My very first job was a soda jerk and that taught me a lot about customer service. It was very busy, especially on the weekends. Filling orders in a timely way was a challenge and great fun. I was thrown into the front lines and was stuck many times. When I got behind, it took a long time for me to build a banana split. This was back in 1952 at our Hot Shoppes Restaurant in Silver City, Utah. I worked as a soda jerk while I was a student at the University of Utah.
My dad would often come out to Utah and check on our restaurant. He'd check on everything. He was so detailed oriented. It wasn’t often expressed back then, but he was very “hands-on.” From the company’s founding in 1927, he believed in an unrelenting commitment to meet customer needs. That core value is one of the bedrocks of our corporate culture. Everything my father did was based on listening to the customers and giving them what they wanted.
Today, Marriott has grown to about 300,000 associates working in nearly 3700 hotels in 72 countries around the world. Most of our associates come in contact with our guests. They’ve been trained to listen and to try to give them what they want. In our training classes, that important encounter is called a touch point or impression. I call it good old customer service. It’s the number one reason for repeat business.
It’s also important to thank our customers. When I was a soda jerk, I’d add a little extra cherry or a little extra chocolate syrup to our customers' sundaes. I knew if they got a really good dessert, they would return.
I did something this past year that I haven't done for a long time. I threw a holiday party at my house for our global sales team and their top 150 clients. I wanted to let them know how much we appreciate their business. It was a small gesture although my wife, Donna, may beg to differ. She worked very hard making sure the house was decorated properly and the food was great.
You can never lose sight of why our business continues to thrive and grow globally – it’s the customer and a culture of service that strives for excellence.
So, no matter how large the business, listen to people. I remember how my father would sit down and talk with customers. Then, he’d go back in the back of the house, in the kitchen, and make changes to the restaurant menus or add something new to a hotel based on their suggestions.
At the customer appreciation party many customers told me that they talked to me on the phone when I called them on our annual customer appreciation day. Many remembered where they were, if they were out of the office, when they received the call as a lot of them were traveling. I told them in spite of my reassignment they would continue to hear from me in the future.
So leave a comment on your favorite hotel experience.
I’m Bill Marriott and thanks for helping me keep Marriott on the move.
To stay in business for almost 85 years, well, you know you’re doing something right. To stay in business for this long and be recognized as one of the most ethical companies, that tells me we’re doing a lot of things right.
For the fourth year, Ethisphere Institute named Marriott as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies, selecting us for engaging in business practices and initiatives that are instrumental to our success, benefitting the community, and raising the bar for ethical standards within the industry. That’s great praise and we’re in great company.
Ed Ryan, our general counsel, was invited by The Ethisphere Institute to join representatives from companies such as PepsiCo, GE and Ford in ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Through Ed’s leadership, “how we do business” remains true to my father’s founding principles.
Marriott has grown from two employees in 1927 to over 300,000 today. We’ve expanded from a nine-stool root beer stand to about 3700 hotels in 71 countries. We’ve been able to do this because of our core values one of which is conducting business with integrity. We believe that how we do business is as important as the business we do.
Upholding high ethical standards is important to us. That’s why I applaud all of our associates and business partners worldwide for helping us hold true to our values. We’re honored to be in “good company” with the world’s most ethical businesses.
I’m Bill Marriott and thanks for helping me keep Marriott on the Move.
I started out at Marriott much the same way our young people do today. I worked after school and during the summer. It wasn’t called an internship back then, but I knew it was a great way to get experience and learn the business. When I was 14, I stapled invoices after school in the Hot Shoppes accounting office.
Today, when walking around hotels and headquarters, I see a lot of bright, young excited faces. A few interns are helping me post this blog. They want us to add more pictures. So we took a picture and wham! It appeared instantly on one of their Facebook pages with the caption: “Hanging out with the boss man after recording his blog.”
They took a picture of the boardroom, too. I don’t know why anybody would want that, but they did. Long gone are the quiet interns who just put invoices together.
While a majority of our interns come from hospitality schools, many don't. I knew nothing about hotels when we opened our first one, but I was sure anxious to learn. I certainly learned on the job much the same way our interns learn when they arrive at our company.
In the coming weeks, we will say goodbye to our summer interns. Hopefully, they will come away with a better understanding of how hotels operate. And, equally as important, we will learn from the next generation what truly "turns them on."
As “the Boss Man,” I want to say thank you to all of you.
I’m Bill Marriott and thanks for helping me keep Marriott on the Move.
When I served on the General Motors board, I had a chance to work with Bob Lutz. Bob came on board as Vice Chairman of General Motors, primarily working on product development. He’s written a new book, which has been covered in The Wall Street Journal. The excerpts tell about how Bob came on board GM … found that their culture was somewhat stifling. They had a lot of meetings, they didn’t make a lot of decisions, everybody was nice to everybody, but not much got done.
Then he compared the General Motors management style with that of Ferdinand Piëch, the chairman of Volkswagen, who was an autocrat who ordered people what to do and they got it done whether they thought it was right or not.
Bob then went on to talk about how he tried to put in a new approach to management at General Motors. He said working in product development he got some cars in from the competitors -- some of the best: Audis, Toyota and Lexus -- took his people into the shop floor and showed them how to better design products for General Motors. His bottom line was: it’s better to teach people and train people, rather than to order them around or to sit around and talk about this project without making decisions.
His bias for teaching and training is a similar bias that we have had at Marriott for some 84 years. We know that if we train and teach our associates, not only do they serve the guests better, but they also do a much better job of staying with the company. They feel comfortable in their work, they feel that they have entered the ladder of success and can go up that ladder to newer and better positions.
In my opinion, Bob’s on the right track. Teaching and training is far better than sitting around and pondering and not doing very much … or being an autocrat and ordering everybody what to do.
I’m Bill Marriott and thanks for helping me keep Marriott on the move.
When we open the doors to a new hotel, we also open the doors to a world of opportunity for people who may never have imagined that they could work for a company like Marriott.
Philip Papadopoulos is the general manager of the Jordan Valley Marriott Resort & Spa and recently told me the inspiring story of how his hotel helped poor farmers and herdsmen in Jordan break out of the bounds of poverty.
Since it opened in 2002, the Jordan Valley Marriott Resort has looked for dedicated people to successfully run the 250-room hotel. They recruited associates from the capital city of Amman, but they also took a bold step to source employees from two local villages.
The idea of working at a resort was only a dream for those villagers who depended on the land for their livelihood. They endured below-poverty conditions with family members living in one room, no plumbing, thin walls, and dirt floors on which they placed their blankets to sleep.
When the hotel’s human resources team reached out to these farmers, many locals questioned the wisdom of such a move. But they soon found that a number of farmers were eager to work for the resort. The hotel training team first offered them hygiene, grooming and etiquette classes. Then they taught them hospitality skills. And finally the farmers and herdsmen were offered English lessons so they could talk to our guests.
Philip said the team went on to do even more for these associates. For example, rather than discard used, but still very useful items like furniture, mattresses and linen, they donated them to the associates, who had little more than a ragged blanket, a few chickens and some sheep.
The risk of hiring these villagers has really paid off. Nine years later more than half the associates working at the hotel are from that same little village. Philip says, “They come to work eager to serve, their shoes polished and their smiles wide.”
I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear stories like Philip’s. I’m Bill Marriott and thanks for helping me keep Marriott on the move.
When I visit our hotels, I always like to go to the kitchen. A clean, well-run kitchen usually means the rest of the hotel is also clean and well run. In the hotel business, we call it "the heart of the house." The kitchen is pretty close to my heart too, because that's where I got my start 55 years ago. I was working in my parents' Hot Shoppes restaurant in Salt Lake City.
Not many people get to go behind the scenes of a Marriott kitchen, but now you can thanks to a new game we launched on our Jobs and Careers Facebook page. The game, which we call "My Marriott Hotel," gives you a chance to run your own restaurant. You get to buy equipment and ingredients on a budget, hire and train employees, and serve guests. You earn points for happy customers and lose points for poor service and food. When you turn a profit, you win! It’s addictive. One person reported playing the game for 36 hours straight.
It's a new way for us to attract people from all over the world to hotel careers. So far, in the first two weeks, people in 83 countries have played the game.
In some countries, parents want their children to be doctors and lawyers, and discourage them from pursuing careers in hospitality. But we want them to know that hotel careers can be very rewarding. In fact, about 40 percent of our managers started in hourly jobs. It's part of our corporate culture “to train and retain.”
So, do you have what it takes to run a hotel restaurant? Try your hand at My Marriott Hotel and let me know. I'm Bill Marriott and thanks for helping me keep Marriott on the Move.
As summer approaches, many people start thinking more about getting fit and leading healthier lifestyles. We want to look better in our bathing suits. But many find that it can be quite difficult to get started with a new exercise program or diet.
Our Marriott associates are no exception, and that’s why we’ve developed our TakeCare wellness program -- to help our associates and their families get started on their path to a healthier life. This program is designed to help associates make small changes to their daily routine, because small changes add up and eventually become healthy habits.
As part of the program, we have created challenges in which many of our associates from around the world compete. The most recent challenge launched at the beginning of May. It’s called Get Moving at Marriott and it encourages participants to complete 150 minutes of exercise a week for 8 weeks.
Tonight, I have the privilege of being joined by our most elite associates from all around the world at our annual Awards of Excellence gala. It is an event we hold every year at our Marriott Bethesda North Hotel in Bethesda, Maryland, to honor the best of the best within our company. These associates not only provide our guests with great service, they also make it a point to take wonderful care of their fellow associates and the communities where they work and live.
This year’s honorees come from throughout the United States, as well as around the globe, from countries like China, Egypt, India, Brazil and Scotland. And, as usual, many of our honorees have some amazing stories that I would like to share with you.
Ed Fuller, our president and managing director of international lodging, knows first hand that you can’t lead with your feet on the desk. You’ve got to get those boots on the ground, as Ed says, and I agree with him. Ed has shown that by just returning from Egypt where we have seven hotels. When the recent civil unrest unfolded, he knew there was no substitute for being there in person to help our hotel owners and associates through this very difficult, challenging time.
Ed has just written a new book called — what else? — You Can’t Lead With Your Feet on the Desk. Among the many great management tips he shares are three that I recommend to you:
One: to respect is to inspire. The hotel business is all about service, which means it’s all about motivating our frontline people. We can see to it that you get a comfortable bed, but if the person at the front desk hasn’t made you feel very, very welcome, the bed won’t feel great. A salary won’t motivate people to deliver service; they need to believe that they will rise through the organization and find new opportunities if they really take care of our customers. The respect we show our people through a policy that “promotes from within” pays dividends in the experience that our guests enjoy.
I recently received a few questions from The Connection by SpringHill Suites, an exclusive online community of the brand’s most passionate guests. I’m delighted to be able to interact with this loyal group of supporters and thank them for being so enthusiastic about this wonderful brand.
Brian Earley asked, “If I had five to seven nights to spend at any Marriott in the world, which would I choose?”
