Buyer Behavior Has Changed Forever | with Jess Hayes
GAIN Momentum episode #2 - | with Jess Hayes
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Jason Emanis: Welcome to the Gain Momentum Podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from global industry leaders about how to grow and scale a business in hospitality, travel, food service, and technology. I'm Jason Emanis with my co-host Adam Mogelonsky. How are you, sir?
Adam Mogelonsky: I'm doing great.
Jason Emanis: Our guest today is Jess Hayes, sales executive with Plus Grade.
How are you, Jess?
Jess Hayes: I'm great. Thanks for having me.
Adam Mogelonsky: So our format for the podcast is we're focusing on timeless lessons, and we've boiled it down to four questions to frame the podcast and make it very short and sweet. So we're gonna get right in with the first question, and that is, When it comes to scaling a business, Jess, what is the single piece of advice you would give entrepreneurs from your perspective as a professional in
hospitality?
Jess Hayes: I think align sales and marketing very quickly. Don't invest too much in sales and not enough in marketing, would be my number one advice. That's I've seen it where there's too much of a focus from the sales perspective and I think the way people buy has really changed.
Jason Emanis: Good answer.
Jess Hayes: Just trying to butter up Jason
here.
Jason Emanis: Yeah. The marketing guy in the room.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, just
straight up.
Jess Hayes: Yeah.
Jason Emanis: we've experienced it a lot. Right? And that's the key. People's buying behaviors have changed. They don't wanna be interrupted, so, You've gotta get out in front right before the Jess Hayes and her crew call you up or shoot you a LinkedIn message.
The market's gotta have some kind of idea
of what this product is, what this company is.
Jess Hayes: And I think, getting to know the customer as fast as possible, falling in love with your customer, talking to them all the time, and then being able to rinse and repeat and tell those stories, right? And so telling those stories is not singularly from a marketing perspective or a sales perspective.
It's from both. And so, when you're selling into hotels, because they're getting inundated by so many, Vendors and messages, being super clear and focused on how you can help and telling that story.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, in my mind, this is something that I've grappled with every day, which is almost this tech blur. The, that's what I call it, the cacophony of digital noise that's in marketers, and it's like people are tuning out. is it's a constant game of of e evolution and adaptation, and I'm wondering what's working for you right now in
Q1 2023 to break through that noise?
Jess Hayes: removing friction from the implementation process and the sales process. So, I sell software. That's what I've been doing, for 25 years, whether it's selling training, implementing account managing. So I've seen all pieces of it and I think, if you are going to add to the workload of a Hotelier,
Introducing a piece of technology that's going to drastically change their day, not improve their day.
I always talk about using technology for good, not evil. so making sure that there's a process in place to make it really easy to implement, train, automate where you can use technology, where you can, but then at the end of the day, make them money. That's what it's about. And then, so what's working is getting very focused on the message.
And making sure it resonates with them and helps their, helps 'em sleep at night,
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, one more follow up. Aren't a lot of these things that improve their day instead of just add more workload, aren't they, a lot of short-term pain,
long-term gain?
Jess Hayes: I think. Of course, for sure. but I think I. Especially now with the labor shortage and the fact that everybody is so sort of overwhelmed, it's hard to see the forest through the trees, right? So, and you need to be able to tell the long-term story. But the short-term story is what I think, what I've really been focusing on.
Jason Emanis: It's, Jess and I have talked about this in the past, recent past. It's a priority challenge.
Like you said, Adam, there's a whole bunch of noise and then there's a whole bunch of priorities that have been set months in advance. And you as a salesperson or a marketer, anyone coming in with a new idea, it's gotta develop.
It's you better be using the right language or it's gonna, they'll just tune out. but not only that it's being consistent. Think it really helps when you have leaders in an organization out in front that. Somebody like Jess can come in behind a week later or whatever, Hey, did you see our CEO on podcast X, Y, Z?
and I've seen Jess do this in the past, just addressing the problem. Like, if you're not addressing the problem, no one really cares.
Jess Hayes: Okay.
Adam Mogelonsky: So then it's How do you find.
that problem?
Everyone has a different problem.
Jess Hayes: I think the problem, we all know if you're bought into a technology company, for example, but finding the person who cares most about the problem, right? Because in a given hotel, you've got so many stakeholders and so who's who? Who's the person who's gonna look like a hero by implementing your solution?
And who cares the most, right? So that's kind of what makes our jobs fun.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah I've used the term finding the internal champion,
but I really like your, you phrasing it as a question, saying, who's going
to be the hero? Who's gonna look like the hero? I really like that.
Jess Hayes: That
comes from literally my first job in
hospitality where I worked for Newmarket which is Amadeus now. And I flew out every Sunday, came back every Friday and trained hotels how to use their sales and catering software. And they went, I mean, this is gonna make me seem kind of old, but they went from a paper function diary to an automated, system where they were checking space and giving rates for groups.
But what Newmarket did at the time was so genius. They created a role, for the person who cared most about the software, and it was, they were called the key operator, right? So, the key operator then became the champion internally for all questions related to this, to the program.
So that's, I learned it ages ago and I still try to find, the person who gets really jazzed about automating the things that are pin points for them.
Adam Mogelonsky: Wow. I like it. Key operator. find that hero.
okay. So onto the second question. Jess, what are some of the common pitfalls or failures you have witnessed that business owners should look to avoid when scaling their business?
Jess Hayes: How long do you have? No, I've really learned what not to do and I think
I. Leadership is what I look for most now in any relationship work-wise. I have this big, issue with fear-based leadership and I. Where that can translate to this question is, I've seen a lot of CEOs focus too much on the competition, for example.
So they're constantly in fear mode about, what their competition is doing. And that can be really distracting. I mean, you wanna be aware, you wanna know, but to go down the road of. Trying to chase competition or out, feature them. Adding features just because they're doing it. I think, again, going back to the customer, just stay in touch with your customer.
Love your customer, talk to your customer. They'll tell you, what needs to be enhanced and what doesn't. But Also be very realistic about the sales cycle in hospitality because there are so many stakeholders, because it is often hard to find the person who cares the most and because there's turnover, right?
So just really have a lot of empathy for hotels and yeah, I mean, I could go on, but those are the main points.
Adam Mogelonsky: it's, as Jeff Bezos says, is just being customer obsessed.
Jess Hayes: Yeah.
Adam Mogelonsky: the follow up question I have is you mentioned the T word turnover
and. What can business owners do to avoid
or limit
turnover?
Jess Hayes: It's hard to create loyalty, right. Corporate. Dynamics have changed quite a bit. We, people don't have the 401k, they don't have the pensions, they don't have the benefits as much as they used to. So, in absence of that, or in addition to it, to augment benefits and things like that, I think creating loyalty, creating a culture, again, opposite of fear-based, where you wanna go to work every day, you what you care about, what you do.
And that comes from hire leaders, you're a leader, but hire leaders. Don't hire people who you know, Are just in it for the paycheck. I think if you're building a team in a hotel, treat them like family. People spend more time at work than they do with their own families. And so you need to be really respectful of that and know, different people are motivated by different things.
Know, know what your employees are motivated by. Some are motivated by numbers, some are motivated by, team building activities. And
Adam Mogelonsky: yeah, I the one thing that's just racking my brain right now is, Hotels are any a different situation than other sectors because at the same time, we want to oblige the new push for remote work or flexible hours, and yet operations dictates that you be on site for a set time. So how does
a hotel thread that needle?
Jess Hayes: Well, so I think in hospitality you're in front of the guest because you wanna be in front of the guest. So you have to find the people who really don't wanna be behind a computer all the time really get energy from interacting with other people. There's a lot of people out there that if they're rewarded by, guest interactions and creating experiences for guests, that are above and beyond.
And then feeling like they have the internal support to implement new ideas, new programming at hotels. you can really create something really special if you care about the guest experience and if you love interacting with people, do you need balance so that you can then, do some of your work remotely hybrid work?
Absolutely. and I, and this goes back to automation. There's so much more that we can automate now in a hotel that we couldn't before. So really leverage that, leverage the technology, and then use the people for what people do best.
Jason Emanis: Yeah, I think we'll see. A lot more attempts at flexibility and automation to keep the number of employees in a hotel at any given day down because they're already struggling to fill jobs, but equipping those that you do have, giving them what they need, and with automation and with the flexibility that you, I mean, there's ways to do it.
You're gonna have happy employees and you're gonna have a better guest experience.
Adam Mogelonsky: It always comes back to the team.
All right. Third question,
Jess. What do you see as the key opportunities and challenges for hotel companies in 2023
and beyond?
Jess Hayes: I mean, we've been talking about it. I think it, it really, it's
employee retention. Employee engagement, creating new cultures of work where, hospitality has been a little behind traditionally in adopting technology. And I think the gift of what we've all been through with the pandemic is now, there's an urgency that wasn't there before and we need to leverage that and take advantage of that as collective industry.
Right. And, Just invest in your people, invest in good leadership and invest in technology. otherwise the challenges, they're gonna get worse because the way people wanna work is very different than it used to be. And the juice has to be worth the squeeze or they'll go elsewhere. So,
Adam Mogelonsky: something that you said create a new culture, and I'm always thinking that everything is constantly shifting or transitioning. So what would, what advice would you give to transition a culture that maybe is resistant to the automation forces and everything that's happening so quickly so that way they can be better at.
Transitioning
to this new economy,
whatever it is.
I think
Jess Hayes: hiring a diverse. Workforce will help with that. So you want people who have diverse skillsets, diverse, whether it's age, you want people who are very experienced, but then you want people right outta college who are hungry and wanna learn on the fly. So getting different perspectives.
People who love technology, who want to dig into data, right? Hire those people who wanna spend time analyzing the data so that they can help with your forecasting and things like that. And then again, find the people who wanna be in front of the guest. so just
embracing people where they are, which is varying levels of experience and, backgrounds and
Jason Emanis: Yeah. And equi equipping them I think is also of where your brain's going
is
Jess Hayes: Yes. Thank you. Yep.
Jason Emanis: Millennials would rather do things on their phone. They would rather text than call. and it goes back to some of the automation and the technology that, I mean, you may have heavy technology in your hotel, which is kind of antiquated and clunky.
The way people wanna work, is they want a flexibility. They, you can hold 'em accountable, but they don't want you standing over 'em, but If you're, let's just, whatever it is, let's just say your app in a hotel, has a means to hold, people accountable for the tasks at hand, the guest request, whatever it may be.
it's just, again, I think, you said it when we first started, it's just the way people wanna work has really changed
even, for the older crowd, like us or me.
Jess Hayes: Yeah, I mean, I heard a speaker talking about, hiring and he was saying like, when you get a resume from somebody, a millennial or younger, Text them, right? Don't start emailing 'em back and forth. By the time you email them back and forth, they found another job, right? So know who you're hiring and how they wanna interact.
It all starts with the hiring process.
Adam Mogelonsky: you mentioned millennials and I'm thinking you say fresh outta college. Now we're talking about Gen Z and soon Gen Alpha, which are I guess people born. only a few years ago. So how are we, can we adapt to the newer generations, even younger than
millennials?
Jess Hayes: I think they're gonna be more mission driven, than previous generations. And this is just completely. Based on, anecdotal, no, nothing factual, but I think they are gonna wanna make an impact. They've seen a lot of upheaval. The good news about all the change that we've been through is innovation.
Like, this is what gets me jazzed, is when things are broken, when systems are broken, workplaces are broken, that's when the innovation happens. And so, I have a ton of like, optimism around what this new generation is gonna be able to do, having learned from us. Like we've had to learn everything the hard way.
I don't wanna sound like the person who like walked barefoot to school in the snow so that other people didn't have to, but, I think it's true.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, just to color that a little bit more, you say mission and what missions. Would you say are
most attractive to Gen Z and beyond?
Jess Hayes: Well, I mean, if you're talking about, hospitality and travel, there's a lot of buzzwords around the experience, but you know, when people are not in front of their devices, which they are so much, when they're not, then their experiences have to rival what's in front of their devices. So,
I think they have to really be motivated to make changes, to put themselves out in the world to, to make an impact.
I don't know if that answers the question.
Jason Emanis: Well, I think you're already seeing some of the younger generation at work require. a connect connecting of the dots with me here. What does this mean to, what does this mean to the whole operation? Like, am I just. Push on a broom or help me connect the dots. And I think that's where there's a lot of leadership training at mid-level and higher management managers.
There's a lot of need there cuz that's a, we've all been managers and it's, that's tough. Managing people is tough.
Jess Hayes: Yep.
Adam Mogelonsky: Start with why, as they
say that, that famous book and yeah it's so important nowadays. You really have to instill that
mission. So the fourth question, Jess,
what are the key things innovative leaders and entrepreneurs should prioritize and focus on to gain traction for their
business?
Jess Hayes: I think this sort of goes back to the first question where you rat get to know your customer, in a radical way. Really just get to know them and then tell their stories over and over again through sales and marketing. I mean, Gaining traction. That's how it's done. Being able tell to say, well, the hotel down the street has implemented this ancillary revenue program, and they've seen, $10,000 a month with upgrades, for example.
So being able to tell the story succinctly over and over again, and build your fan base.
Jason Emanis: Yeah, totally agree. Everything
is wrapped. All the magic is in those first customers
And your ability to see just a little bit beyond, but lean on. Those folks because they give you the language. They tell you what the problem they solved. Like you went, you might go in there as a salesperson and say, we're, this is what this is, and it, and they may use it a little differently.
Well, you need to know that because that may be like, wow, we didn't think about that and we've talked to six other hotels down the street that have that problem. Hey, can we. Change our language up a little bit as a salesperson, as a marketing person, and take that message a little further and then just reiterate,
reiterate, keep looking.
Go back to the customer. Go back to the
customer
Jess Hayes: And if you're an early to market, Innovator, if you're a bleeding edge technology, if you're introducing something new,
be very honest with them about what that's gonna look like, because I've seen companies, back to your second question, go to market too early before the software was ready for the group that they're being sold to.
And then the initial customer experiences are not good ones. and that, that will kill a company pretty fast. If. they go to market at the wrong time. So it's a tricky thing, but it's very important.
Adam Mogelonsky: Right. You only get one shot.
Jason Emanis: Yeah, you get one shot and you, so if the experience is not great, right, then
be the type of company that's gonna circle back and go, okay, we get it. We understand and do something right
away.
Adam Mogelonsky: you're raising something very important here, which is Customer feedback
and a lot of that customer feedback the juice of it can't really be boiled down to a quantifiable survey. So we're talking about one-on-one conversations, sales people, marketers, speaking to the customers, saying, how are we doing?
How can we improve? But then as you gain traction, how do you maintain that one-to-one relationship, but do it at scale?
Jason Emanis: Customer management.
Jess Hayes: Yep. Scale your scale, your customer success team. I think, I this is gonna probably sound funny, but don't overly invest in sales. It's
Jason Emanis: Check your email. You may be out of a
job,
Jess Hayes: But customer success is part of sales. They need to resell the program all the time to the customer
And also, yeah. The
Jess Hayes: people who buy the software, not necessarily the people using it. So it's crucial that you're talking to the end users.
Jason Emanis: That's a really good point because you develop a relationship as a salesperson with this
executive and then the users down the hall.
And then, and if you've got a strong customer service person that's checking in routinely, that gets emails with questions and answers them, then the whole relationship stays together there.
It's not falling down like we, we've seen when there wasn't that customer service person. Like even in the startup, if it's just, if it's a young, Competent, eager person who wants to be there for 10 customers, whatever it is, and they're attentive, and then they relay to you as a salesperson.
hey, just heads up, this is what's going on because I've seen you in action personally. on top of accounts and, your, communications with the account, and then your internal communications with, Hey, what's going on? This is what I heard. What's going on?
Are we doing anything about it? And these, the, you have rocky moments. You always have rocky moments. Not everything's gonna go smooth. Right. And I've been a part of companies where they were really attentive and I've been a part of those companies that have been sold. And bought by bigger companies.
And the bigger companies aren't as attentive
And it's like, ugh.
Adam Mogelonsky: Wow. Jess, this has been fantastic. there's been a lot of great lessons here, both for right now in 2023, but also lessons that will apply for 2033. So I can't thank you enough for coming on.
Jason Emanis: Thanks for listening to the Gain Momentum Podcast. To stay up to date, make sure to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about GAIN advisors, head to gain advisors.com.
