Unlocking Opportunities: Navigating Asymmetry in a hotel.

The Enduring Passion of Hoteliers

The phrase "once a hotelier, always a hotelier" is often used to describe the enduring passion and dedication that many people have for the hospitality industry. Even after leaving the hotel business, many former hoteliers find themselves drawn back to it in some way, After working 25 years to the industry, serving various hotels and offices, I found myself pondering the source of this passion. The answer is becoming clearer and clearer : it's the concept of asymmetry.

Career Trajectories: Vertical vs. Horizontal Approaches

The key differentiator lies in the choice between a vertical and horizontal approach to one's career. Individuals with diverse experiences across industries tend to approach problems symmetrically, whereas those who have spent a significant portion of their career in a single industry or department often bring an asymmetrical innovation perspective to problem-solving.

Asymmetry in Growth Hacking and Business Modeling

For the most of us with passion, our fascination lies in the realm of asymmetry within growth hacking and business modeling. In essence, it involves honing in on one or two aspects intuitively, executing them with simplicity, and ease, thereby unlocking opportunities with minimal risk and maximum impact.

Facebook's Evolution: From Disruption to Stability

Once upon a time, Facebook embraced the mantra "move fast and break things" as the bedrock of the "Hacker's mindset." However, over the years the mantra changed from "move fast and break things" to "move fast with stable infrastructure." In essence, when a company reaches a certain size, the luxury of swift experimentation dwindles. Take Facebook again for example—even a modest experiment targeting a few thousand users becomes a subject of scrutiny by journalists, magnifying the repercussions if the experiment takes an unfortunate turn.

Leadership Insights: Harnessing Asymmetric Bets

Asymmetric bets are experiments that come to you intuitively because they are part of your heuristics. Typically you know these in great detail, and therefore you can layer innovation, These changes are easily to identify and quick to implement, carry a very low downside or capital investment, have a potentially high or unlimited upside, and are easily reversible.

Local SEO: Untapped Potential in the Hospitality Industry

Like many of you, my experimentation has primarily centered around revenue management, distribution, PPC/CPA models, content optimization, email marketing, and others. Among these, one aspect that I believe is significantly underutilized—particularly in the context of independent hotels—and continues to evolve today is Local SEO.

Independent Hotels vs. Large Groups: The Asymmetric Advantage

To me, these aspects constitute a goldmine for hoteliers, and that's probably why I've been focused on sales marketing for years. My main argument for why independent hotels can compete with large hotel groups is based on a simple principle conveyed to me during a recent conversation with a mentor at work, Jamshed K Daboo . He affirmed, "Mukut, you just need three things to succeed: 1. Sales, 2. Customer Experience (CX), and 3. Financial strategy." Independents can easily possess these elements to leverage asymmetric bets in their favor.

Decision-Making Models: Tej Kohli Four Pillars

1. What is the time to go to market with that action?
2. How much does it cost?
3. What is the impact?
4. is it easily reversible?

Speed-Reversibility Matrix: Navigating Risk (author 4 weeks mba)

Although I have mentioned here that Local SEO takes time, this is achievable in 6 months if you have your hacks in place. The speed reversibility matrix framework here is by and large at low risk levels. Where we know that these experiments may or may not yield as well as we would like it to, but it has a limited downside on the business, the risk is low.

Asymmetric bets live at the intersection of Experience + low-risk + high reversibility but with a potentially massive upside.

In summary

1. Seasoned Commercial Leaders: Mastering Asymmetric Bets Seasoned Commercial leaders employ a combination of asymmetric bets that have both high impact low costs and high reversibility to mitigate risks.
2. Sustained Innovation: A Catalyst for Success Successfully navigating asymmetric bets demands both experiential expertise and a mindset aligned with an organizational culture that supports such endeavors and then sustained innovation - because every first mover advantage you have today is going to eventually be copy pasted.
3. Evolution of Local SEO: NAP Listings to ChatGPT Prompts As these bets are executed, back in 2015 NAP listing was big, today - its not today, everyone has their placeholders set, so underscoring the importance of sustained innovation. A prime example of this phenomenon is evident in the realm of Local SEO.
4. Looking ahead - The next edition we will talk about how Local SEO has evolved, tracing its journey from the conventional NAP listing to encompass Topical maps, Service areas, Semantic graphs, and the utilization of ChatGPT Prompts for Local SEO.

See you around and thank you for reading!