Episode Summary
COVID-19 hit the hospitality industry hard. So much so that Heath Shatouhy, the VP of Sales and Marketing at the staffing marketplace Jitjatjo, reports, “If you look at the recent jobs report, nearly two-thirds of people filing for unemployment are from the hospitality and leisure industry.”
As a staffing platform that focuses on connecting companies and workers in the hospitality industry, the pandemic has thus taken a big toll on Jitjatjo. Yet this hasn’t stopped Heath and his team from working hard to support Jitjatjo’s gig workers. In fact, since the emergence of COVID-19, the platform has cut its margins to keep money in the hands of workers, or talent, as it calls them.
On this episode of Tech Qualified with Justin Brown, Heath explains how his team has adapted to get through these difficult times and help those struggling. Knowing that many workers join the hospitality industry because they want to help others, Heath felt there was no better way to support them than by protecting their livelihoods.
“If you approach clients and customers with a genuine desire to help without worrying about paybacks, it will come back to you. It may not be today. It may not be tomorrow, but it will come back because they will remember you because you were genuine and you did try to help them out as best you could. And that really goes a long way,” Heath says.
Guest Profile
- Name: Heath Shatouhy
- What he does: As VP of Sales and Marketing at Jitjatjo, an on-demand staffing platform for the hospitality industry, Heath oversees the sales, marketing, client success and talent acquisition teams.
- Company: Jitjatjo
- Noteworthy: “You can't do anything unless somebody sells something, but a sales person can't do anything unless somebody markets it first. Having them tied together is really important.”
Key Insights
- Hospitality is all about helping others, says Heath. Jitjatjo wants its flexible workforce employees to continue to have stable work and feed their families because these are the people who are feeding communities. Heath believes it’s important for his team to bolster those workers right now and to participate in programs that are giving back, like delivering food to the elderly at makeshift hospitals.
- Heath and his company are proud of their #hirehospitality campaign, a campaign centered around recognizing and giving back to the hospitality workforce. The campaign includes a nonprofit fundraising website, hirehospitality.org, to help displaced and furloughed employees get through these difficult times.
- Jitjatjo approaches the pandemic’s challenges by leaning into them. The company’s here to fight because that’s its only option. “We're looking at this as an opportunity to retool a little bit, refocus our spending, be a little bit smarter about our spending and partner with different vendors to do something different,” Heath says. It’s about adapting to the new normal, which includes sending the right message and understanding who they’re targeting and why.
Episode Highlights
- No more wasting time finding time
- Personalize messaging even if customers have the same end goal
- Listening to your customers sets you up to win
- Great content gets straight to the point
