You need good reasons to call your guests, stay in touch, and build the relationship. These are literally called Reasons To Call (RTC) by sales reps who make outbound calls to customers and prospects. With a good reason to call, you will sound enthusiastic and you can find an angle that conveys to the guest that you genuinely thought about them. This is the why the ‘Happy Birthday’ call is so easy to make.

Here are some other examples of good Reasons To Call:

Did You Hear? When your Resort Casino announces a new amenity, such as a golf course, you can call your guests that are golfers and ask them ‘Did you hear about our new golf course?”. The amenity does not have to be complete, in fact it is better if you can make a couple of calls. ‘Did you hear we are building?” and “Did you hear that we open in three weeks, let’s get you in’ and ‘We are open!’.

I Bet You Are Happy. You should follow the local sports teams and track which of your players are raving fans. When the team gets through to the next round, you can place the ‘I bet you are happy’ call and listen to them talk all about the game.

Did You See? We talked elsewhere about the idea that you should be tracking the Direct Mail offers. You can call and say ‘Did you see your $100 in free play next month? I’d hate you to miss your offer in all your mail. Let me know if you can’t find it?”

I Thought Of You. As you walk the Property, pay attention to the promotions, events and special offers. You can call and say ‘I thought of you this afternoon because we have a special Surf and Turf. Did you see it?” If there is a change in the slot mix in the High Limit room, or a commitment to always having a $20 blackjack table open, then you can call a whole list of people to say ‘I thought of you, did you notice the changes to the…’

What Did You Think? If there has been an upgrade to the cocktail bar with a really cool new layout and some stunning effects then wait a few weeks, pull a list of recent players, and call a whole list of people to ask ‘What do your think of the new cocktail bar? I’d love to get your opinion.’

Just Checking. If you are doing a good job of tracking your regular players, then you will notice when someone has not been in for a week. You can call with the ‘I have not seen you. Is everything okay? I just want to check that you are well?”

Welcome Back. If you learn that someone is going away, or going into hospital, then you make a note to contact them on their return. ‘I hope you had a great vacation! Tell me about Hawaii!” or ‘Welcome home, I just wanted to wish you a speedy recovery.’

Ideally, you keep notes on that guest, and how well they responded, so you can take a different approach the next time and add variety to the on-going conversation.

It’s not enough to put on a smart outfit. You need to have the attractive healthy glow that comes from a healthy life-style.

If you are under 30 then you probably assume you will feel this energetic forever but unfortunately that is not true! Your long-term success and personal health will be dictated by the habits that you form now.

Do you find yourself doing nothing but work and sleep? If you let yourself become obsessed, then your stress level will go up and it will interfere with your judgement. If you don’t make a change, you will lose perspective, make poor decisions, and look and feel pale and sickly. So, plan your down-time and organize your life as well as your job.

Plan to rest! Part of being organized is to come up with ways to ensure you regularly disconnect, rest, and re-charge. You love what you do, and your job can easily be a 24-hour business for seven days a week. But you can burn-out and you certainly won’t deliver your best if you are exhausted.

Plan on having a meal even a quick one. Skipping meals and trying to survive on sugar and caffeine will destroy your productivity and problem-solving skills. It also affects your waistline!

Plan to get outside and get some air and sunshine. Can you walk around the outside patios, greet some guests and catch some rays?

Eat your fruits and vegetables! It can be hard to ‘eat well’ when you are running around all day long, and working difficult hours. But try to have something fresh with each meal; or make salads in mason jars on your day off, and take a salad each day.

Drink lots of water to keep your skin hydrated. Is water boring? Then find something that makes it palatable like adding some lemon juice.

By the way, coffee dehydrates you. I realize you might need the caffeine to get going but peppermint is a good alternative for a pick me up because Mint stimulates the brain. Plus peppermint is more pleasant than coffee breath!

Build movement into your daily routine. Park the furthest away from the building. Always use a staircase instead of an elevator. Park at the top of the parking garage and use the staircase to get up there at the end of your shift. Use the restroom on a different floor of the building and take the steps to get there.

Find a way to disconnect for as little as 20 minutes a day; leave the phone behind and go for a walk, go to the gym, listen to a motivational video, soak in the bath, or read an interesting novel. Set the timer on your phone for 20 minutes and then don’t touch that phone until it goes off. You will be amazed how long 20 minutes will feel!

Take your vacations! I promise you that your peers can take care of your players. You are not indispensable. You need to get away for a week at a time to re-charge.

As the saying goes “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!”

Life is much easier when you are organized because you don’t have the added stress of cleaning up your own mess. You tend to deal with everything just once and put it behind you.

• If a guest calls in and requests the limo you send an email to your Manager as soon as you hang up; you don’t write yourself a note, stick it your monitor, and deal with it later.
• When you run a VIP party, you make a list of everything that has to be done. After the event, you keep the list, a copy of the invitation, a copy of the email, and even the menu. When you run the next VIP party, you pull out the files from last time and you don’t have to start from scratch.
• If a guest complains about their offers, you immediately send an email to Direct Marketing with the name, account number, and their complaint. You cc: yourself and put the email into a folder called Offer Complaints. If the guest comes back to you then you can easily find your email and assure them you followed up.

There are some key principles in all of these examples:

1. Touch everything just once! When something comes up, deal with it right away or give it to someone else to solve. If you cannot delegate it, and it will take some time, then put it on your schedule and forget about it. schedule time on your calendar to work on it. Yes, literally schedule 30 minutes on your calendar to write that report for your boss.
2. Move the Monkey! This is a great visual. If someone gives you a problem to solve then imagine that they have put a monkey on your back. Too many monkeys and you will feel crushed. So, as soon as possible, move that monkey onto someone else’s back!
3. Don’t start from scratch. Whenever you do anything, assume that you are going to have to do it again and again and again! Organized people are actually very lazy people; they want it to be easier the next time, and they assume that there will be a next time. So, they keep all the information about how they arranged that VIP party. And they keep the memo from Accounts on how to resolve an obscure refund for a guest because what happens once, will happen agan.
4. Put Things Where You Will Find Them. In your email, create folders labeled ‘Comp Exception’, ‘Refund Dispute’, ‘Limo Request’ and ‘How to Use Systems’. Drag emails into the folders and out of the in-box. Your in-box should only contain your current Monkeys that you are going to quickly move along before the shift ends. In your phone, keep the numbers for Guest Services, Front Desk, Housekeeping supervisor, and that helpful person in Accounts who can approve Portfolio adjustments. And your desk does not have to be tidy, but each leaning stack of papers should contain related items!
5. And finally, Plan Your Day and work your list. Stop thinking about being organized as having a permanently clean and tidy home. It will never happen. Every day, you have to clean your body, feed the cat, prepare some meals, and brush your teeth. It is an endless cycle. In the same way, you accept that when you come to work, you are going to repeat the same tasks over and over again; so being essentially lazy, the Organized Host will try to make it easier and easier to issue the comp, track the hotel reservation, follow up on the dispute, and book the limo.

Does this sound exhausting? Do you lack the discipline? Does it even sound boring?

Well that is fine, and we all make our own choices, but if you decide to remain dis-organized then you will waste a lot of your time and energy and not meet your goals.

And you certainly won’t be promoted. Management sees you struggling to stay on top of your current responsibilities and they are certainly not going to give you any more!

Remember, organized people are actually lazy and they have figured out how to do the same job as you but with a lot less effort and a lot more results.

So, how do you make the change? You decide to take control of yourself and make the most out of your 24 hours within a day. You constantly look for ways to make the everyday tasks be easier. You decide to watch and learn from organized people. And you keep reading!

I used to say ‘Live in the Moment!’ while I took the extra slice, opened the next bottle of wine, or ran up my credit card.

But now I realize that living in the moment does not mean running up a tab for the future.

I listen to motivational videos each morning, and today’s speaker was illustrating the concept that taking the easy path now, will make your life harder in the future.

For example, if we don’t eat properly and exercise well now, then we may end up with painful inflammation and/or diabetes in our older years. And, if we enjoy the pleasure of that impulse purchase, then we may find it hard to make the credit card payments in the future.

This relates so much to how a Casino Host should approach an unhappy or demanding client. It is so much easier, in the moment, to tell the guest what they want to hear but then you may have to come back and look powerless by saying ‘My boss won’t let’ me.

Here’s a great summary from Matthew Oxford of Tulalip Resort Casino. ‘It’s great to come across as a “Johnny on the spot” individual who swiftly takes care of any and all needs, but make sure you can finish what you start. Don’t lead off every answer with, “of course”, or “you got it!”. Give yourself some wiggle room with an open-ended answer like, “let me see what I can do for you”. This allows you to work with your casino team in case there are issues that would otherwise prevent you from handling the request.’

Matt is describing the need to take the harder path now, and not bring an immediate smile to the guest’s face, by delaying that gratification until we know what we can actually do for the guest.

“The easy road becomes hard with time and the hard road becomes easy” – Blaz Kos.

You can read more examples from Blaz at this blog post where he provides examples from all aspects of our lives to show how having personal discipline now will actually pay off later. E.g. If we save now, we will retire in comfort. If we drink lots of clean water and eat clean food now, then we will be fit and healthy and glow.

It is easy to crack and take the easy path but it will only lead to more  trouble.

And what do I now mean by ‘Living in the Moment?’  For me, it is remembering this phrase ‘no amount of guilt will change the past, and no amount of worry will change the future’. So I am grateful to be alive and living in this moment. Have a great day! Jackie,

We all judge people on our first impression of them. And you meet new people all day long. So here are 5 ways to help people to immediately warm to you.

Assume That You Will Like Them!

In your mind, assume that you are going to really like this new person, and that they are going to like you. This is the “Fake it till you can make it” approach.

And it works, because your positive attitude will influence all of the following techniques. The new person will sense that you are approaching them with openness and warmth, and they will respond. This is called the reciprocity of liking. If the guest believes that you like them, then they will like you back!

Smile!

This is such an old-fashioned recommendation but so true. When the guest sees your smile, they see your warmth, your openness, and your welcome.

But it needs to be a real smile that shines in your eyes as well. This only happens if you adopt Rule #1 which is that, in your mind, you have already decided that you like this person, and so you are smiling in anticipation of enjoying talking with them.

Even if you are playing the role of the Negative Enforcer, such as No, You Cannot Have That Comp, you can still approach them with a smile. It does not give away your power, it actually makes you seem in control and gracious.

Compliment!

As you walk towards this new person, find something that you can compliment. The way their shoes match their outfit? Their funky baseball cap? You are off to a good start if you can ask a question such as “I love that purse, where did you find it?” If you cannot find anything then take a quick look at the people with them! If they have a Boston t-shirt then start with ‘I loved Boston. The lobster was amazing.’

You are not doing this to make them feel good… You are doing this because of something called Spontaneous Trait Transference.

This fancy term means that people will assume that YOU have the same qualities that you describe others. If you are saying nice, kind, generous, enthusiastic things about other people, then the listener will assume that you are nice, kind, generous, enthusiastic etc.
If you cannot think of anything to say about them, then have some general phrases all ready to go such as  ‘What a great atmosphere in here tonight, everyone is having so much fun!” You are saying something positive so they will assume that you are a positive person.

Copy!

There are very subtle ways for you to copy the Guest. If they are wearing a team-shirt then you can bond over sports. You can match their body language e.g. leaning sideways into a slot machine. Don’t mimic their accent but you can slightly copy their tone and speed of speech. This is called ‘mirroring’ and the concept is that the guest will like you if you seem to be like them.

You can also repeat their phrases and observations back to them.
For example, if they say “I can’t believe the buffet has run out of crab legs”, you might say “I can’t believe that either. It just shows how much everybody loves it. I guess you do too. Do you eat all kinds of seafood?”

In that simple response, you first copy their phrase (can’t believe), you give a positive spin (everybody loves it), and then you turn it around to them (and try to change the subject!)

Extract and Repeat Some Facts!

Everybody wants to be ‘seen’ and acknowledged. Develop a range of open questions that you can use to smoothly get them to talk about themselves.

“Hi, I am Jackie. I wanted to introduce myself and see if you are having a wonderful time here today. Is this your first time here?” You can ask where they are from, you can ask what they enjoy most about the property, and you can ask for their opinion on anything new such as an Amenity or an event.

Before you walk away, be sure to repeat back some of what you have learned about them, along with their name. “Well Carol, I will let you get back to playing, but I hope you have a safe drive back to Charlotte, and that you will come and see us the next time that you are visiting your son Harry. Have a great stay with him, and perhaps you will be back to see us before you leave on Tuesday?” That closing line tells them that you truly paid attention.

And, if we have not yet met, then I just know that we are going to like each other when we meet in person!

Jackie P.