Travels With Michael: Fire Eaters, Superstars & Scoundrels Memoirs From 30 Years On The Road
150
Travels With Michael: Fire Eaters, Superstars & Scoundrels Memoirs From 30 Years On The Road
150eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781477224410 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 10/09/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 150 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
Read an Excerpt
Travels With Michael
Fire Eaters, Superstars & Scoundrels Memoirs From 30 Years On The RoadBy Michael J. Hurwitz
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Michael J. HurwitzAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-2443-4
Chapter One
First, A Life Lesson About Corporate Travelers
On one of the very first incentive trips I ever ran, I was visibly upset because a certain guest was complaining about something. A senior executive of the host company put his arm around my shoulder and gave me some advice that completely altered my view on human behavior.
He said, "Michael, you could stand on Broadway in New York and give away $100 bills to every one passing by, with no strings attached, and somewhere between 3% and 5% of these passersby would find a reason to complain. The trick is to ignore them."
He was 100% correct. And even though on average, we've found that only 3% to 5% complain on a trip, with a group of 500 guests, for example, that means you have 15 to 25 people who are steamed. Forget about it. There's nothing you can do to please them. So focus your energy on the 95% to 97% who are thrilled to be there.
This has become a key part of the way we work, and it is carefully explained to every client. And they all agree.
Incentive Travel: What It Is And What It Ain't
Think about the horse and carrot. Conventional wisdom suggests that you can motivate a horse to move forward by dangling a carrot in front of him. Or you can motivate your kids to finish their broccoli by offering them their favorite desert.
Similarly, you can inspire your best salespeople by promising them a truly remarkable trip of a lifetime as a reward if they reach the goals you set for them.
Incentive Travel motivates. It changes behavior. It moves people to action.
In the business world, incentives can motivate people to help achieve the company's marketing objectives. It can get salespeople to sell more, or it can motivate dealers to buy more of your product than your competitor's product. It is above all, a powerful marketing tool aimed at generating specific results, generally increased sales and profits and get paid for by a percentage of the incremental business it generates.
The most quoted definition is from the Society of Incentive & Travel Executives:
"Incentive Travel is a global management tool that uses an exceptional travel experience to motivate and/or recognize participants for increased levels of performance in support of organizational goals."
Incentive Travel is about improving performance, increasing productivity. There was a great story published recently where, prior to a huge race, the jockey asked the trainer to define the strategy he wanted to employ. The trainer said, "Get out in front, then improve your position." The typical incentive winner is just that kind of person, one who never lets up even if the goal is reached.
So that's what it is. And here's what it ain't: A Boondoggle.
In recent years Incentive Travel has been under fire in some quarters, and actually called a "boondoggle." If you'd like to call rewarding your best salespeople with a fabulous trip for producing millions of dollars in additional sales and profits boondoggle, I'm all for it. I actually looked in Wikipedia and found the term first appeared during the Great Depression of the 1930s, with FDR's "New Deal," referring to the millions of jobs created and given to men and women to try to get the economy moving again. The fact is, this actually turned out to be a wonderful thing since it really kick-started the depression-riddled economy and set us on the road to recovery.
Never Trust A Smiling Man Named Horace
The very first incentive program we ever created and operated was for a large electronics distributor whose CEO was, and fortunately still is, a very close personal friend. I say "fortunately" because we didn't know what the hell we were doing. But we didn't even know that either. What we lacked in knowledge, we had to make up for with the proverbial blood, sweat, toil and tears. Plus unmitigated chutzpah.
The program was brilliant in design and structure. Strategically, it accomplished all of the marketing objectives. Tactically, however, it was profoundly lacking. How hard can it be, we thought, to get 400 people to a lovely island and keep them there for 4 nights? There are only 2 gateway airports and one hotel. No big deal. Our operations manager in charge of this trip was a person who had written many articles on how to deliver a terrific incentive program, but had never even been on one, no less run one. This turned out to be like the guy who knows 28 sexual positions but lives alone on a deserted island). We should have known that it was going to be a very long 4 nights.
I could fill this book with stories about this experience. But that would get boring, and there are other equally ridiculous episodes in my career. So let's just look at one example.
My ex-partner, and still good friend, began to wonder what we could recommend that the guests do to occupy their days. While the weather in April was OK, it wasn't really warm enough to sit on the beach and bask in the sunshine. And the resort was on the far end of the island, with nothing resembling shopping. So we went into a tiny town and asked some locals if there were any activities they thought our guests would enjoy. One of the locals named Horace (I'll never forget this guy!) flashed a toothy smile and said "Absolutely. Tomorrow afternoon, right in the town square, is the island-wide Goombay Festival. There'll be singing, dancing, great costumes, local foods ... it's only once a year and lucky for you, tomorrow is the date."
Thank you, dear God. Thank you for sending Horace to us in our moment of need.
We have a winner! We dashed back to the hotel, met with our writer/ operations manager, and created a masterful promotion to inform everyone of their remarkable luck: tomorrow is the once-a-year Goombay Festival, and they're invited. All they needed to do was take a short walk to the town square and get ready for an incredible extravaganza. Whew! Looks like we made it.
The next day, at the appointed time, nearly all of the 400 guests made their way to the town square. The only extravaganza they found was me and my partner with beet red faces! When we arrived a half hour earlier, we had asked a few locals where all of the people were. After all, this is the annual Goombay Festival. Quizzical looks turned into polite snickers as the bomb was being loaded into the bomb bay! Then they dropped it: "there is no such thing as a Goombay Festival on this island. Sounds like old Horace was smokin' some weed and playing 'fool the tourist' again."
So here we were. Standing on a big stage looking out at the square, which was rapidly filling up with our guests who were armed with still cameras, video cameras, you name it, to record this event for posterity. There was no escape. I always believed that when someone gave me a pile of chicken s**t, I would do my best to turn it into chicken salad. I also always believed that if people feel sorry for you, they cut you a break.
I told the truth. "This is our first trip. The CEO of your host company is a close friend and we tried to do something special. We were sold a bill of goods by Horace, the smiling guy. There is no Goombay Festival. However, Dick and I are prepared to sing a few Beach Boys songs and if you'll all sing along, it can be great."
Incredibly enough, it worked. The guests felt sorry for these sorry bastards on the stage and really bailed us out with their mighty voices and hearty laughter. But they were laughing with us. Not at us. And all's well that ends well.
Our client has become a major national force in the electronics industry, and we have done many other very successful things for them. My ex-partner went onto own and operate a retail/corporate travel agency and followed his love of boating and bought a marina. Horace is probably still smokin' and making up stories. And I'm still here.
"Ya Gotta Do What Ya Gotta Do"
Sometimes you really have to be a contortionist in this business. One of the things that you have to learn to master is occasionally putting your head in the clouds and look the other way while trying to keep your eye on the ball, your ear to the ground, your fingers on the pulse and your nose to the grindstone. It's tough. When a client makes a reasonable request, you handle it with professionalism and efficiency. What gets interesting is what you do when a client makes a completely unreasonable request. In fact, one that in your heart you know is wrong. And terminally stupid. Assuming it's not a violation of anyone's rights, will not harm anyone in any way, is not against any of the host country's laws, and you get paid up front, chances are that you'll look the other way and justify your actions with the classic "Hey, he's the client and who am I to run the risk of getting fired over something he thinks is terrific and I think is stupid?"
That's about the way things shook out when our client asked me to arrange a private performance of a live sex show for his senior executives and their wives while at a plush Latin American resort. Actually, it was more than just arranging the show. It was getting cars to drive them to the venue, which was in a pretty nasty part of town. Which, in turn, required hiring armed guards since taking a chance on having these guests robbed, or worse yet, busted, was not an option. OK. It could be worse I rationalized. But truthfully, I couldn't dream up a specific way anything could be worse than this.
The easy part was finding out where this type of event might be staged. (The hotel ballroom was not an option). There was a brothel, I was advised, that was maybe 30 minutes away. That's a start. Well, I reasoned, if we could arrange private dinners in a restaurant, why not private functions of another sort in a brothel? So I informed my local agent what had to be done, and he agreed (for a stiff sum) to drive me there in the relative safety of broad daylight. (There was no choice. There were no phones at this particular place of business). After what felt like the Baja 1000 over bumpy dirt roads of endless twists and turns, we arrived at our destination. The proverbial "middle of nowhere" would be Manhattan compared to where we were. We were warmly greeted by the CEO, or whatever her title might have been, and in no time at all made the necessary arrangements. She actually showed me the room where the show would be staged, and I frankly couldn't help but laugh. This was really a site inspection of a house of prostitution! To paraphrase the great VW ad, "it was ugly, but it gets you there."
Back at the resort, my agent rounded up the necessary cars, drivers and bodyguards. I reported the good news to my client. He extended the invitations (verbally, of course) and we were good to go. "Be in the lobby at 8pm. I have a little surprise for you tonight," he stated. A "little surprise." Watching your pet poodle getting run over by an 18-wheeler would also be a little surprise.
At the appointed hour, we loaded 4 lucky guests into each of the 5 waiting cars, the 5 drivers and 5 bodyguards were equally dispersed, and we headed off into the hills. The guests had no clue where we were going or what we'd be doing once we got there. At times like this, many people suddenly become very religious, develop an unflinching belief in God and seriously begin to pray a lot. Just simple prayers like "please just get us back to the hotel with the same number of arms and legs as we left with and I promise never to do anything this stupid again."
The 30-minute journey was uneventful. When we arrived, we were warmly greeted by the manager, and were led in the direction of the venue. The guests still had no clue as they followed like lemmings. Once we got to the "showroom," which resembled a really bad motel room, the guests began to get it. All that was in the room was a large bed, which was surrounded by 20 crappy folding chairs. The guests filed in and sheepishly took their seats, amidst murmurs like "oh my God" and "tell me this isn't happening." Those on the front row, or "bedside seats," were particularly lucky (?) since their knees actually were pressed against the bed.
As would be the case with pre-selecting wine for a group dinner, the CEO pre-selected the players for the performance, 1 man and 2 women, whose arrival into the room and onto the bed was marked with a combination of dead silence caused by shock. And the kind of anxiety-driven snicker that can only be relieved with major drugs. Once the show began, 3 naked people on a bed faking it like no one has ever faked it before, every person in the room had their hands cupped over their eyes so it looked like they weren't watching. Except all of their fingers were spread apart, so they could see just fine. Now a state of relaxation set in, down from abject horror, and people actually started to chuckle at the inanity of this situation. With that, the 2 women on the bed interrupted their grunts and moans of ecstasy long enough to tell us that if we keep up this laughter, "the mans can't perform."
Needless to say, the show ended mercifully and our prayers were in fact answered as our cars and drivers and bodyguards got us back to the hotel without incident. Like so many other trip-related incidents, as the years wore on, the story got embellished and magnified dramatically by the people who were there. The guest count was up to 100. The venue was a stage in an air-conditioned ballroom. There were 7 women and 3 men. There were 25 cars, all limos, and each bodyguard was armed to the teeth with all manner of weaponry. There were attempted attacks on the group, which were warded off by Uzi-wielding bodyguards. And on and on and on. This was the first really outrageous thing we were ever asked to do. Fortunately, we escaped unscathed. Unfortunately, it wasn't the last.
Love (Or Lust) At First Sight
It was the first night of a five night incentive program. If the next four were anything like this one, it would be a very, very long trip.
There was a welcome cocktail reception held on a beautiful balmy night, within the walls of an old fortress on the lovely Dutch island of Curacao. (It's one of the "ABC Islands," the others being Aruba and Bonaire). About 200 top financial services sales executives (plus significant others) were the invitees, and they were basking in the glow of their success. The cocktails were flowing like water, while the sensuous sounds of island music filled the air with electricity. Somehow, the guests gave off the feeling of being like caged animals that had been cooped up in their city offices for a long and cold winter, and now it was mating season in Paradise, even though the great majority were married. These people were from all over the United States and, for the most part, did not know each other at all. But, being classic Type-A salespeople, there was no problem in mixing and mingling. None at all.
The reception segued into dinner, a lavish tropical extravaganza with what seemed like 55-gallon drums of wine. Dinner morphed into an alcohol-induced dance-a-thon, where people with no rhythm at all were doing all the wrong dances to all the right music ... and could care less. Watching a bunch of people with terminal "white man's disease" doing the twist to a samba beat and a bandstand jitterbug to meringue is a real feast for the eyes.
The evening mercifully came to an end, and the last guests were escorted to the waiting coaches to go back to the hotel. Our senior travel staff and I drove back to the hotel in our car and, on a dimly lighted road we saw a man crawling. We stopped and jumped out of the car to help this poor guy. We recognized him as being part of our group. (His name badge was one hint). If there were a penalty for "crawling while under the influence," this guy would have gotten life! When he told us his story, we completely understood why he was doing what he was doing.
It turns out that some of the "mixing and mingling" became an art form. This poor guy's wife of 17 years actually met another man at the cocktail reception and by the time the dinner was over, realized that this was the man of her dreams, her true soul mate. She proceeded to go up to her husband and share this revelation with him. Like the great film about Edward R. Murrow, "Goodnight and Good Luck." She actually left her husband, and father of her children, for another man whom she had just met at a damn cocktail party and known for less than 2 hours? Period, end of sentence. We were stunned and I, for one, now believed for sure that I had seen everything. Wrong again.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Travels With Michael by Michael J. Hurwitz Copyright © 2012 by Michael J. Hurwitz. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.