As I sit here in my office this afternoon working away trying to close orders before everyone is gone for Thanksgiving I am reminded how thankful I am for the good things in life. Great family, Fantastic career, and great friends. I am also reminded how lucky we are to have the P4P Hotel Forum so I thought I'd share some reasons I value this forum and the people on it.
1 - Friendship
My wife and I recently had the pleasure, while on a trip to New York City, to meet up with Art and his wife for dinner one night. It was great to put a name with a face and talk about our industry in a non work related environment. Some of the people I talk to the most are from our industry and I may only see them in person once a year or once every 2 years. I look forward to being able to meet many more members over time.
2 - Information
Information should probably be the top of the list. With the industry associations our company belongs to, we have a long list of people willing and able to help us when we need it. The more I got involved with the P4P hotel over the last year, it has become my first source for information and help. There is an extremely large amount of information that helps myself and my sales reps out. I recall recently not being able to get in touch with our manufacturers rep and within minutes of posting up a question I had links to info, answers to questions, and even an offer for a phone conversation. What we have here is priceless when it comes to needing info fast as in the new age of customer buying, customers will not wait around on you for very long.
3 - The amount of industry experience represented on this forum
I am continually reminded how much experience we have the ability to leverage from this site. When reading things on the forums I always find out that my knowledge of the industry is very small even after 10 years of being in it. I eat, drink, breathe, and live this industry and because of the experience from our members I can easily continue to learn more. I can only hope to be as helpful to the young guns coming in this industry as some of you have been to me when I am 20 years further down the road.
So with all of that said I will take a moment to thank each and every one of you that has helped me in some way, shape, or form this past year. In several cases the knowledge I have gained from you has directly resulted in a sale. Art, thank you for keeping this forum going. I do not know how you find the time to do your day job, keep your wife in line (kidding!) and keep this forum going. I always heard Art's name mentioned before I found this forum and I always thought he was just an analyst or consultant. I had no idea he actually beats the streets like "us" and is in the trenches each day seeing what we see.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone
Jason
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