For the longest time, I cringed when I told people “I’m a Hotel Consultant.” I wasn’t even certain why. Everything in me, from my 18 years in hotel leadership & operations background, made me detest the word “consultant.” Finally I have landed on the ‘why’: consultants aren’t do-ers of the deeds. The dictionary defines consultant as “a person who gives expert or professional advice, typically in a particular field or subject.” Not a bad thing, really, but not who I am. I’m not a person who just gives advice; I like to solve problems. I like to do stuff. As such, when we categorize the business, we may need to check the box of “Consulting Company” despite disowning that title from the start. We are ‘Solutions Team Members’. We solve problems shoulder to shoulder alongside our clients. 

As the company has expanded (we have six of us in the US now), we have had to operationalize what is it that we do. Here are four guiding principles of what makes us a ‘solutions company’ vs. ‘consulting company’: 

Shoulder to Shoulder is our Home-base: Our work often starts in a conference room, but the real work is shoulder to shoulder. A great example of this is our ‘Heart of House’ (our personalized term for ‘Housekeeping’) practice that Jeremy Worthen leads. When we find a hotel team that needs to improve productivity within the Heart of House, Jeremy doesn’t just give them a spreadsheet. He will go through the schedule line by line and talk through a new plan with hotel leaders. When a housekeeping workflow or process needs to be implemented, we don’t just create a manual or SOP. We train the team shoulder to shoulder. Shoulder to shoulder is how we build trust. It is how we cement lasting progress. It is not just consulting; it is how we solve problems. 

Transformation vs. Transactions: Transactions need to happen in the world. We sometimes want to buy a bottle of water and then we subsequently use the vending machine. That’s a transaction. Sometimes we pay at the pump because we need gas. That’s also a transaction. Transactions do not meet the moment to transform a culture, a process, or elevate a result. The unfortunate reality is that should we settle for an executive report and a few bullet points on a slide, we are settling for transaction in many cases. That is not who we are. When we partner with a new client our goal isn’t simply to check off what needs done. Our goal is to transform the culture and results of their organization to the shared vision we aligned around on day one. The solution is the outcome, not a mundane deliverable or report. 

We Bring Our Full Messy Selves into Our Work: As a values driven company, ‘who we are’ is always more important to us than what we do. We may be conducting trainings, transforming hotels or doing revenue management, but our values of curiosity, courage, authenticity, intelligence, and contribution are a through-line between it all. Each value shows up in different ways, but the authenticity means that we bring ourselves. We bring what we do know and we share what we don’t. We will work together for a solution. Sometimes it starts with a team member saying “I don’t know. Let’s find out together.” That’s unique in the consulting world where often answers are the sole currency. Our currency is getting a solution, not answering right away. 

 Culture is The Core of EVERY Solution: We recognize solutions often involve creating a training program, implementing new revenue management approaches, or other operational tasks AND we also know that culture is the foundation upon which any lasting solution is built. This is why, with almost every solution, there is an element that supports, elevates, and brings the work culturing into conversation. Sometimes this is through coaching, sometimes mentorship one on one, sometimes through training, but culture is always part of our work because it is always part of the acceleration quotient or the thing that will hold back results. 

B to C Solutions is about helping our clients along their journey. Companies get from point A to B by being good at something. There is often something that needs to be solved to get from point B to C. We go shoulder to shoulder, as our full messy selves, to build a transformation together and develop a culture that will sustain it. There is always room for more like-minded solutions experts. There is also always room for more companies ready to collaborate with us on their challenges. Ping me at Ben@btocsolutions.com if you’d like to connect and learn more.