The truth is your team members and leaders in your hotel want to be financial leaders. They want to know, understand and speak financials. They know it’s the ticket to the big time, without financial skills and a solid understanding of the numbers they are not going to excel in their career. It’s that simple. They want to have the responsibility and the respect that comes with the financial badge. They want to be close to the engine room of your hotel. That’s a sexy place and what you need to do to encourage this is to provide the right invitation and make sure the party includes the right tools and messages. If you can do this, you’re going to transform your business and your leadership. Without the broad leadership participation, your left with a team that has no financial helm. Do not accept that this financial leadership will come from the finance department, that notion is left for the victims.
So where do they go to get these skills? Sure, school is a great place to start but we all know what we learned in school compared to what we learned in the real world. There is no comparison from school to the lessons we have learned on the job. The truth is the best place to teach the financial piece is in the laboratory. That lab is your hotel. We take the leaders and we experiment and lead them through a series of labs that explore the proper way to forecast staffing and expenses. We show the leaders how they can wrap their arms around their piece. We slow things down and teach our leaders what they need to know about their numbers. It’s not difficult to accomplish this it just takes a little time and dedication. Like anything else in our world, the financial piece is no different. We tend to think the financial piece is different because money has power and its power is often used to intimidate and scare rather than seeing it as just another piece of the puzzle that we can figure out and manage.
When we treat the money, the financials as another part of our business that we can tame and master our team sees this and they get on board. When we treat the financial piece like its oxygen and in scarce supply, we give the financials a bad reputation. Who would want to get into that business when we know sooner or later it will blow up in your face. That’s the financial leadership we want to avoid. We all know that we will drop the ball and more often than we like service and employee engagement. That’s a given and we accept the fact that we are not machines and we’re not perfect. The hotel business is not a science its art and we will drop the ball from time to time. But when we do we pick it up, we learn what didn’t work and we fix this and move on. There are always challenges to work on. The money needs the same loving arms and understanding. When we use the power the money has to scare, threaten and intimidate we have just stabbed ourselves in the foot. Your leaders need to know that you will be there when they screw up and you will help them get it right. Just like you do with service and engagement. We’re constantly a work in progress, the money needs the same light.
When we give the money piece the same light it then has a chance to get the attention and the workout it needs to get in shape. It only gets really fit when your whole team exercises their financial pieces together. Like a symphony, the sound your team can make together financially is much more powerful than a single instrument. That’s it, the financial leader you want to be is one that has a plan to include all your leadership team that possesses P&L responsibilities. Your plan includes training and an environment that puts the money in the same place as service and engagement.
Are you a leader on the move? Are you looking for a way to improve your hotel financial leadership skills? Give me a call or send me an email to connect and let’s discuss how I can help you with a 1-1 coaching package tailored just for you. It’s the fast lane to greater career success and your own personal prosperity.
Are you thinking about your management team and what to engage them with this year? Consider a half day hospitality financial leadership workshop.
Do you need a dynamic “hotel” speaker with a unique and creative financial leadership message for your next event?
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If you would like a copy of any of the following send me an email at
- RevPar Index Spreadsheet
- Incentive Plan Template
- EFTE and Productivity Exercise
- Hotel Financial Policy Manual – Inventory of “Sections”
- Hotel Financial Coach “Services Sheet”
- A White Paper – Creating a Hotel Policy Manual
- F&B Productivity Spreadsheet
- Rooms Productivity Spreadsheet
- Financial Leadership Recipe F TAR W
- A White Paper – A Six Month Workshop and Coaching Assignment
- Hotel Financial Coach – “Speaking Sheet”
- Flow Thru Cheat Sheet – Enhanced
Visit my website today for a copy of my FREE guidebook – The Seven Secrets to Create a Financially Engaged Leadership Team in Your Hotel
www.hotelfinancialcoach.com