During one road trip, Guillermo Rotman was settling down in his room at the hotel chain he frequented on nearly every business travel excursion when the phone rang.
It was the front desk.
“Mr. Rotman,” the voice on the other end of the line said enthusiastically. “Congratulations — we wanted to thank you because we noticed this year that you have stayed over 150 nights with us. Thank you very much for your support.”
Rotman was stunned and a bit dumbfounded by the call.
“I wasn’t sure if I should cry or not,” he says. “I didn’t realize I had stayed so many nights in that hotel. I travel three weeks over the month. I try to be out there as much as I can.”
It’s a necessary evil when you are the CEO of The Regus Group Americas, which has 2,000 U.S. employees. These employees work hard to provide office space, meeting rooms, receptionist capabilities and conferencing technology to clients based on what their business needs are at that time. This approach gives customers flexibility to not be locked into long-term contracts that may be obsolete if their business grows or shrinks in the future.
“My job is not just to be in my office here and drive and direct the company,” he says. “My job is to also be in front of all my people, so I travel to my centers as much as I can, and I try to be in front of them, and I get a lot of feedback from them about where we’re not doing great, what we can do better, what are the things affecting your business today and what we can do to change those things, and we learn a lot.”
To keep the business successful, Rotman says it all comes down to people — hiring good ones, building trust with them and listening to customers.
