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Think Strawberries: Everybody Sells
I came from the
balcony of the hotel business. For ten years as
a corporate director of Sonesta Hotels with no
line responsibility, I had my office in a little
building next door to The Plaza. I went to the
hotel every day for lunch and often stayed
overnight. I was a professional guest. You know,
nobody knows more about how to run a hotel than
a guest.
Last year, I
suddenly fell out of the corporate balcony and
had to put efforts into the restaurants where my
mouth had been, and into the rooms and night
club and theater where I had been putting my two
cents.
In my ten years of
kibitzing, all I had really learned about the
hotel business was how to use a guest room
toilet without removing the strip of paper
that's printed "Sanitized for your Protection."
When the hotel staff found I'd spent my life as
a salesman and that I wasn't even the son of a
waiter, they were in a state of shock. And Paul
Sonnabend, President of Sonesta, didn't help
their apprehension much when he introduced me to
my executive staff with the following kind
words: "The Plaza has been losing money the last
several years, and we've had the best management
in the business. Now, we're going to try the
worst."
Frankly, I think
the hotel business has been one of the most
backward in the world. There's been very little
change in the attitude of room clerks in the
2000 years since Joseph and Mary arrived in
Bethlehem and was told they'd lost their
reservation. Why is it that a sales clerk at
Woolworth's asks your wife, who points to the
pantyhose, if she wants three or six pairs and
your wife is all by herself -- but the maitre d'
asks you and your wife, the only human beings
within a mile of the restaurant, "How many are
you?"
Hotel salesmanship
is retailing at its worst. But at this risk of
inflicting cardiac arrest on our guests at The
Plaza when they first hear shaking expressions
like "Good Morning" and "Please" and "Thank you
for coming," we started a year ago to see if it
was possible to make the 1100 employees of The
Plaza into genuine hosts and hostesses. Or
should I say "Salesmen?"
A tape recorder
attached to my phone proved how far we had to
go. "What's the difference between your $85
suite and $125 suite?" I'd asked our
reservationist disguising my voice over the
phone. You guessed it: $40.
"What's going on
in the Persian Room tonight?" I asked the Bell
Captain. "Some singer" was his answer. "Man or
woman?" I persisted. "I'm not sure" he said,
which made me wonder if I'd even be safe going
there.
Why is it, I
wondered that the staff of a hotel does not act
like a family playing hosts to guests whom
they've invited to their house. It didn't take
too long after becoming a member of the family
myself to understand one of the basic problems.
Our 1400 family members didn't even know each
other!
With that large a
staff working over 18 floors, 6 restaurants, a
night club, a theater and three levels of
sub-basement including a kitchen, a carpentry
shop, plumbing and electrical shops, a full
commercial laundry -- how would they ever know
who was working there, and who was a guest or
just a purveyor passing through. Even the old
timers who might recognize a face after a couple
of years would have no idea of the name attached
to it.
It struck me that
if our own people couldn't call each other by
name, smile at each other's familiar face, say
good morning to each other, how could they be
expected to say amazing things like "Good
Morning, Mr. Jones" to a guest. A year ago, The
Plaza name tag was born. The delivery took place
on my lapel. And it's now been on 1400 lapels
for over a year. Everyone from the dishwashers
to the General Manager wears his name where
every other employee, and of course every guest,
can see it.
Believe it or not,
our people say hello to each other -- by name --
when they pass in the halls and the offices. At
first our regular guests thought The Plaza was
entertaining some gigantic convention, but now
even the old time Plaza regulars are able to
call our beeline and waiters by name.
We've begun to
build an atmosphere of welcome with the most
precious commodity in the world -- our name. And
our guest's names!
A number of years
ago, I heard Dr. Ernest Dichter, head of the
Institute of Motivational Research, talk about
restaurant service. He had reached a classic
conclusion: When people come to a fine
restaurant, they are hungrier for recognition
than they are for food.
It's true. If the
maitre d' says, "We have your table ready, Mr.
Lavenson," then as far as I am concerned the
chef can burn the steak and I'll still be happy.
When someone calls you by name and you don't
know him, a strange feeling of discomfort comes
over you. When he does it twice, you have to
find out his name. This we see happening with
our Plaza name tags. When a guest calls a waiter
by name, the waiter wants to call the guest by
name. It will drive him nuts if he doesn't know.
He'll ask the maitre d', and if he doesn't know,
he'll ask the bellman who will ask the front
desk..... calling the guests by name has a big
payoff. It's called a tip.
At first there was
resistance to name tags -- mostly from the old
time, formally trained European hoteliers. I
secretly suspect they liked being incognito when
faced with a guest complaint. We only had one
staff member who said he'd resign before having
his dignity destroyed with a name tag. For 16
years he'd worn a rosebud on his lapel and that,
he said, was his trademark and everyone knew him
by it. His resignation was accepted along with
that of the rosebud. Frankly, there are moments
when I regret the whole idea myself.
Then I get on a
Plaza elevator and the passengers see my name
tag, they know I work there. Suddenly, I'm the
official elevator pilot, the host. I can't hide,
so I smile at everyone, say "good morning" to
perfect strangers I'd ordinarily ignore. The
ones that don't go into shock, smile back.
Actually, they seem to mind less the fact that a
trip on a Plaza elevator, built in 1907, is the
equivalent of commuting to Manhattan from
Greenwich.
There are 600
Spanish speaking employees at The Plaza. They
speak Spanish. They don't read English. The
employee house magazine was in English. So was
the employee bulletin board. So were the signs
over the urinals in the locker rooms that
suggest cigarette butts don't flush too well. It
was a clue as to why some of management's
messages weren't getting through. The employee
house magazine is now printed on one side in
English, the other in Spanish. The bulletin
board and other staff instructions are in two
languages. We have free classes in both
languages for department supervisors. It's been
helping.
With 1400 people
all labeled and smiling we were about ready last
June to make salesmen out of them. There was
just one more obstacle to overcome before we
started suggesting they "ask for the order."
They had no idea what the product was they would
be selling. Not only didn't they know who was
playing in the Persian Room, they didn't know we
had movies -- full length feature films without
commercials -- on the closed circuit TV in the
bedrooms. As a matter of fact, most of them
didn't know what a guest room looked like unless
they happened to be a maid or a bellman.
The reason the
reservationist thought $40 was the difference
between the two suites was because she'd never
been in one, much less actually slept there. To
say our would-be salesmen lacked product
knowledge would be as much an understatement as
the line credited to President Nixon if he had
been the Captain of the Titanic. My son told me
that if Nixon had been Captain of the Titanic,
he probably would have announced to the
passengers there was no cause for alarm -- they
were just stopping to pick up ice.
Today, if you ask
a Plaza bellman who's playing in the Persian
Room, he'll tell you Ednita Nazzaro. He'll tell
you because he's seen her. In the contract of
every Persian Room performer, there's now a
clause requiring him to first perform for our
employees in the cafeteria before he opens in
the Persian Room. Our employees see the star
first, before the guests.
Believe me, if you
are having your lunch in our cafeteria and watch
"Female Response" or "Swedish Fly Girls" on the
TV set, you won't forget the film. You might,
however, suspect the chef has put Spanish fly in
your spaghetti.
Our new room
clerks now have a week of orientation. It
includes spending a night in the hotel and a
tour of our 1000 guest rooms. They can look out
the window and see the $40 difference in suites,
since a view of the Park doesn't even closely
resemble the back of the Avon Building.
As I mentioned,
about six months ago, we decided it was time to
take a hard look at our sales effort. I couldn't
find it. The Plaza has three men with the title
"salesman" -- and they were good men. But they
were really sales service people, who took the
orders for functions or groups who came through
the doors and sought us out. Nobody, but nobody,
ever left the palace, crossed the moat at Fifth
Avenue, and went looking for business. We had no
one knocking on doors, no one asking for the
order. The Plaza was so dignified it seemed
demeaning to admit we needed business. If you
didn't ask us, we wouldn't tell you.
So there! Our
three sales-service people were terrific once
you voluntarily stepped inside our arena. You
had to ring our doorbell. We weren't ringing
yours or anyone else's.
This condition
wasn't unique to our official Sales Department.
It seemed to be a philosophy shared by our
entire staff -- potentially larger sales staff
of waiters, room clerks, bellmen, cashiers and
doormen. If you wanted a second drink in the Oak
Bar, you got it by tipping the waiter. You asked
for it. If you wanted a room, you were quoted
the minimum rate. If you wanted something better
or larger, you had to ask for it. If you wanted
to stay at the hotel an extra night, you had to
ask. You were never invited. Sometimes I think
there's a secret pact among hotelmen. It's a
secret oath you take when you graduate from
hotel school. It goes like this: "I promise I
will never ask for the order."
When you are faced
with as old and ingrained tradition as that,
halfway counter measures don't work. We started
a program with all our guest contact people
using a new secret oath: "Everybody sells!" And
we meant everybody -- maids, cashiers, waiters,
bellmen -- the works. We talked to the maids
about suggesting room service, to the doormen
about mentioning dinner in our restaurants, to
cashiers about suggesting return reservations to
departing guests. And we talked to waiters about
strawberries.
A waiter at The
Plaza makes anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 a
year. The difference between these two figures
is, of course, tips. When I was in the
advertising agency business, I thought I was
fast at computing 15 percent. I'm a moron
compared to a waiter.
Our suggestions
for selling strawberries fell on responsive ears
when we described a part of the "Everybody
Sells" program for our Oyster Bar restaurant. We
figured, with just the same number of customers
in the Oyster Bar, that if waiters would ask
every customer if he'd like a second drink, wine
or beer with the meal, and then dessert -- given
only one out of four takers, we'd increase our
sales volume by $364,000 a year. The waiters
were way ahead of the lecture -- they'd already
figured out that was another $50,000 in tips!
And since there are 10 waiters in the Oyster
Bar, even I could figure out it meant five grand
more per man in tips. It was at that point I had
my toughest decision to make since I've been at
this job. I
had to choose between staying on as President or
becoming an Oyster Bar waiter.
But, while the
waiters appreciated this automatic raise in
theory, they were quick to call out the
traditional negatives. "Nobody eats dessert
anymore. Everyone's on a diet. If we served our
chocolate cheesecake to everybody in the
restaurant, half of them would be dead in a
week."
"So, sell 'em
strawberries!" we said, "but sell 'em." And then
we wheeled out our answer to gasoline shortages,
the dessert cart. We widened the aisles between
the tables and had the waiters wheel the cart up
to each and every table at dessert time. Not
daunted by the diet protestations of the
customer, the waiter then went into raptures
about the bowl of fresh strawberries. There was
even a bowl of whipped cream for the slightly
wicked. By the time our waiters finished
extolling the virtues of our fresh strawberries
flown in that morning from California, or
wherever he thinks strawberries come from, you
not only had an abdominal
orgasm, but one out of two of you order them. In
the last six months, we've shown our waiters
every week what's happening to strawberry sales.
This month they have doubled again. So have
second martinis. And believe me, when you get a
customer for a second martini, you've got a
sitting duck for strawberries -- with whipped
cream.
Our waiters are
asking for the order. Think Strawberries
is The Plaza's new secret weapon.
Our
reservationists now think strawberries and
suggest you'll like a suite overlooking Central
Park rather than a twin-bedded room. Our bellmen
are thinking strawberries. Each bellman has his
own reservation cards with his name printed as
the return addressee, and he asks if you'd like
him to make your return reservation as he's
checking you out and into your taxi. Our Room
Service order takers are thinking strawberries.
They suggest the closed circuit movie on TV ($3
will appear on your bill) as long as you're
going to eat in your room. Our telephone
operators are even thinking strawberries. They
suggest a morning Flying Tray breakfast when you
ask for a wake-up call. You just want a light
breakfast, no ham and eggs? How about some
strawberries?
We figure we've
added about 300 salesmen to the three
sales-service team we had before. But most
important, of course, is that we have added five
pure sales people to our Sales Department. Four
of them are out on the street calling -- mostly
cold -- on the prospects to whom they're ready
to sell anything from a cocktail in the Oak Bar
to a Corporate Directors Meeting to a Bar
Mitzvah. The chewing gum people sell new
customers by sampling on street corners. The
Plaza has chewing gum licked a mile. Our sales
people on the street have one simple objective:
get the prospect into the hotel to sample the
product. With The Plaza as our product, it isn't
too difficult. And once you taste The Plaza
family, you're
hooked.
In analyzing our
business at the hotel, we found, much to my
surprise, that functions -- parties, weddings,
charity balls and the like, are just about three
times more profitable than all our six
restaurants put together. And functions are
twice as profitable as selling all 1000 of our
rooms. Before we had this analysis, we were
spending all our advertising money on
restaurants, our night club and our guest rooms.
This year we're spending 80% of our advertising
money to get function business -- weddings
instead of honeymoons, banquets instead of
meals, annual corporate meetings instead of a
clandestine romantic rendezvous for two.
We've added a full
time Bridal Consultant who can talk wedding
language to nervous brides and talk turkey to
their mothers. Retailers like Saks and Bonwit
and
Bergdorf have had bridal consultants for years.
Hotels have Banquet Managers. Banquet Managers
sell wedding dinners. Bridal Consultants sell
strawberries -- everything from the bridal
shower, the pictures, the ceremony, the
reception, the wedding night, to the honeymoon
and the first anniversary.
When you fight a
habit of long standing as the hotel inside
salesman, you don't just wave a wand and say
"Presto: now we have four outside salesmen." We
want our new salespeople to know how serious we
are about going out after business. We started
an Executive Sales Call program as part of our
Everybody Sells philosophy. About 40 of
our top and middle management executives, ones
who traditionally don't ever see a prospect, are
assigned days on which they make outside sales
calls with our regular salesmen. People, like
our Personnel Director, our Executive
Housekeeper, our Purchasing Director, our
General Manager, are on the street every day
making calls.
Our prospects seem
to like it. Our salesmen love it. And our
non-sales salesmen are getting an education
about what's going on in the real world -- the
one outside the hotel.
As a matter of
fact, that's why I'm here today. I made a sales
call myself with one of our salespeople. We
called on your program chairman and tried to
sell him strawberries. He promised that, if I
showed you a strawberry, he'd book your next
luncheon at The Plaza. I look forward to waiting
on you myself.
Thank you very
much.
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