Many issues affect the career development of women in hospitality, including the imperative to achieve equal pay and professional standing; managing career advancement; and for entrepreneurs in the hotel industry, attaining reasonable access to capital and deal flow.

Many of these topics were discussed by an emerging group of leaders at the 2022 Red Roof Forum on Leadership for Women Entrepreneurs, held in Austin, Texas, last month. We brought together women in hospitality to share professional experiences and collaborative learning opportunities, and foster change.

As the organizer of the event who had the opportunity to interact with hundreds of women — from established executives, to young managers, to students completing their college degrees — I was struck by a common theme underlying almost every session and discussion: the importance of developing a strong professional network.

This may seem obvious to seasoned professionals in our industry who have so capably built their networks over time. But a Google search on the topic reveals thousands of books and articles for professionals of every discipline. The need to develop strong networking and network-building skills is a core competency in every profession, and for many professionals, the path to doing so is not always obvious or linear.

Here are a few suggestions for those starting out.

My own network-building journey began at age 18 when I started my first job in retail sales. Perhaps like many young adults at the time, I was not initially focused on building a network. I now realize that as a result, my sales performance came in below expectations. In fact, it came in dead last at my location.

My competitive spirit and native curiosity kicked in. I began speaking intentionally with sales leaders and learning from the way they interacted with customers. I saw how they created bonds and layers of personal and professional interest with superiors, employees and customers, and nurtured those bonds over time. I quickly learned to ask for input from those in my growing network of colleagues and paid attention to their advice on what worked and what didn’t. By seeking out and developing a relationship with a mentor to share insight, I was able to improve my sales returns quickly. Even more important, I learned how to build a network of colleagues and mentors to help support my further professional development.

I learned quickly that the opportunities that arise from a well-developed professional network, and the personal rewards that come from building one, are truly exponential.

People are always comfortable with peers of like backgrounds and interests. But network-building also means leaving your comfort zone. In many instances, it means taking risks. That’s so in hospitality as well.

Mary Beth Cutshall, founder and manager of Amara Capital and one of the speakers at our Women’s Forum event, put it succinctly: “You aren’t living if you aren’t failing. You have to take chances in order to connect the dots and see new opportunities.”

So as young professionals seek business partners and mentors with similar interests, it’s also critical for them to find individuals who think differently — expanding minds and horizons to yield not just new perspectives on your professional duties and career development, but a broader group of allies and supporters as well.

Remaining open and receptive to new ideas is critical, as is approaching each new opportunity with a passion that is uniquely your own. A network is a discrete community of sorts, but building it is in no way a “herd” activity — by developing your distinctly unique skills, perspectives and interests, you both attract and solidify an ever-larger group of professional allies and colleagues who will help you build your career path.

It also means finding the right venues to amplify your unique, individual voice.

Some hotel professionals find networking in one-on-one meetings more intimidating than group interactions. This can be especially challenging for young women, who can sometimes find more established professionals difficult to approach in social settings and often less in-sync with the social cues and language of a younger generation.

It’s important for these young professionals to work hard at overcoming those hesitations, just as it is critical for the older generation of established leaders to embrace new ways of thinking, communicating and relating.

Is texting an efficient, effective way of introducing oneself to a new contact, even in a crowded room of colleagues?

If so, then text away.

But don’t forget that the person on the other end of the text might find it less comfortable, even impersonal, and may believe strongly in the importance of face-to-face conversation for building professional and social bonds. Being hip and current should not mean ignoring traditional relationship-building conventions.

There can also be a straightforwardly ”self-promotional“ aspect to selecting the right forum for sharing your voice. Speaking to crowded rooms at conferences or trade shows can be a hugely effective way of building connections and contacts. So can blogging or organizing your own podcast.

While we should never underestimate the value of one-on-one conversation, technology-enabled communication is called “the social network” for a reason!

Perhaps most importantly, developing a strong network means building and balancing one’s own personal passions together with and alongside the passions and interests of others.

Hoteliers, specifically, should remember just how much they have in common with one another. Many operators across the industry are dealing with similar challenges, aspiring to similar goals and looking for common paths to success. Hospitality is an intrinsically people-oriented business and developing areas for partnership and growth can mean anything from sharing best practices in taking care of guests, to collaborating on how to train or retain employees, to sharing insight on how to obtain the best financial terms in making a deal.

Trade shows and conferences are just two venues for making those connections, but they are not the only ones.

Industry associations, online chats and group Zoom calls can also be invaluable forums for connecting with like-minded individuals, as well as those who are not like-minded who also are advancing in their jobs and careers alongside you.

The most critical skill is active listening: The more questions you ask, the more carefully you gauge responses and assimilate new perspectives, the more likely you will be to develop real insight into how to build your career over time, even as you develop the colleagues and supporters to enable it.

If all this focus on passion, aspirations and ambition sounds exhausting, it can be. It’s unreasonable to expect one can maintain one’s passion for growing a network at the highest level at all times.

In fact, sometimes it’s just plain difficult to connect, as the pandemic showed us.

In January 2020 I became chair of the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International - Americas, during what would become the most difficult year for hospitality in recent history. I was challenged at the same time to continue to help operate a brand and its franchise system amid the most adverse of circumstances.

To say each day was a challenge would be an understatement, but it was the very presence of a strong network of colleagues and supporters that enabled us to persevere, combine forces and leverage each other’s unique strengths to build back stronger, as the saying goes.

Perhaps this is the most singular benefit of building a powerful network over time. It is always there when you need it, and its benefits can extend far beyond the advancement of one’s own career aspirations and professional activities.

The hundreds of women who attended our recent forum came away with a renewed sense of the importance of developing strong personal and professional networks, and hopefully some new skill sets for doing so.

The future is brightest when viewed as a common journey in which the opportunities for connecting, collaborating and building are expanding every day.

Marina MacDonald is Chief Marketing Officer at Red Roof, past-Chair of HSMAI and a member of CHIEF. Marina helped create and launch the Red Roof Forum on Leadership for Women Entrepreneurs, now in its fourth year. Contact her at mmacdonald@redroof.com.

The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.

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