Her Story
About Rebecca
My journey in hospitality began almost 5 years ago when I started as a front desk agent. Within less than a year, I was promoted to supervisor, and a fellow co-worker who saw my potential convinced me to transition into sales. I took on dual roles as both a sales coordinator and group rooms coordinator, juggling both positions and learning them like the back of my hand for almost two years. On January 1st of this year, I became an executive meetings manager. I'm most comfortable with guest room reservations, whether that's managing inventory, forecasting, or other tactical aspects. My days are never the same - I could have one walk-in or ten, deal with no-shows, or receive a same-day contract request. It's all about dealing with the cards that are dealt. I handle prospecting and negotiating, always making sure I'm there for the client and that we can provide what they're searching for while ensuring both parties are satisfied - the hotel gets a profit and serves the best we can, while the client's needs are met. What I'm most proud of is being a team player - it doesn't matter what the task is, if I know how to do it, I'll jump on it, and even if it's something I don't know, just give me a few minutes and a quick rundown and I'm all yours.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Rebecca
01What do you attribute your success to?
Honestly, this might sound cheesy, and depending on the work setting, this might not be appropriate, but honestly, my faith - the man upstairs has gotten me through my entire career, and that is what I would give all the credit to. Everything has been perfectly set, and as long as you put faith in Him, He'll lead you exactly where you need to be.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I've received two pieces of advice that have really guided me. One is definitely to ask questions. It doesn't hurt you if you don't know what you don't know, so that was definitely something that has helped me throughout my career. Even when I'm nervous about not knowing how to do something, that's fine - it's fine that you don't know, just ask questions and learn to know it. The second piece would be just to be yourself, be your personality, don't try to put on an image or a facade. Just be who you are, because at the end of the day, the client is going to choose the business or the hotel based on how you make them feel.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
At the end of the day, it's just us ladies, and we have to think about ourselves in multiple aspects - not only work-wise, but life-wise, knowledge-wise, and finance-wise. So always make a choice or decision based off of what's going to benefit you the most in those bigger aspects. You don't want to be anywhere where you're not valued, and if you don't think of this stuff for yourself, other people aren't going to, so you have to for yourself.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenges I face are when there's not an already immediate answer for a certain solution - I have to be creative and learn how to benefit both parties. Under that same breath, learning different clients is also a challenge because not everyone is the same, and a certain tactic might not work on one person the way it did before. I'm also trying to discover and be more creative with approaches. When we have our site tours, prospecting, and sales calls, we're all reusing the same bits, just putting our names on it, so trying to be a little bit original when it comes to marketing is important. As far as opportunities, there's always room for improvement on how to approach a certain situation, how to go about this, how to suggest that. Learning multiple personalities and how to become accustomed to that, and adjusting based on who it is you're talking to - that's where I see the most opportunity for growth.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Definitely honesty would probably be the number one value for me. As long as you're upfront and honest with me - I mean, I think that's the most that anyone can do, whether it's good news or bad news. The second one is to have a sense of humor and be somewhat of a comedian. We've got to have fun, we've got to roll with the punches and make jokes, even during the harder times. You have to spend so much of your time with your coworkers, you might as well enjoy it. If we can both laugh at a mistake that we made and move on, that's all I care about.
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