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Elephant Eaters
-by Marc Saxe
I want to thank you for taking the time to check out my previous columns, An
Open Mind, and Riddle of the Week. Thank you to my friends and associates who have
sent such wonderful comments. I'm glad you liked them, and I really do appreciate the notes and emails. I think
you will like this one too. Those of you who are new to this little weekly, will want to take a moment or two to
check them out. You should like them, but it's up to you.
The story and topic this week is called "Elephant Eaters".
It's a big topic. Elephants are a big topic. You know it. I know it. How do you lower marketing costs and increase
sales at the same time? How do you do it when you are already in operations, and you have a massive investment
of time, human resources, equipment, programs and money in a direction that is already successful, or marginally
successful? How do you do it when you are starting up?
Carl Berry, who I consider to be one of the best people on the planet, and one of the great organizational and
management minds in our business, once asked me a similar question. We were in the midst of starting up The Manhattan
Club. He was overseeing the project, and I was on Marketing. We were a month from opening, the registration hadn't
come through yet. Nobody actually knew when it was coming through. We didn't know the date we were going to start
sales, programs were being put in place with no actual target date, systems were on their way, but not delivered,
the sales staff was arriving, early advertising was hitting heavily with a brand new staff, and you name it, it
was in the air and being juggled. I was stretched. Everyone involved was stretched.
I think he's one of the few people on the planet who had any idea of just how stretched I was. It was double latte
hour, about the time for a strong caffeine fix to keep the work-day rolling until 9 or 10pm. I asked Carl, "What
am I going to do?" referring to the schedule of trying to juggle my share of the puzzle. He answered from
a state, not totally afar from Zen:
Grasshopper (my word)… "How do you eat an elephant?"
Yes that was the question. Big problem. Big, big problem. How DO you eat an elephant. Now, if I had put on my
timeshare sales guy's hat, the word "problem" wouldn't have been allowed in the vocabulary. It would
have been re-written as objective, or objection, or situation or anything other than the unspoken "P"
word. Nobody in this business likes that word. But here we were. They were all around. Big as elephants, and just
as tasty.
But I had a life before this business, and I had been introduced to creative problem solving as a result. So, once
Carl answered the question for me, and my emotional state of exhaustion/slow burning panic had subsided, I knew
I had a tool or two to begin Eating this Elephant. To make a long story longer, things got juggled and fell into
place. We got a firm opening date, the first mail got dropped, only a few tours arrived too early to talk to, our
OPC activities got off the ground, the mini-vac program got set up, the project got started and is now wildly successful,
thanks to some efforts by the early team, and mostly by all of those who have come after.
Now this question of "How do you eat an elephant?", referring to my intent in writing this weekly episode,
reminds me of a story from the Hebraic Talmud, the story about the blind men trying to describe an elephant to
each other. One, holding the elephant by the leg, said an elephant is like a tree. The second, grasping its trunk,
said "no, an elephant is like a snake". The third, touching its ear, said an elephant is like a fan,
and yadda… yadda… yadda. You get the picture. "What an elephant is" depends on your perspective and point
of view. So on to the feast.
It's a big job, a big topic. Not only is it big, the answer depends on your point of view. No matter how you cut
it, you can't eat the whole thing at once. So, to spill the beans, Carl's sage advice to me, was eat the elephant
ONE BITE AT A TIME. He was absolutely right. The only way to approach something big is to take it one bite at a
time. Thanks again, Carl.
Since this elephant of ours (some say dinosaur), this business, looks different depending on your point of view,
the answers to how to lower costs, accelerate sales and increase profits means one thing to you, and something
opposite to someone in a different seat at the table. But, everyone has to get into the act. And everyone has to
eat a bite or two. Nobody is going to love all the suggestions, specially the ones that require a bit of personal
movement, but everyone will love what the other players have to do. Please take this as a personal challenge to
see what you can do, and not what everyone else can do. You need to take a bite, I need to take a bite, everyone
needs to take a bite.
Sales teams need new tools. Management needs to make sure that the sales people have their tools, and know how
to use them. Marketing needs a refreshment, and our overall hospitality has to go up more than a notch or two.
Everybody is in the act.
You're becoming a professional, or you already are, or you would have stopped reading this much earlier. Professionals
use the tools of professionals. Wake Up. Salespeople use telephones, Marketers use advertising. Snap.
Now, this isn't some plea for you to drop everything you're doing, but you need to learn to use tools that everyone
in business finds effective. Were not that different from other mid to high ticket luxury products. It's time to
smell the latte.
There are many specific actions that we can all take to help the situation. I'll gradually dispense them to you
like PEZ popping out of the tube over the weeks, so you'll want to stop back to see what's fresh.
You have to know what the elephant is, what the problem is, before you propose alternative solutions. The elephant
is a bruised marketplace of responders who are the same pool of prospects, with us using the same hackneyed methods
to approach them and sell to them. We need new prospects in the pool. They expect better relationships with everyone
they do business with. The big companies have all figured this out. Hilton Honors, Marriott's HGA, and other frequent
guest rewards are all ploys to keep marketing to you, over and over. They aren't battling over responders, they
are developing "customers for life". Then again, maybe that's just my perspective. What's yours?
The basic concepts in advertising and marketing are Reach and Frequency. Reach is your universe... frequency is
the number of times you communicate. Notice the "number of times part". You have to plan multiple contacts
with your prospect pool…at the outset. You have to take control of building, and maintaining your pool, your universe
yourself. Who else is going to care about your business?
If you're in sales and if you want control of your income, and you want your company to be in business so you can
keep working you need to TAKE ACTION. You can take control, put together some form of "self generation"
program, get on the phone, and work your business. Those of us who were witnesses will all agree Shari Levitan's
number one tool that she used to pummel us month after month at StreamSide was her willingness and drive to PICK
UP THE PHONE and call someone… anyone, and pitch the product, urgency, whatever. She knew she was in business for
herself, and used this tool every single minute. If you don't use it, it's your income, your future and your company's.
Why are you sitting in the sales lounge hammering each other to death about the management and the tours. Pick
up the phone. We'll talk about specifics of what to do, what others have done later, but you need to start today.
Get out a list and dial them up. Do it. It works. Do it Now.
On the marketing side, Why are you relying on programs and technology that are out of date? The age of continuous,
pervasive, customized marketing is upon us. The technology exists to target exactly who you want, and send them
exactly the message they want to hear at costs per message that are far lower than you are paying now. They have
even asked for the information. It's the brass ring, and you're on the merry-go-round. You can do it. Do you? If
you don't, you should. Your competition is. You better start planning for it today!
There are projects and companies selling at net sales and marketing costs in high teens, twenties and low thirties.
Not a massive phone room among them. Competing against major brands. Making money. Not a lot of direct mail in
that mix either. I'll bet you'd like to know more. If so, drop me a note at msaxe@resortopportunities.com
and I'll do my best to address your situation.
Speaking of mix, that is really the point of all of this. We all have to add a few new ingredients to the sales
and marketing mix. A new program here, a different look over there, a bite or two of elephant, a stretch from our
conventional expectations of ourselves and others right here.
So, you are invited to return next week. We'll take it a bite at a time. I'll lay out the titles of some of future
columns, and dive into a program or two. We may even talk about the process of creative "situation" solving.
Until then…
Eat an Elephant.
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