Concept and Execution
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 09:30PM Ran into a young man today who had a great idea, but dismal execution! Here's his story:
He's moving to a new city to get an MBA. He wants to work in the hotel industry after graduation. Since he's in a night program, and needs a day job, he very reasonably decided to get an entry-level job in the hotel business, so he could gain some experience and confirm his appetite for that kind of work. GREAT CONCEPT! He had the right idea.
Unfortunately, he had given up on it. "Economy stinks," he said, because he hadn't found a hotel job. What had he done? He had sent his resume to a few generic websites, like Craig's List, looking for hotel jobs, and hadn't been offered one. So he was giving up and was going to take some other job while he went to school. Leapin' lizards, dear readers! He had given up on getting a hotel job without having visited a single hotel or talking to a single hotel company! Good concept, bad execution.
I told him to plot a path from his new home in his new city, to his MBA school, and to find the 20 name-brand hotels closest to that path. I told him to create a one-page resume with his photo on it, and to put on a suit, and to WALK INTO the 20 hotels closest to that path, and to offer his services as an entry-level front desk clerk. He's smart, he's neat, he's professional. He'll get a job. I told him that if he walked into 20 places and didn't get a job, I'd buy him dinner.
I used to own a hotel. I know I won't be buying him dinner.
Bottom line, dear readers: concepts need execution to make them work.
Reader Comments (2)
That story reminds me of my own teenaged son, who recently stated that he won't be able to get a job because his economics teacher told him most people aren't hiring teenagers now because of the recession.
Uh uh, I told him. You don't listen to statistics, you don't listen to the other guy's stories. You go out and make your own life. if you listen to the naysayers, you won't get anywhere.
I need to take that initiative... great idea.