06 Allison Knapp: Peeling Back the Curtain

Meet Creating Hospitality: a conversation series where we explore an important question that impacts the journey to joy: how can today’s hospitality leaders create healthy, happy teams categorically capable of helping guests find their joy?

We chat fun and unique stories with hospitality leaders to inspire others how to build successful teams, careers, and customer experiences from the start.

In episode six, we chat with Allison Knapp, senior sales manager at Delta by Marriott Virginia Beach Waterfront, about getting vulnerable and staying in tune with yourself and teammates.

Episode Transcription

Shawn Gaines: Welcome to Creating Hospitality, a conversation series that explores how today's hospitality leaders can create healthy, happy teams categorically capable of helping guests find their joy. Today, I’m very excited to chat with Allison Knapp. Allison, welcome to the podcast and can you introduce yourself to our audience? 

Allison Knapp: Yes, thank you so much, Shawn. I'm so excited to be here. My name is Allison Knapp. I'm the owner and founder of the Millennial Hotelier. It’s a media brand targeting all millennials and hotels, helping as a support/guidance. I'm really proud of the platform and everything that we've done, and we’ve grown pretty rapidly. And I'm also in hospitality myself. I'm in senior sales with Crescent Hotels and Resorts at Delta Virginia Beach. It’s very dear to my heart. I love all things hotels, and I love Virginia Beach, so I am a lifer here. But yeah, that’s a little bit about me, a little tidbit. 

SG: I love that you kick it off with, “Hey, I'm a I'm a lifer here!” As a fellow millennial, that doesn't tend to be the thing that millennials do. It's more jumping around. And the fact that you've been in hospitality so long, that leads to the first question. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your story. What got you into hospitality and what's keeping you in it? 

AK: Sure. So, a little about me, I'm actually from a very small town south of Richmond, Virginia called Colonial Heights. There's really not much there. It's a nine square mile town. There's not much to do. And growing up, I would travel with my dad and his company, and we would go and stay in these beautiful hotels, which is not something I was used to seeing at all in my little town. And from the age of six or seven, in my first few memories and experiences, I'm like, “This is what I want to do, this is absolutely my future.” From there, I was a tour guide in middle school and then in high school, I wrote blogs for a little paper about traveling and the impact, even going into sports travel, and it just kind of went from there.  

Going into college, I worked at the Cavalier Hotel, which is a stable hotel in Virginia Beach as well, very historic. And that got me into the boutique side of things and seeing how every department works and working my way up from there. But, like I said, something I've always felt was very ingrained in me is people and I feel like hospitality is just the embodiment of how you make other people feel. So that's what got me started and I just love it! I really do. 

SG: When you're talking about being six or seven going to these beautiful hotels, do you have any memories or anything that happened at that time that really kind of set that spark in motion? 

AK: Oh, absolutely. I grew up going to New York City. Dad did a lot of business there and so did a lot of family members. So we went, and I don’t think we stayed at the La Pierre, but we had brunch or dinner or something. And I will never ever forget, I was literally seven years old, but one of my first memories is walking into this hotel and seeing how grand everything was. It was overwhelming really, to walk in and just feel that moment of just, “Oh my gosh, this is just the most stunning thing I have ever seen in my life!” 

So not only do you have the most gorgeous hotel in the world in my opinion, then you have the staff who, just every two minutes, they’re 10 steps ahead of you. Like, here's a warm towel, here's hot tea, here's a coffee. And it was just so cool. And being that young, I vividly remember walking in and the doorman, and how he welcomed us in. And I just was like, “Wow, that's so cool.” You know, at sevenyou're like, “I feel so important!” But to walk in- and I was like, “Oh my gosh, they have someone to hold the door and that's his job,” and I was instantly hooked. Just going through it and talking to everybody. I'm really not kidding, that was probably my first memory of just, “Wow, how do I come back here and what do you all do?” It really just blew me away and I still channel that because still to this day, I think that's probably one of the most beautiful hotels, pretty much in the world. 

SG: I'm getting some Home Alone 2 vibes. 

AK: And that was at the Plaza! 

SG: And that was at the Plaza! Right! And with Kevin McAllister walking in and it's overwhelmingly beautiful, except, minus the antics and you had your family with you. But that's awesome. It sounded like you were also travel blogging in what would have been the very early days of travel blogging.  

AK: Yes! 

SG: What made that switch flip for you to go from “I'm personally enjoying this,” to “I want to share this now with everybody else?” 

AK: Well, I've always really enjoyed writing as an outlet. I loved English class and all that stuff, so I was always in those groups and in those courses and I really felt like there wasn't enough talk about it. Even in high school, I felt like no one's going up into the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond. Let me see if I can just write about it and maybe me and a few of my friends will go. You know, it was just something like the impact I guess, behind it. At the time you don't realize. At the time you're more social and just want everybody to go because you like it. 

But then I kind of realized, through high school, going into college, if you write about it, it's there forever and anybody can read it and say, wow, I would never have tried that, gone there, or thought about that until I read your post article. And it's kind of funny how that kind of turned into LinkedIn later on for me as well. But yeah, I’ve always loved writing so it's just kind of a no-brainer for me. And back then, it was like a Word document into my school paper, but I thought it was very cool. 

SG: Well, it is interesting to hear that you started with the travel blogging and now that’s since evolved, like you said, into LinkedIn and essentially a series of awesome posts about leadership and managing teams. What made you transition to “I want to share my own thoughts and tips on building and leading teams?” 

AK: For me, I've always, like I said, used it as an outlet. So going into the management side of hospitality, not just serving while I'm in college or being a guest on the outside, but really pulling back that curtain and getting to see everything, and really wanting to always be in hospitality but not knowing the stigmas behind it, and knowing how hard it is and how hard it is on staff and people and the tenure- the lack of. So, for me, I started to have my own challenges that whether it's talked about or not, we absolutely all go through and experience, and I didn't really know how to find a healthy outlet for that. I knew what I wanted to do, I wanted to stay in hotels, but I needed some sort of outlet, something to help me get through that.  

It was kind of funny how it evolved into LinkedIn because initially I thought, “Well, let me just go ahead and start a blog again. Maybe even start an internal blog and maybe one day post it later on.” But it is actually a colleague that said, “I don’t know if you have one, but LinkedIn has a newsletter you can do.” And I said, “Wow, really? What is LinkedIn?” I'm like 20 years old. So I joined LinkedIn, and I said, “Wow, it’s built in for you. You can literally just start a newsletter!” And I did. I just took it from there and started writing and didn't post until many years later. But at least I sparked the interest, like, “Wow, this is very cool.” 

I feel like people don't realize how long the LinkedIn newsletter has been around. But it took a lot of courage to finally post my first one. Putting it out there for my colleagues, my superiors, and everyone to see. But again, something I really am passionate about and wanted to bring to light and unveil that curtain and let everyone know that they weren't alone in what they were experiencing and maybe provide support, tips, help to help someone else navigate through something similar to myself. 

SG: Yeah, and can I ask what were some of those stigmas that were weighing heavily on you that inspired you to think “How, how can I help other people work through these?” 

AK: Yeah. So, again, I think the tenure is huge. No one gives respect or really listens to what someone has to say unless it's 20 years in the industry, 30 years in the industry. And I really had no idea until I came on the scene, excited and ready to learn. And I felt very shut down. Like, “Sit in the corner and do your job.” And I will never forget thinking “Wow, this is what I mean to this company.” And just not wanting anybody else to feel that way at the end of the day. And that started a whole pitfall for me. I'm like, “So is this how other people are feeling at other hotels? You're just here your first ten years and then you matter? I'm going to change that. I don't know how, but I'm going to try my best.” And that's when LinkedIn really came into play for me because I didn't realize how many other people were feeling the exact same way. They wanted to stay in hospitality, but this is just a part of the game and a part of everything.  

And honestly, I think COVID is what really brought light and drastically changed everything for our industry of how anybody can now come in and perhaps even do a better job than just working 20 years to finally receive respect. Yeah, it just changed it and changed it for the better. 

SG: Yeah. Well, it sounds like a lot of the things you've been writing, the work you've been doing is also trying to change things for the better and create those types of environments yourself. I really liked a recent LinkedIn post you did, I think it was a simple one: Be a leader, not a boss. Can you unpack that a bit? What really goes into being a leader versus just being a boss? 

AK: Yeah, it meant a lot to me to post that. I think the simplest ones have the most impact so for me, I really meant that. I think leadership starts with people and I feel like the best leaders, they actually care about people. They want to know your thought process. They want to know your day-to-day. They don't want to just manage you. They don't want to just tell you what to do. They genuinely respect your opinion and honestly care about you as a person. And I know that's kind of not the stigma, especially in business, especially in hotels, but I feel like that's the change that's needed. 

If somebody comes in late, instead of a write up, a demerit, whatever you want to call it, it's, “Oh my gosh, what happened? How can I help you?” People remember that. They remember the leaders that not only inspire them and pour into them, but they remember the leaders that ultimately care. So, to me, that was a simple but fun reminder to anybody that has their own department or perhaps things aren't going well or there's some struggles you know, that maybe there is something you could do to change it and maybe it's yourself and just starting from the top and seeing what happens.  

SG: Yeah, well to that end, can you tell me a little bit about your team? What went into building the team and what does the team look like for you? 

AK: So, my background's really multiple hotels being an area and regional, and I just didn't feel like that's the future. With a people-first approach like I have, I really wanted that strong team that you know them and you trust them. So I came back to the property level. It was a hard, hard change, but when you know, you know, and that's what I wanted to do. So coming back here, I am so very proud, so very proud of my team. We have three group sales managers here, two seniors, a coordinator who's our backbone, our convention services manager who details, my director of sales who teaches me so very much, and my director of catering.  

It is really cohesive. We all understand we have different roles. We have different things to focus our time on and maximize. But at the end of the day, we're all people. And I love that about my team, that we can all depend on each other. If there's a certain thing that I can't get to or I need help on or vice versa, there's just no pride. They can simply ask me, I can ask them, and this is probably the first team I've truly experienced that, where it really is for the betterment of our hotel and our company. Not all about them or all about themselves with the department, so, that that means a lot to me. But again, I feel like you get what you give and if you're giving that to everybody around you, you receive that. So, I would love to take this time to introduce my team, if that's OK with you? 

SG: I would love that! 

Christopher Edwards: How are you doing? 

Shelton Daniels: Good afternoon. Good afternoon. 

AK: So, we have our catering sales manager, Christopher Edwards here. 

CE: Pleasure. 

AK: A huge impact on our team. He's turned around catering from a grassroots effort, so it means the world to me. And then we have Shelton Daniels, our other group sales manager as well. Shelton comes to us with a wealth of experience, so we are- 

SD: She’s just basically trying to say I'm old. 

AK: Ha! I would never! 

SD: That’s the nice way of saying I'm the old guy. 

SG: That’s a kind spin! 

AK: We really do have a fantastic team on property and I'm so proud of everyone so I wanted to just showcase the team a little bit to come say hello. 

CE: Yes, absolutely, thank you so much for having us and thank you for showcasing our wonderful senior sales manager Allison here. I know she has a wealth of knowledge, as we spoke about earlier, so I'm sure she definitely gave me some good content. 

SG: Yeah, what's it like working for Allison? 

CE: Oh, great. She’s always full of energy! 

AK: I'll leave! 

SG: Yeah, you can go Allison! 

CE: No, seriously, Allison is wonderful. To come work every day and see her smile, this is my lunch buddy, they know me and her go to lunch every day, so she's just a joy and a pleasure to be around and I'm sure we can all speak to that. 

SD: Yeah, it's just that that energy. You want that energy in a workplace, especially in an environment where you're together more than we are with our own families. It’s very important that we that we keep that that work life balance. And what she brings to the team is absolutely phenomenal. 

CE: Phenomenal. 

SG: Yeah, good point, you spend a lot of time at work. 

SD: We actually do. 

AK: Yes. 

SG: Well, Christopher and Shelton, thanks for popping into the podcast. 

SD: Oh, you’re welcome! 

CE: Thank you so much for having us. Thank you so much. 

SD: I'll send you my W-9. 

SG: Yeah, please! 

AK: Thank you so much guys! That means a lot. 

SG: Also, you know, there's one thing of having a leader just talk about like, “Oh, here's the environment that I create,” but to actually hear people from the team pop in and validate that, that's saying something too of like it's something you said earlier about authenticity. It's clear there's an authentic atmosphere that you've managed to create. 

AK: Yeah, definitely means a lot. I feel like even in business, there's just so many stigmas of, you know, leave it at the door and then don't talk about it, but that's just to me, not how you keep people and how you care about people. I care about everyone on the team very much. They mean a lot to me. 

SG: And you talk about that a lot in your newsletter, about leading with empathy and getting to know your team members, like Christopher and Shelton. How do you go about getting to know them? When you bring in a new team member, how do you welcome them into the Allison team, into the family? 

AK: I feel like it all starts with, they don't know where they're coming into. I feel like everyone, maybe not anxiety, but you have those jitters, you know? Something no one really talks about, but you are when you switch teams, when you're going to a new place. So, I feel like you set the tone. If they come in and they're welcomed, you kind of put everything aside and you bring them to lunch or a fun atmosphere to get to know them and make them feel comfortable. To me, that's the biggest piece, just making them feel welcomed, comfortable, happy, and excited.  

I feel like the best motivation is when everybody is excited and in that energy Shelton kind of talked about. We're all happy to be here and we look forward to coming in and it's not “ugh work.” You want everyone to be almost jealous of the team you've built and want to be on that team. And so again, it goes back to culture. I really am so passionate about the culture that you create, and you cultivate. And when you keep that momentum going through your good periods, but honestly, through your bad periods too. Every hotel, every market, everybody experiences those highs and those lows. So, for me, it's very important to maintain that stable connection/culture, that everybody feels welcomed, comfortable and is in a place to receive and also give feedback. That's another big one too. We're always going to have something to say, but you got to know the time and place. 

SG: I also remember reading that you talked about different personality assessments that you've used in the past. I'm a big fan of DISC and I think that might have been one of the ones. You've used those as well, right? 

AK: Oh yes! And it really, it helps the team understand, “Oh well, I took it that way, but that's how you communicate so maybe I was in the wrong.” It gives that perspective of not so much, “you're right, I'm wrong,” but like, “Oh, it was a miscommunication, it was a misunderstanding.” So, it's kind of fun to bring people out of their shells a little bit and put themselves in other people's shoes. I really enjoy those. 

SG: What is your DISC profile? 

AK: Oh my gosh, no, don't put me on the spot! I don't remember! Gosh, it’s been so long now. I don't remember! 

SG: It's all good! I'm a wildly high I and throughout my career I have balanced sometimes a little bit of D, little bit of C, little bit of S, but the I through and through. That's the one that's like, “Oh, I get things done by building relationships.” It's also helpful because it's something you learn where, you know, I got a lot of high Ss and high Cs on my team. And the S profile is more of the, “Hey, I like to get things done, I don't like change, I like to have a goal and go accomplish it,” and C is definitely more analytical. And then the I is the, “I'm going to run into a room, scream a bunch of ideas and then disappear and hope you get it done,” one. So having those alone, I feel like being able to use that to help manage a team is a huge asset. 

AK: Oh yeah. And getting everybody to understand each other and how each other works. Everybody is very different, and I feel like if people actually cared, not just towards the goal or the bottom line or to a certain score in a hotel, but really cared to peel back how everyone works, their preferred management style, it would get them so much further. 

SG: Yes! Now, I think what's interesting is throughout your career, even as you're talking right now, you're helping your team, you're creating a culture for your team, helping your team grow, helping your team become leaders. You're clearly somebody thinking about the team around you. But, at the same time, as a woman coming up in hospitality, you need to advocate for yourself, right? How do you go about making that balance of building a strong team but also being cognizant of your need to advocate for yourself? What does that look like? 

AK: Oh, absolutely. I really live by the mantra, and it's kind of funny, but, don't live with regrets. I feel like in the first five years of my career, I really didn't advocate for myself. I really wanted to just get a good review, get a good score. Very analytical and success driven. But I didn't realize, I was hurting myself and my truth and what I wanted at the end of the day. So that was a really big shift for me.  

I began getting out there more and my brand started to grow, and it was a personal time for me when I realized, “No, these are the conversations that I do want to have, and I have to have them.” I feel like you have to be selective on the arguments that you choose to take on. But when you do go all in, go 100% and never back down, never have those regrets. And it's funny, I'll even try to brush some things off and say, “Oh, you know, it'll be Ok.” And I know myself so well, I'll be driving home, unpacking my day, and if something sticks out in my mind, I'm like, “I need to handle that differently next time.” So I think it's too having that self-awareness.  

It's definitely a learning process. I feel like we can all admit that. There's definitely more conversations you wanted to go about differently. But again, just getting in my car at the end of the day and not having any of those regrets or, “I wish I would have handled something differently,” but truly being confident in all the conversations I had, the decisions I made, that's very important to me. And for the integrity of my team to trust my judgement and to also advocate for themselves. And I do love teaching the team that if you don't like something, I want you to tell me and I want you to speak up. So that was a very good question. I love that one. 

SG: I also love that you brought up, I mean, something that I've been thinking about a lot since the pandemic is decompression time. And just like you getting in your car and driving home, like, some of us who work from home don't have that. That's something my wife and I talk about, when I finish working, I should just close my computer, but don't leave the office because the kids are around and you lose that decompression time. And it's so healthy, like you said, to take that time to reflect on your day and you're doing it probably healthier than most where you immediately are like, “Oh, what can I do different? 'll do it differently the next time,” versus losing sleep at night or not having that time to let yourself be refreshed mentally. 

AK: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Just always debriefing. I call it a good little debrief, a nice deep breath of the whole day and then do it all over again the next. 

SG: Yeah, I love it. Well, Allison, we're getting close to time. So, I think that means it's time for our one segment on our Creating Hospitality podcast that we love to close every episode with, which is our Hospitality Spotlight. So, Allison, what is a great hospitable experience you've recently had? Maybe at a hotel or a venue or some experience where you really saw hospitality at its best? 

AK: Oh my gosh, I feel like I've had quite a few lately. I just had a really big government group in at our hotel. And usually, it's very cut and dry. It's government, but, lots of things going on, maybe a little controversial. And I welcomed the group in and I was just doing my day-to-day. But we really went above and beyond for this. It was a neat day, but I also did the contact, so we did a few things differently. And sometimes in the day-to-day, you just don't realize how those little details can leave an impact. For us, we accommodated them and let them use our restaurant versus our hospitality space, very small things. But it was the end, when the group was leaving, I had I think three different people, they knew me by my name tag on my jacket, came up to me and they said, "Thank you so much for doing this.” And I stopped them and I wanted to unpack that a little bit. And I said, “Absolutely, you're welcome, but what's going on? Did you enjoy everything?” And it just sparked this whole conversation of how they haven't had an in-person event in three years, really since the pandemic. And for them, the connection of getting out, they live all over the country and just getting to see their fellow colleague in-person and getting to experience these meals, we are on the bay, so, getting to see the views, it felt almost like a retreat, like a really nice refresh. And so I took them into our restaurant. They were checking out and I was like, “Put your bags down,” and involved them with a drink and some food and I said, “No thank you guys. Thank you all for coming out here and helping our hotel.”  

What people don't realize is we need the groups and we need the in-person events probably more than anything. Everybody is still recovering since COVID. So, it was really neat, something that could have been so easily overlooked had I been in a meeting in my office. But just realizing how important and imperative that in-person factor is, whether it just be a simple goodbye or hello. It really impacted me and it really left me feeling like, “Ok, I am doing something for the greater good. I am.” And it made me feel fantastic. And that's how I hope everybody that I come in contact with feels, but that just really shows the impact since COVID. We all do need each other. So, I meant a lot to me.  

SG: I agree. Well, I feel fantastic, so I think it's working. And you know, I will say Allison, it's something I had in my notes that I didn't really bring up earlier, but there's a line I loved in one of your LinkedIn posts. You said something about the radiance of character. And I like that description of the fact that if somebody has character and it's authentic and sincere and there's integrity and all of that in there, it radiates. And you create that environment and you see it from your team visiting. That was really a big take away for me from this conversation. There's something about being able to have that character and that radiance of character that really can sit with people.  

AK: Oh, absolutely. I feel like people just feel when the conversation is pushed or not wanted, perhaps it's why I'm in sales, but I do feel every connection I want to feel very authentically. So, thank you. That means so much to me. It does.  

SG: And thank you for joining us on the podcast today. It was wonderful getting a chance to talk to you, learn more about your experience. I certainly learned a lot and I hope you had a good time sharing that. And I hope all of your listeners enjoyed as well.  

Thanks to our listeners for tuning in. Be sure to follow and subscribe to Creating Hospitality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube and please share a rating. We'd love to hear from you.