Imagine that your business serves hotels in the US, Canada, Mexico and Latin America. Among your thousands of customers are hotel owners, asset management firms, real estate investment trusts, management companies and major hotel brands. Your most profitable year, 2019, sees revenues topping $18 million. Then, enter COVID-19 and its obliteration of the hospitality industry. How do you pivot?
That’s a summary of the Jacaruso story over the past two years. The company provides remote hotel sales services and eLearning to small and medium-size hotels. As the pandemic spread and our hotels began losing customers overnight, we recognized we had to accept the changing environment and adjust our strategy. With profitability evaporating and our customers contemplating closing their doors, we acted quickly to restructure our entire sales organization. The pivot resulted in two new services that are helping hotels recover revenue during and post COVID-19.
The first service happened organically and began internally. With a powerful network of the best salespeople in the industry, the Jacaruso Account Network was born. Instead of each sales person staying hyper focused on their one hotel in their search for new business, our team banded together. At the end of each call, we began asking one simple question: “Do you travel to other cities?” With more than 80 salespeople asking this question to each contact we spoke with every day, we found business for our hotels that we didn’t even know was out there. The network has booked $8M in new business for the hotels in our portfolio just since April.
The hospitality industry changed more in the first 100 days of the pandemic than it had in the past 100 years. With what we learned from the Jacaruso Account Network, we combined additional research to create and launch an online training course designed to help hotels learn exactly how to recover lost revenue from COVID-19. The course grew into a subscription-based training platform, Accelerate eLearning, designed to help hotels continue to accelerate results for peak performance. Hotels face problems today including reduced staff, limited time, multiple job functions, decreased hotel occupancy and more. The online training gives hotels access to the information they need now in an interactive, intensely practical way suited to these times. The training is offered not only to all of the hotels in the Jacaruso network, but also to external users who want the blueprint for driving revenue results during and post-pandemic.
Our experience shows that the recovery of the hospitality industry is imminent, even while the pandemic continues. Continuing to innovate in order to meet hotels’ changing needs, and those of their guests, is key to surviving in these uncertain times. We are grateful for a successful pivot and are eager to share our innovations with those who need them most in this industry we love.
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Amanda Nicholas
VP Business Development
Jacaruso.com
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November 10, 2020
Amanda Nicholas, VP of Business Development, of Jacaruso Enterprises has led several revenue organizations through all demand cycles. Retaining a commitment to top-line revenues, including salespeople and resources, is how she credits her professional success of not only helping companies survive down markets, but position to thrive as those markets rebounded. She has now helped develop and launch a true training platform focused on results, Accelerate eLearning. Learn more at jacaruso.com/online-hotel-sales-training.