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Along with the additional sweat and frustration of being a boutique hotel gm are the rewards. For the right individual, they will find that the entrepreneurial management style required of them is highly empowering. The gm can make a lot of decisions on their own, decisions that in a larger corporate hotel would require an approval or worse....committee discussion! The fact that some towels need to be picked up and maybe a drink or two be mixed and served is actually fun to them. The rewards of always being in front of your guests are what most gm's want anyway, but many are not really ready for it when they are tasked to make that happen every day. So what kind of person would do well as a general manager of a boutique hotel? Answer these questions, if you can say yes to each answer then you will probably really like the challenge. Please note that I am assuming that you are already an experienced manager and qualified to be a general manager. The 51 Questions 1. You do not need routines to feel successful at work. 2. You can delegate without concern. 3. You can make decisions without committee recommendation. 4. You can spend long hours at work. By long I mean sometimes up to 14 hours at a time. 5. You have no problem spending the night at the property to make sure everything is ok. 6. You don't have a problem delivering luggage to guest rooms (you probably wont have a bellman to do this for you). 7. You can valet park a car. 8. You can re-program guest keys using the key card system. 9. You really enjoy speaking with your guests....REALLY. 10. You can mix a drink and you know who Mr. Boston is. 11. You can run a commercial washing machine. 12. You can re-set a circuit breaker. 13. You can change a flat tire, jump start a car. 14. You can re-set your router. If you don't know what a router is then stop now and re-think any thoughts you have of being a boutique hotel gm. You will not have an on site IT manager to help you! 15. You can check in/ out a guest using the front office system. 16. You can process credit cards and split payments to various folios. 17. You can run the switchboard at the front desk. 18. You can ring in an order using the restaurants POS. 19. You can re-set the restaurant POS. 20. You can program a digital surveillance system. 21. You can type your own memos, send your own e-mails and answer your own phones (this should be true of ANY gm nowadays). 22. You can jump from one project to the next without hesitation. 23. You know what to do when someone has a heart attack in your lobby. 24. You know what to do when someone chokes in your restaurant. 25. You can explain your restaurant menu items as well or better than your servers. 26. You can brew coffee using a commercial coffee machine. 27. You can draw a good cup of espresso. 28. You know the difference between a latte and a cappuccino. 29. You know the temperature requirements for your walk-in and refrigerators. If you don't know what a walk-in is, stop here and think about your career choice. 30. You know what to do when the health inspector shows up. Hint, it is not to grab a handful of cash! 31. You know who to call if your phone system suddenly stops working. 32. You know how to read the history off an electronic guest room lock. 33. You know how to make a bed as well as your best housekeeper. 34. You know what the ph level should be in your wash rinse. 35. You know how to check the chemicals in you pool and Jacuzzi. 36. You know what the interfaces are for each of your hotel software systems. 37. You know how to get guests online using your wireless internet service. 38. You know the difference between an p&l and a balance sheet. 39. You can run a commercial dishwasher. 40. You know your receivables and payables. 41. You know where your housekeeper buys their supplies. 42. You know local city ordinances as they apply to your property. 43. You can deliver a room service order. 44. You can clean a bathroom to 5 star standards. 45. You can fold a towel like your housekeepers. 46. You know where the water and gas mains are, and how to shut them off. 47. You know each of your guest room types. 48. You have no problem befriending your neighboring business and residents. 49. You can write a well researched and accurate month end report. 50. You know how to calculate flow through. 51. Have a number two person who can answer these questions as well. I task the many boutique hotel companies to ask these questions to gm candidates during the interview process. I know that you will save a lot of time, frustration and lower your turnover rates (higher for general manager positions in boutique hotels). If you are a boutique hotel company I would also ask you to make sure that you do the following for your hotel general managers, ensuring their success and lowering your gm turnover: 1. Don't hire an experience luxury (non-boutique hotel) general manger unless they can answer yes or actually commit to learning the answer to each of the prior 51 questions. 2. Train, train and train your new gm's on the property they are going to. Make sure they know everything before you "turn them loose". 3. Pay them a fair wage, maybe even a bit more than fair. Boutique hotel companies seem to think they can attract new gm's who maybe were a number two at a larger property, convince them that it is "cool" to be a part of your company and pay them less than the industry standard. This just makes your new gm start listening to those headhunter calls (they call hotel gm's a lot!) with offers of much higher salaries back in the "comfort" zone of a branded hotel. 4. Understand what goes on in the life of a boutique hotel gm. Most boutique hotel corporate staff have never been a gm at a real boutique hotel and have no idea what it is like. Get to know what happens on property. 5. Insist that your gm's take time off. It is easy for your gm to get wrapped up in the operation and start working 7 days a week. This will just burn them out. Figure out a way to get them the time with their families they need to stay sane, married etc... 6. Don't call them on their day off unless it is an emergency. If you don't know what days your gm's are off then shame on you. 7. Don't be double minded. Don't show up one day and berate the gm for the pool deck needing re-surfacing and then two days later come down on them for requesting the funds to make property repairs. 8. Give them realistic budgets, and if you sell a bonus during the interview process, make sure it is realistic. 9. Give them the same "perks" that gm's in large hotel properties get. You can skip the car allowance, but at least offer dry cleaning and travel privileges at your other properties. 10. Talk to them often. Really talk to them, don't talk at them. Listen to what is going on. 11. If you tell them that "we are an entrepreneurial company" and that gm's can "make their own decisions" and then second guess every decision they make you need to re-think your message. 12. Make sure you give them the ability to hire a strong #2. One of the reasons your gm's leave for other companies is because most boutique hotel companies don't give their properties the budgets to have a number two, so they have nobody to take their place if other in-company opportunities come up. This is the old and very tired "to move up you have to move out" dynamic that kills us in the hotel industry. 13. That takes me to this point---set out to develop bench strength. Have leaders waiting in the wings to take positions as you grow. If you don't you will end up "borrowing" leaders from each of your properties to open your newest. This leaves your existing properties, already running lean on management with an over worked and stressed out group of leaders and staff. Make this a priority. 14. Thank your gm's. This is a no-brainer but a much forgot important task as a hotel company. THANK YOUR GM's. This goes for any hotel company. Your general managers get beat up a lot. By unhappy hotel staff, guests and you. You hit them with constant "notes" on how to perform better. Make sure to balance the coaching with praise. The point? So what is the point to all of this? The boutique hotel manager, in my opinion is a completely different job than a general manager at a full service luxury hotel property. But unfortunately the two are muddled together in a basket full of un-attainable expectations.
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