move up, we’ve got a number of different career paths, again, whether they want to stay in sales, and they want to go on to be a general manager, or a regional director of sales, or they’re interested in marketing, there’s so many different paths for them. So, I really focus on that in our one on ones is, you know, how are you feeling? Now? Where do you want to be tomorrow? Where do you want to be next week? Where do you want to be next year, both personally and professionally? And for myself, leaders, it’s really important, not just that the lines are two way but that they feel comfortable to come to me. And if they are looking at another industry, or they have another offer, you know, I will always give someone the absolute best advice. If I really think that you know, something different is a better option for them, then I’m honest about it. And it’s a great opportunity, you should 100% Take it. Or if you just give me you know, a year, hold on, I will get you in a position, I will get you the responsibility that you want. And we can find something for you. For people who are really passionate about this industry. There’s massive, massive potential. So yeah,

Christopher Smith
what advice do you give those people that you’re elevating into leadership around their first 90 days or that you know that first period in that new role?

Melissa Matthews
Sit back, don’t make changes, sit back and learn, observe, find out what’s working, find out what’s not working. I think the directors of sales that I manage that are the most successful are the ones that go into a team and they really take the time to sit with each member of that team and find out what works for them what doesn’t work for them. And that’s different for every single person don’t treat everyone as if they’re an Apple because we might have some oranges in your bunch and that’s okay, because the oranges are what makes the fruit like fresh. All right. So, you know, really foster all of the individual personalities and you know, make sure that you’re investing in your own team member but sit back and observe and then get buy in don’t make changes, you know, lateral with a team and psychoses Well, I’m thinking do you have any other thoughts and I really want your input as to how you as a team can move forward and achieve our goals.

Christopher Smith
How do you define success other than revenue? How do you define success for your team?

Melissa Matthews
I think I mean, certainly top line profit is important for us, because we have a fiduciary responsibility to here, our honor. So that’s, that’s a part of it. But the other part of it is making sure that their employees are happy that they have good retention, and that they have good quality of life. And, you know, success that can come in a lot of different ways. And right now, as an industry, we’re still struggling to recover. So, I would say success, you have to enjoy all of the little ones along the way success might be I got a customer for the property that I’ve been trying to get here for the past six months, that’s a massive win. Like we need to take the time to celebrate those. So, breaking it down into little tiny, bite sized pieces, and not so much focused on the overall revenue bullet thing could be ticket by side, it’s kind of that that thing of like, how do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time? Sometimes it seems really overwhelming to get to the end that if you just take it one tiny little piece at a time, what can I do today? That will be revenue impacting for next month? Or next year? What can we do tomorrow to add on to that? And that’s what success looks like to me.

Christopher Smith
How do you define goals for your team?

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, so we were a big proponent, we removed all of the normal standard industry goals of you have to book this much per month and this much per quarter, we removed that a few years ago, I found that it was creating a lot of anxiety around the end of the month that everyone would just kind of drop everything to find whatever they could. And if they didn’t make the goal, if they were $5 off, or $100, or $10 $10,000, there was just so anxiety is so much anxiety that would prevent them from moving forward and achieving their goals next month. So, we removed all of this obstacle, now purely based on how much they book. And it’s uncapped. So, the more you book, the more you earn. And surprisingly, there was a lot of concern, I would say from our leadership about doing that, and whether we were going to see the same type of profitability, but production increased 40% In the first quarter that we did it, and we’re continuing to see the needle being pushed every day. And I think that’s really what gives our sellers the confidence that this is a good courier and that they can continue to move up and move on is that there’s so much opportunity, and it’s all based on their own willingness, they’re the only obstacle they have is their own self-interest. And if they can get out of their way, and let creativity and their mind, be free to look for all of those outside opportunities and potential revenue sources and they’ll succeed.

Christopher Smith
Awesome. CRM, do you love it? Or do you hate it?

Melissa Matthews
Oh my gosh, it’s a love hate. Yes, love, hey, we have a number of different CRMs that we do, just because we have so many different brands. But I would say I love the fact that we can track our customers and take notes on birthdays and what’s important to them and all of their hot buttons. And you know, all of those things are great recordings are great, I would say user interface is the constant challenge for us is to find an easy and easy user interface. But when we hire people who are new to the industry, that they can pick it up and they don’t need to spend a year trying to figure out how the CRM works. And you know, all the different terminology from one era to the other. I would love if the industry could find one CRM that works for all brands with the same terminology across all brands. That would just be such a madness when I think and it’s one of the reasons that people say with one brand for the majority of their life, it’s because Apple to learn a new CRM.

Christopher Smith
Why do you think it’s so CRM so hard in the hospitality industry? So, do you think there’s a common theme there? Or is it a variety of things?

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, I think it’s I think partly it’s that the traditional CRM out there don’t really understand the difference in how hospitality sales work versus sales and you know, another industry and I, I’ve been through so many different demonstrations that really highlight that fact. The other Part of it, I think the integration piece, you know, our CRM has to integrate with our property management systems, our revenue management systems, our reservation systems, our accounting systems, our, you know, there’s so many different pieces of, you know, it really needs to work and pull in all of the information from all these other needs to be a two way street. And for whatever reason, hospitality just can’t figure that out, we’re still looking for the right technology to do that.

Christopher Smith
Is adoption of serum an issue in your world?

Melissa Matthews
No, I would say we have high adoption of using the serum. I think with new associates that come into the hotel industry, it’s sometimes a challenge to get them to really understand why it’s important to use it so that we do have tractability. And, you know, we’re always like activities speak volumes. Like if you’re struggling and making your goal or you’re struggling in being successful, or hotel struggling and top line profit, that’s the first place we’re gonna go is to look and see, you know, what our activities, what do we have in our pipeline? Or funnel? How quickly is our funnel, the refills and all of those things. And so that’s, that’s, I think, the challenge on my side, and a lot of our sides is just figuring out, like, what is being put in versus what’s not being put in. But I would say for the most part, the majority of it is pretty high adoption.

Christopher Smith
Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome. Yeah, I, one of the things I find interesting is, people will talk about like, oh, we’ve got great stuff in there. But then when you start asking, Will, you know, what are you missing? That’s a far more interesting conversation. Because, you know, when you really start asking people about that side of things, we usually find that there are some significant gaps in in their CRMs ability to support so they’re doing a lot of stuff externally, in Excel spreadsheets or whatever. Is that an issue? Do you think in hospitality?

Melissa Matthews
Yes, yes, definitely. We still have that in that, that we have great reporting with us recordings, the look of them is clunky, they don’t really make intuitive sense, particularly if you’re sharing them with outside stakeholders, like an owner or investor or a lender or something like that the terminology is so different, the formatting is so different. It’s difficult to like right now, for our industry, comparison to 2019 is the most important way kind of like 2020, and 2021, just didn’t even exist, what’s the power during the 2019. And even that is a challenge right now, because a lot of the CRM only go back three years in terms of being able to pull out historical booking information. So that that’s a challenge for sure. But we have to do a lot of spreadsheets to make up for it.

Christopher Smith
That makes it tough. But given your world where you guys had such a major, say it’s a blip is like such an understatement. But it’s such a such an impactful event that COVID did to hospitality that yeah, it’s I’m just thrilled that so many hotels made it through because being a consultant that’s a big part of my life is living in hotels, and so it’s great to see a lot of my favorite properties all made it through. Melissa, we’re at our time here and sales lead dog I really appreciate you coming on if people want to reach out, connect with you or possibly apply for one of your open positions. What’s the best way for them to connect with you?

Melissa Matthews
Yeah, on our website, which is www XO hospitality group.com. And on the team page, you’ll find me and it has my email address as well as my LinkedIn so you can connect with me and either way and then we also have our careers page which will take you follow her are pretty harmless things and able to fill out applications and if you do find a position that you’re interested in, don’t hesitate if you send in your application, send me your resume as well or send me a quick note let me know that you filled out your application regardless of whether you’re looking at sales and operations and on make sure that you go to the right person well as quickly as we can.

Christopher Smith
Yep, that’s awesome. Make sure you click on her picture too so you can see her video. Absolutely. Check them all out. It’s worth going through every single one of them it made me smile. So most again, thank you for coming on sales lead dog and welcome to the pack.

Melissa Matthews
Thank you so much, Chris. It’s been a great pleasure. I appreciate your time.

Outro
As we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog, be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Watch the videos on YouTube and you can also find our episodes on our website at empellercrm.com/salesleaddog. Sales Lead Dog is supported by Empellor CRM, delivering objectively better CRM for business guaranteed.

 

Quotes

Links

Melissa Matthews LinkedIn
AZUL Hospitality Group LinkedIn
AZUL Hospitality Group Website

Empellor CRM LinkedIn
Empellor CRM Website
Empellor CRM Twitter