Community Highlights: Meet Kate Foster of Hospitality Marketing Solutions

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kate Foster.

Hi Kate, we’d love for you to tell us a little about your story.
I have to chuckle at the concept of sharing my ‘story’. Primarily for the fact that a story has such a comfortable, linear structure about it. As an avid reader, Virgo and Enneagram #1 (perfectionist much?), I have always loved the dependability of stories with their clear story arc and conclusion.

As much as I would love my ‘story’ to follow such a similar narrative, it certainly has not. In fact, I think the journey of my career would be better defined as a roller coaster! The up /downs and more than my-fair-share of plot twists have brought me to my current role as entrepreneur and President of Hospitality Marketing Solutions (HMS)!

I took ownership of HMS on October 1, 2019, and we were on track to see the highest revenues in the company’s 35-year history. Fast forward to the end of March 2020, only 6 months into my position and COVID brought the entire travel and tourism industry to a crashing halt. Over the course of two years, nearly 4 million jobs were lost throughout the hospitality sector and HMS quickly became a part of those statistics. I let go of nearly our entire team. As a company, we lost almost $2 million in revenue, and I had gambled my career and personal finances on an investment that was on the verge of collapse. I was devastated in a way that I had never experienced before, and my confidence was shattered.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Those phone calls for the first year of the pandemic were completely surreal. Calling long-established resorts and catering companies only to hear a recording that they were “currently closed due to the pandemic” left me stunned. Reaching out to industry contacts I had known for decades, only to discover they were furloughed or out-of-work, was unimaginable. Hotels, venues, catering companies, all of my clients were in survival mode and just trying to stay afloat. Skeleton staffing levels and impossible budget cuts meant sales and service training was the very first line item to be eliminated and the last to return. HMS was at the top of that cut list!

As I listened to the distressing stories of sales and catering departments trying to rebuild their salesforce with ‘any available body’, it became more evident to me that there was a massive void within the industry. I quickly identified the need to provide training to these ‘new’ sales pros in a way that was easily accessible, relevant, constantly up-to-date, yet incredibly affordable. So many hospitality sales professionals were shaken by the pandemic. They lost confidence in their job security, their careers, and their skills. Observing and experiencing this myself inspired me to develop The Gold Key Training app. I wanted to create a community where other hospitality sales professionals can share ideas, grow together and have the resources they need to up-level their skills. Through the app, we’ve been able to provide on-demand industry training videos as well as a robust library of templates, toolkits and valuable resources to help our colleagues sell more efficiently and confidently.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
After the first beta-test of the app was a success, I knew we had struck a nerve. I had ideas of what I wanted the next version of the app to include but since I was not a tech expert by any means, I had reached my limit on what I could deliver. This year HMS partnered with Learn to Win to take The Gold Key app to the next level. Learn to Win’s Agile Learning Software will enable us to deliver training that is faster, more focused and more effective than anything we’ve seen in our industry.

One of the most exciting aspects for this next generation of The Gold Key platform is the introduction of our Micro-Shop service. For three decades HMS has been the best in the industry at secret shop surveys, so we recognize how they can fall short.

As a whole, the hospitality sector has been ‘secret shopping’ their agents and salesforce the same way for over 50 years! There are numerous mystery shop companies gathering data, monitoring interactions and documenting observations of the sales process. However, the biggest failure of the shop survey is generating meaningful change. HMS is ready to disrupt that track record and introduce an entirely new way of shopping and coaching sales teams- The Gold Key Micro-Shop.

To ensure your sales force actively engages in the learning process, you need to meet them where they are. That means designing shops & coaching for short attention spans and implementing gamification. We also make it easy to shop your teams in the flow of work. They can engage in a shop for a few minutes at a time on the device that is always with them, their mobile phone! I believe this is going to be a game-changer for our industry and I’m excited to go-to-market in 2023.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
Looking back on the past three years since taking over HMS, a roller coaster still feels like the best way to describe the story. But if this was documented in book format, the title would have to be “PERSEVERANCE”. I have been broken, stretched, tested, and challenged in countless ways but I am so proud to say I have persevered. Fortunately, my story isn’t complete, and I can’t wait to see how the next chapter reads!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.HospitalityMarketingSolutions.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hospitalitymarketingsolutions/
• Facebook: HospitalityMarketingSolutionsInc
• Other: https://www.learntowin.com/hospitality-marketing-solutions/

Image Credits
Revolution Studios