Building an Entrepreneurial Culture – Marea Beachfront Villas
Do you want to build an entrepreneurial culture?
Marea Beachfront Villas
Building an Entrepreneurial Culture
Marea Beachfront Villas is in an authentic, cool little Mexican town on a 10-mile beach. It is a special community, a place where people come to get away from their everyday lives, reconnect with themselves, reconnect with loved ones, start building traditions, and meet other like minded people.
PROBLEM
The CEO’s vision is to build a family-oriented environment that welcomes both owners and guests while consistently delivering a unique and welcoming experience. He strived to build a community of like minded people some of which own and some rent but all align with the vision of Marea and the deeper importance it can bring to their lives. He felt alone in that vision. His staff didn’t fully understand or buy into how to bring that to life on a daily basis.
SOLUTION
The CEO turned to the Wright Human Emergence Group (HEG) to help bring his vision to life. He commissioned HEG’s proprietary Team Performance Pulse assessment and found the team truly did not share the vision for the organization the CEO had. Team members did not have experience with the basics of running the organization and couldn’t see how their individual jobs impacted the guest experience the CEO envisioned. Working with a Marea Design Team consisting of participants from the CEO and General Manager to a housekeeper, HEG implemented the Open Book Management process through a series of work sessions and “mini-games” to bring these business concepts to life.
The team worked on financial literacy, beginning with each person doing their own P&L to bring the concept home. From there, they worked to understand the P&L and balance sheet of the business, developed one key understandable financial objective for the business, and identified the key drivers of profitability for each department. Following this process, they built a shared understanding of how each department and individual influenced the profitability of Marea.
The team worked on a mini-game to increase the number of five star Tripadvisor reviews, which are key to the visibility of the resort. This game helped team members understand how their day-to-day actions directly impacted their Tripadvisor reviews, and helped attract rental guests to Marea.
RESULTS
In a period of 2 months, the team received 25 new 5 star reviews on Tripadvisor and other online travel agencies. Relationships with owners are dramatically better and owner satisfaction has increased. This has led to increased resale value for current owners as demand for their properties has increased.
“I was very alone running my company. I have a team of 20 people, but when it came right down to it, I felt pretty alone. What I’m finding now, for the first time, is that I have other people stepping up and joining me. It’s fantastic!”