The mom-and-pop motel
On the face of it, it seems like an excellent idea. Become your own boss, run your own business, meet lots' of new people, live in a nice place, in short have fun while making a living. How much better can it gets? It gets even more appealing with age and after many years of working for others, having to comply by their whims and mood changes, put up with rules that seem arbitrary and random, counting the days to that magic date, retirement.
The Mom-and -pop motel seems like the whole package wrapped nicely. Compact enough to make it manageable yet sufficiently varied to keep it exciting. Other people with no prior experience have done it and survived so how hard can it be?
And so people often dive in without doing their homework, not realizing what it actually means mislead by their own misconception and wishful thinking. It might seem simple, just a mom-and-pop operation run and managed as its name implies by two people. But small does not necessarily means simple and a motel is not like any other small home business.
Let’s start by shaking the small equals’ simple equation. Whether small or big a business is a business is a business. If it does not generate sufficient income, if it is not managed professionally, if it does not grow and develop it is merely a hobby no more. Regardless of its size it has to deal on a daily basis with the same type of issues; staffing, advertising, training, cost, prices, inventory and clientele. Actually a larger scale business might handle all these complex issues by hiring special people to handle different facets while in a small business often the same two or three people have to be the ones to do it all.
When adding to the framework that was just presented above (staffing, advertising, cost etc...) the unique qualities of a mom and pop motel versus any other home business the complexity becomes even more apparent.
A motel is either closed or open, it cannot be partially open which means that for twenty four hours, seven days a week, all through the year if the lights are on and the sign at the entrance is lit, prospected guests can drive to the front door and demand to be served. There is not a moment of total privacy unless someone else is at the desk. If they do not knock on the door people will call and ask questions; from relevant ones about prices and availability to what the weather will be six month into the future and when that lobster restaurant will open and by the way is it good? How to arrive from the airport and maybe I can get a ride? If they are polite they will thank you, if they are not they will hang the phone on you, but it does not really matter, as each one of them can become a paying guest they all have to be treated professionally with respect and patience.
As if working twenty four hours a day is not taxing enough try adding to the mixture spending those hours with your life partner, working together. Every buzzer claiming danger should be buzzing now foreseeing the abnormality of such arrangement. Almost like stepping on broken glass every step have to be carefully calculated so that there will be no blood. Fights and hard feelings cannot be taken home for an understanding partner to sooth; domestic feuds cannot be allowed to interfere with business decisions and vice versa. No one can bang the door behind and leave or go on a strike. Living together is hard, working together is demanding, living and working together for twenty four hours with no intermissions is heroic.
The now or never type of this operation can throw every sane person into an extra loop. This is the utmost bonus one gets for running a motel. Every phone conversation with an anonymous person is potentially a sell. Every person that walks into the lobby can be a customer and while this might be true for any other business what is unique here is that the room that was not sold today is gone forever. Dramatic, perhaps but true. Tonight’s rooms cannot be sold tomorrow, this income is lost. Something to remember while answering questions relevant or not, while showing a room in the middle of a snow storm, while opening the door after closing hours, while contemplating giving someone a ride from the airport.
When every room is crucial, when one good season does not guarantee another, rain or shine or snow, in health or in sickness, the show must go on in order to keep on going. That is the nature of this business in a nutshell. No wonder then that the burnout rate is rather fast and small motels change hands so often. The mom-and –pop motel is not for the weak at heart.
When adding to the framework that was just presented above (staffing, advertising, cost etc...) the unique qualities of a mom and pop motel versus any other home business the complexity becomes even more apparent.
A motel is either closed or open, it cannot be partially open which means that for twenty four hours, seven days a week, all through the year if the lights are on and the sign at the entrance is lit, prospected guests can drive to the front door and demand to be served. There is not a moment of total privacy unless someone else is at the desk. If they do not knock on the door people will call and ask questions; from relevant ones about prices and availability to what the weather will be six month into the future and when that lobster restaurant will open and by the way is it good? How to arrive from the airport and maybe I can get a ride? If they are polite they will thank you, if they are not they will hang the phone on you, but it does not really matter, as each one of them can become a paying guest they all have to be treated professionally with respect and patience.
As if working twenty four hours a day is not taxing enough try adding to the mixture spending those hours with your life partner, working together. Every buzzer claiming danger should be buzzing now foreseeing the abnormality of such arrangement. Almost like stepping on broken glass every step have to be carefully calculated so that there will be no blood. Fights and hard feelings cannot be taken home for an understanding partner to sooth; domestic feuds cannot be allowed to interfere with business decisions and vice versa. No one can bang the door behind and leave or go on a strike. Living together is hard, working together is demanding, living and working together for twenty four hours with no intermissions is heroic.
The now or never type of this operation can throw every sane person into an extra loop. This is the utmost bonus one gets for running a motel. Every phone conversation with an anonymous person is potentially a sell. Every person that walks into the lobby can be a customer and while this might be true for any other business what is unique here is that the room that was not sold today is gone forever. Dramatic, perhaps but true. Tonight’s rooms cannot be sold tomorrow, this income is lost. Something to remember while answering questions relevant or not, while showing a room in the middle of a snow storm, while opening the door after closing hours, while contemplating giving someone a ride from the airport.
When every room is crucial, when one good season does not guarantee another, rain or shine or snow, in health or in sickness, the show must go on in order to keep on going. That is the nature of this business in a nutshell. No wonder then that the burnout rate is rather fast and small motels change hands so often. The mom-and –pop motel is not for the weak at heart.
I just read this quickly as a mini-break and can't stop to comment right now--this pop has to make supper for mom. But I really enjoyed it and will have more to say tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, I really enjoyed this--also liked and admired it. This is the kind of piece I really can't comment on to any great extent: it seems complete, finished, as if it sprang in one sudden leap from a mind full and overfull of expertise in the topic. I'd imagine it was easy to write (it's certainly easy to read) and that it required less than your usual editing.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that surprises me is how the first person is avoided and yet how much voice it has anyway. Avoiding the first person was not a necessity for this assignment (I hope that was clear) but you've done wonders with the third person. Expertise and the confidence it gives will do that for a writer--build a firm foundation for any direction she cares to go.
I don't suppose there's a trade magazine for mom 'n' pop motels, is there? This piece would be a natural.