Role Swap: The Revenue Management Freaky Friday
Ever watched Freaky Friday? You know, the movie where mom and daughter swap bodies and hilarity ensues? We did that last week with our kids and it got me thinking....
- Revenue Manager becomes Director of Sales.
- Sales Director becomes the Marketing Manager.
- Marketing swaps with Finance.
- And someone (God help us) gets to be the GM.
Sound fun? Buckle up. Here’s what that alternate universe would look like:
Revenue Manager becomes Head of Sales
RM walks in. No pipeline. No CRM hygiene. No segmentation. No logic.
“Wait, you just promised a discount to close the deal? Based on what pickup trend?!” “You’re telling me we don’t even know displacement cost?!” “You want me to attend five networking events this week?! Can I at least bring my laptop???”
Within a week, RM starts color-coding the sales team's conversations and sends out a daily pickup report for leads. Sales team stops responding. CRM miraculously breaks.
Sales takes over Marketing
Sales sees the Instagram account:
“Too many feelings, not enough calls-to-action.” “Let’s add ‘Book Now’ to every post. And while we’re at it—#deals, #specialrates, #lastminutehotels. #seasonalsales”
Within a few weeks all followers have been taken out for lunch and influencers beg you to call of your special forces team.
Marketing tries Revenue Management
Marketing opens the RM dashboard like:
“Why are there 17 tabs open? What does 'constrained demand' mean? Why is this graph angry at me?”
So, they do what they do best: Rebrand the rate strategy. Now we’re calling BAR "The Luxe Access Rate." and of course every rate has a story and an instagram post :-)
Finance takes over RM
Revenue optimization? Cute. Let’s talk about cost control.
“We can’t raise prices - we might lose volume.” “Also, can we save money by removing all OTA commissions?” “I propose one static rate for the year. Easier to budget.”
Revenue Management eliminated as it only requires one segment, one rate....so much easier.
GM Becomes the Marketing/Sales/RM/Finance Hybrid
The GM, now in all roles, just sends one email:
“Guys, can we just sell more rooms… at a higher rate… with lower cost… and also increase guest satisfaction?”
.....and that's why there the GM. Gosh, all problems solved in one single sentence.
But Wait... What If They Actually Swapped For Real?
Would they freak out? Yes. Would it be messy? Absolutely. Would it be useful? You bet.
Because for all the chaos, role-swapping builds empathy.
So maybe we don’t need a permanent swap. But just maybe swap for a day and see what it si like. Or at least shadow a day....like bring your kids to works day :-)
If we want to break silos, we have to walk through them - preferably in someone else’s shoes.
