The importance of understanding your market

The key to success in the hospitality space has got to be understanding your market; I mean REALLY understanding your market!

There's no point trying to enter in without having done your homework first, conducted research about your demographic, your end-user, your customer, and made a detailed plan.

The hospitality space is saturated and fiercely competitive, and without a definite plan of how you will achieve your targets, it can prove to be quite a challenge coming in as a new player.

With that said, this market is also extremely broad-minded. We've found ourselves with the Marlin App that hospitality providers are already used to considering new ways of doing things. Advancements in technology and the trends in society have pushed providers to think beyond traditional ways of doing things and have forced them to think about innovation much more than other markets.

Using the Marlin App as an example, in the case of hiring staff, we have found those decision makers working in hospitality are more open to discussions about different ways to find great talent. Furthermore, having a conversation that takes them out of their comfort zone is a slightly easier feat than other sectors, such as domestic staff (particularly in the HNW space) where households have been used to recruiting in a certain way for years and more hesitant about trying something new.

Broadmindedness really helps to re-educate people far easier into a new process or a new product and makes the job of sales much more straightforward.

So how to get in front of a hospitality establishment, and win their interest? Know your product, know your customer, and understand what gives you your competitive edge. As with all early ventures, be patient, stay focused, and keep working hard. It's a game of resilience and motivation, but the rewards are worth it.