Welcome to the 'Thank You Economy'

Sometimes you hear of a book that piques your interest and as you get into it you realise that the author is on your wavelength. Mick MacKenzie (an inspiring and stimulating guy in his own right) recommended Gary Vaynerchuk's book 'The Thank You Economy' to me. Gary has become a top business speaker in the US but he also translates pretty well into English.

Gary made his name on Twitter as an authority on wine who was happy to comment and recommend without pushing his own business (he is a wine merchant). He understood the difference between 'broadcast' and 'communicate' and the value of content. Take a look at him on CNN and read 'Crush It!'.

In his second book, 'The Thank You Economy' he expands his thinking further - I recommend the audio book version to get the full benefit of his passion.

His phrase, ‘The Thank You Economy’ expresses the opportunity being created for authentic, long-term companies like Sundial Group by the rapid development of the internet. Ironically the impact comes from the one thing that has never changed – human nature. Technology is allowing us to go back to a more natural way of doing business.

It is human nature to build relationships and friendships based on communication and trust. Our world is now connected as never before and we seem to be going back to the ways of our Grandparents and their ancestors when we make our choices. Anyone wanting to sell a product or service today does so in the traditional environment of the small town marketplace.

This new/old world is bringing back the value of reputation. In my view the absolute key to success is in creating advocates and fans; people who value the fact that Sundial Group can be trusted to care about them and their events.

The wonderful thing about our new connected world is that their views are being shared and that, on a one to one basis, they carry so much more weight than the mega budget advertising and marketing people. That 'one to one' small town connection has now become global.

We have always known that Sundial's culture and reputation are our most valuable assets. We have developed our values of Professionalism, Experience, Respect and Quality to guide us in our day to day interactions and decision making. We genuinely want the Sundial Experience for our guests to be great and think that profit is the reward for getting it right not the reason for doing it. This is the essence of The Thank You Economy.

Our obsession with our direct guest feedback systems and willing engagement with powerful influencers such as Trip Advisor for Barnett Hill, Highgate House and Woodside are the tip of the iceberg. Listening to Gary has made me realise how much more there is to do. Thankfully I have total faith in my colleagues at Sundial Group to continue to delight our customers. The trick now is to enable our advocates to spread the word and for us to demonstrate our listening and caring skills in the new/old world.

Thanks Gary (and Mick)

The Chudbus on Tour

What has a retired London bus got to do with a conference centre group?

Sundial Group own and run 3 award winning specialist country house conference hotels and operate in the meeting venue market. Whilst many of our clients book direct we know that we need to establish our presence and reputation with the Hotel Booking Agents (HBA’s) responsible for venue selection and meetings management for many companies.

The bulk of agency business ends up with the major hotel brands but good intermediaries also need niche suppliers to demonstrate their in-depth knowledge of the market and offer variety from the repetitive chain hotel environment.

At Sundial we have worked with agency bookers for many years but we still appreciate that we must stand out from the crowd and establish our credentials to earn their trust. Our reputation for quality is backed up by multiple awards but we also need to be unique and memorable to ensure conscious recall and front of mind awareness when bookers are sifting multiple options, often on a tight timetable.

When designing an agency promotion we needed to be innovative, relevant and memorable. We made it quirky and fun by invoking a special story from the family history of the owners of the group (me and my family).

Telling people about the big Chudley Family, their adventure to America and the national newsreel that inspired the 1963 Cliff Richard film, Summer Holiday created massive enegagement and allowed a picture to be built of a business with history and a real identity and story. Having the present day Chudbus driven by a member of the family who was 2 years old in the newsreel (me!) enabled the development of the story into the present day Sundial Group characteristic of stewardship as a values driven brand. I expanded this background with the spirit of empathy, quality and attention to detail, all pivotal to a business with industry benchmark low staff turnover and high customer loyalty. Visitors gained a real insight into Sundial Group.

Following a screening of the 1959 newsreel that inspired the Summer Holiday film the bus’s on-board plasma screen ran a slide show of today’s superb meeting venue facilities, accommodation, technology, leisure facilities and the fabulous settings of our historic properties.

Members of the Sundial sales teams engaged with our on-board guests to find out about the needs of their own clients, building a rapport which was further cemented through a fun caption competition with – you’ve guest it – prize of a summer holiday!

Whilst all this was going on Jerry Toth, Sundial Executive Chef was outside the bus cooking up authentic Paella, the smells from which ensured every agency team member wanted to come out and find out what was going on. All a bit different from the average hotel sales rep visit to give a PowerPoint talk and hand out brochures.

Each visit was trailed on Twitter (#chudbus), a Facebook page provided photo, news and a channel to continue the engagement; whilst blogs ensured maximum coverage. The announcement of the winner of the summer holiday at the end of the campaign will provide long-term ROI. The story of the Chudbus Summer Holiday has already picked up media coverage from M&IT, Conference News and Venue Directory and more agents are asking to be included on the tour.

Is Hospitality about to be redefined as bribery?

I'm starting to see increasing references to meetings and hospitality in reports of the Bribery Act 2010 which comes into force in April 2011 and wondering if this represents an opportunity or a threat for Sundial.

Publications in sectors such as pharma and financial services are warning companies to consider the need for hospitality audits as a recent article in the Daily Telegraph newspaper also suggested.

The difficulty stems from the interpretation of the act because an offence (both giver and recipient are liable to prosecution) is committed if "intended to obtain or retain business or a business advantage". One might reasonably assume that all corporate hospitality fits this description so could fall within the bribery definition.

However, a House of Lords clarification (?) says “most routine and inexpensive hospitality would be unlikely to lead to a reasonable expectation of improper conduct”.

I get the feeling that this will hang in the air until there is a relevant prosecution. In the meantime my guess is that the wise will be a little more cautious of the high profile golf resort hotel for their meetings and education events. My advice (as you might guess) is to stick to high quality, good value dedicated venues like Sundial.

How has Learning & Development changed?

At Sundial Group we have been asking ourselves how L&D will change following the global financial crisis.

A friend in IACC (International Association of Conference Centres) pointed me in the direction of an excellent piece of research by Duke Corporate Education, 'Learning and Development in 2011, A Focus on the Future'.

The report points to a general reassessment of business strategy to drive efficiency and management focus. The researchers found;

• Values and goals of the business will drive the L&D activities more than ever
• Focus on the capabilities required to succeed
• L&D joining forces with HR and talent development
• Investment targeted at groups who are strategically connected to the company's goals
• Preparing leaders for a more connected and challenging world.

At the same time all business costs are under the microscope and Learning & Development is not immune. Budget cuts require L&D to be done with significantly fewer resources. Travel restrictions contribute additional impetus to finding new ways to enable employees to learn. Improvements in technology, for so long an unfulfilled promise, seem to be offering new, cost-effective methods of achieving learning.

However, the strategic shift from individual competency to organisational capabilities has resulted in a team centred approach which is hard to fit into the new, lower costs, less travel, more technology drivers.

The "Perfect Storm" of 2008/2009 will be remembered as a difficult and challenging time. The results will be long-lasting and the L&D profession will not go back to the old patterns and habits. To quote from the Duke study -

"These difficulties may have done L&D a great favour by focusing us on organisational capabilities that matter, by clarifying how and when we demonstrate value, by re-energising our search for achieving learning in the workplace, by opening our eyes to what learning technology can accomplish today, and by demanding so much more of how we think about our strategies and the learning activities that they produce."

So how might this affect Sundial?

Team working is already with us. Many organisations are capitalising on the technology that enables remote working, knowledge sharing and talent pooling. The rules of behaviour, sharing of values and goals and development of team spirit will be key competencies of successful teams - real or virtual. Organisations will need to develop leadership at every level as we move away from the traditional structures of management and control.

In my view only some of the technology can be used for team based learning and leadership development because human nature demands 'real' interaction to cement experience and build trust.

When team based learning and leadership development does take place there will be heightened awareness of the effect of the learning environment. The ability of a venue to add value will be critical and organisations will demand a far deeper level of understanding from their host. I believe we are ready to rise to this challenge.

Sundial Group is also responding to these changes by developing a division to deliver cost effective experiential learning which enables successful team dynamics and leadership using our well established Teamscapes activities. Indeed for one of our key clients we will be delivering Teamscapes away from our own venues for the first time as part of their national team and leadership development. Its exciting times.

Please do contact me if you would like more information. I would also welcome your comments.

Rate discounting

I am thrilled for our team at Sundial that we achieved the number one venue group in the definitive UK hotels and meeting venues benchmarking for 2009. We also retained our top spot for value for money and it is this result which left me a little puzzled.

2009 was dominated by a trend to cut rates with some of the biggest operators creating a mad scramble to generate revenue. We are not big enough to ignore these market forces and we knew that, as night follows day, expectations would demand we follow suit.

Avoiding the excesses of discounting was a brave strategy and we had to wave good bye to some great customers; their procurement colleagues demanded they take advantage of the deals. Most though stayed loyal and resisted the temptations.

I was pretty sure that we would come under pressure as the market leader for value for money. Strange to tell - we held our UK #1 value for money spot for the year with a final quarter customer approval rating 17% above the industry average. I bet the big boys are puzzled by that. Perhaps they don't realise that most people can tell the difference between unsustainable discounting and real value for money; or maybe buyers just didn't like what they found when they bought cheap?

Meetings Architecture - the future of meetings?

A new movement has been established, named Meetings Architecture, I recommend it's manifesto if you are interested in the future of meetings, http://www.eventroi.org/themeetingarchitecturemanifesto.pdf.

The thinking stems from the understanding that meetings are more than logistics and hospitality. Those of us who depend on this sector must understand that value is only added as a result of the outcomes of the meeting.

So how does that affect organisations who supply services and facilities to meetings? We need to take a holistic approach to any meeting and realise that its success is dependant on an array of factors. Understanding those factors and how to influence them is the new task in our industry.

Interestingly for me I see this development as an expression our own strategy and reflects the steps we have been taking in Sundial over the past 12 years.

We have always recognised that the environment we have created is more than a hoteliers simple approach to hospitality. Understanding our clients and their objectives has been central to our success. Responding to that understanding has set the agenda for our development and resulted in initiatives such as The Sundial Virtual Conference Centre - an online venue established well before web 2.0 to enable 'meeting' and interaction before and after the physical meeting (or indeed instead of). Ahead of its time, our online venue has now been superseded by the many online communities and corporate intranets but I believe it did help show the way.

Our innovative and responsive strategies have also produced initiatives which are now central to the Sundial goal to become 'The Perfect Partner for Meeting Planners'. Listening to our clients objectives for their meetings has produced simple ideas such as our unique 'Sunetic Walls' as well as full service solutions such as Teamscapes team building and SOS meetings management.

I guess you could say that we at Sundial Group are evolving into Meetings Architects.

What is it about Sundial?

Subjective customer feedback is difficult to benchmark so industry reports all too often miss the gems that can be found in the free text fields of satisfaction surveys.

We often come out top in the benchmarking 'numbers game' but its the personal comments that say the most. Below, I have picked out a small number of recent examples that I think demonstrate the Sundial Team's attitude.

"It is an outstanding venue, not because of any particular feature or factor, it just provides probably the best 'fit for purpose and value', matched by excellent customer service that I have come across. I stay at or use 50 - 100 venues per year and in this respect, Woodside is unparallelled."

"The Barnett Hill staff are great! Their winning formula is a high-class yet homely (non-corporate) environment combined with friendly yet professional service. Thanks all!"

"Whilst I have said ~"met expectations" this is misleading because these expectations are already very high because of past experiences at Highgate House. There is a sense of "team" and everybody ....catering, gardeners, reception all being a part of a team ethic. Little touches like offering to carry over materials to the room are appreciated. Also a "Good morning" and a smile go a long way so well done!