Have you ever dreamed of owning your own hotel?
Have you imagined yourself breezing into Reception with your family and being ushered through to the presidential suite like a VIP? Have you pictured treating your friends to a five-star meal and, when time comes to pay, it all just goes on your director’s account. No charge!
Imagine being treated like royalty in your own establishment and never having to pay for the privilege!
Time for a reality-check.
Do you also picture yourself being dragged from your bed in the presidential suite of your own hotel at 05h30 by a panicked manager because your breakfast staff did not turn up and there is nobody else to help set the buffet?
Do you picture yourself watching your family dine while you serve coffee to strangers in your own hotel because half your staff couldn’t be bothered to show up on time, if at all.
Can you picture having to excuse yourself from your friends at dinner to go and deal with a printer issue, or a broken credit card machine at Reception?
Or doing battle on your mobile phone with your telecomms provider for one and a half hours because the internet has gone down and your staff are unable to process payments? Your team can’t do this because they are stretched to breaking point, doing everything manually while a queue of irate customers lines up at the till to pay for a meal they finished nearly an hour ago.
The Prophets and Profits Align
Why can’t your staff do this, you ask? After all, that’s what you’re paying them for. It’s a fair question but is this the value system you want to communicate to your loyal staff members?
If some waiters let your manager down and said manager sends a shout-out for help in order to get the breakfast buffet set up on time, how would it look if the business owner left the one responsible staff member to their fate and then had a good lie-in in the Presidential suite while stress and panic mounted in the restaurant downstairs?
Not only is this bad business practice; it is not how we should treat our staff members according to God’s word.
12 So in everything, do unto others what you would have them do unto you, for this sums up the law and the prophets.
Matthew 7:12
As business owners, we have to live the values that we expect our staff to abide by. All we can do in the situation is buckle down and get the job done… then deal with the discipline or sackings later on.
This is a principle I learned from running my own businesses. If you want to run your own hotel, do so. But understand that this is your business! When you show up at this establishment you come to work… and your friends and family need to understand this.
If you want to enjoy a stress-free sumptuous five-star meal or have a romantic weekend getaway with your spouse, book somewhere else. You can still claim it as a legitimate business expense as it is an opportunity to check out the competition or research ways to improve your own business.
The same principle applies when buying a holiday home. Many people dream of owning a beach house or a log cabin in the mountains. They picture owning a home that they can rent out to generate an income – with the added benefit of being able to use this whenever they feel like it.
The problem is they think of this as a lifestyle first and a business second. Then, when they get calls from the neighbors at all hours of the night because their guests are rowdy and having parties, they become annoyed. When guests call them constantly on evenings or weekends to report that appliances have broken or the heating is not working, annoyance turns to rage.
And when they realize they can’t use the property on the long weekend or over the summer, as they planned, because that is the only time guests want to book it, they become resentful.
If you don’t enjoy the business aspects of this type of investment, then you are better off investing in a different venture that requires less maintenance. After all, you can happily use the profits from an easier investment to book your summer vacation at the beach , or to have that romantic getaway at a hotel spa come your wedding anniversary.
You don’t have to own something to enjoy it.