I was in a workshop with my friend Walker Williams on Friday and he told us all a story about JW Marriott of the Marriott hotel chain. Walker owns Forte Human Resources that provides outsourced HR to small businesses. Walker cut his HR teeth at Marriott and said it was the best place he ever worked as an employee.
Here’s the reason: JW Marriott was an evangelist not for “quality” or the “hotel experience” as you might expect – no, he was totally committed to “training”. JW walked the talk by investing his time and money. He preached training wherever he went. Walker gave an interesting quote I will try to recreate here: “The only thing more painful than training an employee and having them leave, is not training an employee and having them stay.” JW not only owned a successful hotel, he had a passionate point of view as to how that hotel became successful. Hearing JW talk about his hotels and how great they are would be a total yawn, but hearing his point of view on training and its effect on hotel service — that’s an apathy killer — I (and apparently his employees and patrons) — want to hear more about that.
As a brander I frequently hear people say, well I sell (fill in the blank with a commodity or service) it’s stone boring — I’ll never get any buzz on that. I remind these business owners that relevant branded buzz does not come from bragging about products, services, benefits or features — it comes from issues and beliefs.
Brand well and prosper!
Andy Cleary