CoHo.Services Helps Hotel Properties Create Strong Budgets Through Strategic Marketing Focus
Portland, Oregon (PRWEB) September 17, 2013 -- As we approach the fourth quarter, many businesses and hotels start the process of creating their budget for the coming year. While budgets are a vital part of any business, creating a budget that is the driving force behind your success can be fatal to your long-term growth. Budgets are numbers, they are trends, assumptions, and are based on historical data. If what you did yesterday is good for today, then say goodbye to tomorrow. A strong budget is the bi-product of a strong plan.
Successful companies know that the marketing plan drives your business; the budget is just along for the ride. The plan should define your future success and push your team every year to achieve different results. This doesn’t mean the success of yesterday shouldn’t be carried on to the next year, it simply means that yesterday’s success should be considered the foundation for tomorrow’s growth. Ask yourself, at the stroke of midnight on December 31st, what are you going to do differently to grow your business?
As the Senior Director of Business Development for CoHo.Services, I have the privilege of working with our hotel, restaurant and fitness properties in developing their strategy. At the heart of every plan are the following core fundamentals:
• Have a Mission with a Vision: Many companies create mission statements that never change. If you’re creating a strong vision of where you want to be in the future, then your mission should change to reflect the company you are today, not who you were yesterday. An effective vision statement is inspirational and aspirational; it creates the mental image of where your organization will be in the future. It should challenge, excite and drive fear (yes fear) into your employees. Those who are inspired by the challenge will rise up to meet it; those who aren’t will hopefully go to work for your competitor.
• Know your Resources and your Constraints: Understanding what you have that no one else has and what you don’t have that everyone else has is vital to your plan. Keep in mind your constraints are not weaknesses, they are tomorrow’s opportunities. Resources and constraints should not be limited to your product alone. They can be your people, your organization or your culture - be honest, you can’t change what you don’t know.
• Engage the Masses: The marketing plan is NOT the responsibility of the marketing or sales department. The marketing department defines the brand, but each department should analyze their area, and define their mission and vision. Each department should know their comp-set, analyze the trends and put together their own strategic plan on how and what they will do to provide better service at the front desk, create wow moments in housekeeping and capture the hearts and stomachs of guests in the restaurant. The plans they implement should support the mission and the brand of the business as a whole.
Creating the road map of the business sets the foundation for the budget. It tells the business where to grow, where to spend and where to cut. It pushes employees to think about their departments as entrepreneurs and to create goals past the bare minimums defined in the budget. The plan tells the business the direction we are going and how we are going to get there. If you don’t have the car, the driver and the map, what good is the destination?
About The Business: CoHo.Services or Connect Hotel Services is a hospitality management and consulting company based in Portland, Oregon. With over twenty-five years in the industry, CoHo has the ability to offer a wide variety of hotel management services directed to meet the complex needs of each individual operation and investor group in the most cost-effective manner.
About The Author: Maili Morrison works for CoHo.Services, a Portland Oregon based hospitality management company. She consults directly with independent and branded properties to help consult and lead their marketing and PR efforts. She attended Portland State University for a Masters in Public Administration, and received her Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from Oregon State University. She is a past president of the Oregon chapter of Meeting Professionals International and was the first recipient of the Clark County Washington Outstanding Young Tourism Leader Award.
To learn more about CoHo.Services, visit http://www.cohoserv.com.
Maili Morrison, CoHo Services, http://www.cohoserv.com, 3606013673, [email protected]
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