I sometimes feel I do too much critiquing and too little suggesting. Like, somehow, I’m the 400 pound, mullet-sporting guy on his 3rd beer at the baseball game yelling at the 2nd baseman to hustle. So, every once in a while on a Wednesday I’ll try to balance the scales a bit and put my own ideas up for display, analysis, and critique. (view all “WID” posts).

Sometimes book titles play the “intrigue” card to keep you guessing enough to create some desire to read it. “Purple Cow” comes to mind as a quick example. Others, like “Winners Never Cheat”, spell out pretty clearly the scope of the book.

Another that may fall into that category is one I’m picking up at the library tonight but still haven’t read called “Never Eat Alone.” The premise, I’m guessing, falls in line with something I learned long ago: the greatest ROI on my marketing dollars have been spent on someone else’s lunch.

Intro/Extro
I’m not as much of an extrovert as many marketers. I love mingling, but I absolutely prefer small groups and focusing my attention on one person. One of my favorite times to do that is over lunch.

Now, there are many reasons to grab a bite with someone, but at the core is making a deeper connection with someone you may not know that well. Sometimes it’s more of a reconnection.

But for all the technology that enables communication in our day and age, I’ve found time and time again that connections are strongest when part of it has been built offline. So, today, I’d like to share some completely unoriginal advice along those lines.

Resort Marketers Should…
Resort marketers should rarely, if ever, eat lunch alone. If your mountain is off and away from civilization, substitute “breakfast” in there. This should be budgeted, set aside, and planned almost every single day. And who should we be eating lunch with?

Personally, I’d start with three groups:

• Business owners
• Local media
• Local leadership

Then move to your team, a ski patroller, the terrain park manager, one of the seasonal kids that parks cars. One-on-one time is amazingly powerful in terms of building relationships and learning from someone. Use this daily break from peak productivity to learn and meet and see different perspectives.

There’s no better way to spend $10 than to buy a sandwich for a peer and get them to talk about what they are good at. That’s what I’d do.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.