Embark on a captivating career journey with this Steve Allmen, as he grew his career from early startup involvement in data provision and loyalty coalitions to becoming a seasoned loyalty expert and consultant. Steve shares his invaluable lessons from adversity and how his consulting practice positioned him for his executive role of strategic advisor and business development partner to his many club stakeholders in Canada with the Canadian Automobile Association.
Embark on a captivating career journey with this Steve Allmen, as he grew his career from early startup involvement in data provision and loyalty coalitions to becoming a seasoned loyalty expert and consultant. Steve shares his invaluable lessons from adversity and how his consulting practice positioned him for his executive role of strategic advisor and business development partner to his many club stakeholders in Canada with the Canadian Automobile Association.
Greetings. I am Dorothy Dowling, a principal at the EI Advisors. We are a non profit organization dedicated to personal empowerment. I am truly delighted today to welcome Steve Allman, who is the Executive Vice President, Strategy and Partnerships with the Canadian Automobile Association to our show. Steve, it is an honor to have you with us today.
Steve Allmen:Dorothy, it's my pleasure.
Dorothy Dowling:Thank you. Let's get to it. Steve, I'm hoping you will share your career journey with us. You have held so many roles in your journey as a loyalty business leader and advisor in terms of a lot of the business and partnership development that you've done over the years and now leading strategy for the Canadian Automobile Association. I'm hoping you can share your development path and how this has made you into the very successful executive that you are today.
Steve Allmen:Yeah, I never like talking about myself, but I'm happy to share the journey because I use it as a little bit of a teaching moment for my Children, but also for people that have come through either working with me or for me. I actually I'm known as a loyalty expert. I'm actually a business development professional. That's really how I got my start. I'll be open and honest. My first job was selling industrial sewing thread. In the Canadian clothing manufacturing business, not many people know that because I actually don't put it on my resume anymore, but that's how I got my start. I realized I was not very good at selling a product, but I actually began to learn quickly about the power of data, the power of solution selling. I was actually formally trained at Dun and Bradstreet in the late. 80s. And then from there found my way into the data world and understood a little bit about it. It was a checkered start. I won't say it was smooth. I won't say it was off like a rocket ship. There were a lot of bumps and missteps along the way. But I joined a great company in 1993 called CompuSearch, which today is Environics Analytics. And I learned about consumer marketing and loyalty marketing. And database and geodemography and from there, really started to understand a little bit about what I like to do. And what I realized I was a storyteller more than anything else. I was a storyteller about the interesting world of data. Micro marketing in the 90s was still early days of computers. We were starting to use technology, starting to use digital a little bit. And I learned a lot about. The financial services sector, my banks for my main clients. I learned a lot about data in retail, mapping in retail. So I got this mixed bag of learning about myself, but also learning about the industry. I also learned a very important lesson at that time, which I still carry forward today, which is the power of relationships. The relationships that I built with my team with my bosses, but also with my clients carried me forward. 1 of my 1st bosses actually ended up hiring me at air miles. You work your way through and you learn not. Everybody's going to like you. Not. Everybody's going to want to work for you or with you, but if you manage yourself along the way, it does make the journey a little bit easier. And it was really the entry point to me into loyalty. I left CompuSearch and joined AirMiles in the late nineties. So AirMiles in the late nineties, for those of you in the Canadian marketplace would know that, but internationally was one of the first coalition loyalty programs in the world and in 1998 was really riding high. Had built some new models, some very large partnerships and was that sort of the peak of its business? I came in actually in business to business loyalty, which was a relatively new sector, even within air mile. So I learned a little bit more about that side, but I fell in love with loyalty and there's no other way to describe it. I truly fell in love with loyalty. It was only there for a short time. And I think later on, we'll talk a little bit about journeys and I'll share that journey with you. And then I joined. Interesting enough, I became streaming media. So what you have to think about this is streaming media in 2000. It was, there was no Netflix, there was no Spotify, there was no Disney channel. This was streaming media radio, but again, I was selling marketing and marketing services. So it was really interesting to figure out, where that industry was going to go, but it was way too early. Just way too early. From there, I went back to my roots. I actually went back to Hudson's Bay company and I had worked for HBC when I was 18 years old and one of the greatest joys of my life was actually meeting a wonderful president of a hospitality firm named Dorothy Dowling. You were one of my first partners at Hudson's Bay for a venerable old loyalty We were shifting and we were looking at new ways to do it. Doing work with you was a, it was a great honor at the time. But again, it's all about relationships. You and I have known each other now. A long time, I won't say quite how long, but over 20 years and a number of people that I either worked with that HBC, including my former boss. Some of my direct reports are still part of my world today. So it's a theme for me. About the relationship part uh, and after that, I ended up with aeroplan. So I went coalition loyalty, retail loyalty. Then I'm frequent fire loyalty. And again, if you're going to be anywhere in Canada and frequent fire, aeroplan was a great place to be. Lots of change. Lots of machinations in the business. Lots of evolution. And some great people to work with. Some phenomenal legacy folks at Aeroplan, a lot of new thinkers and a lot of new blood. And again, had an opportunity to reconnect with Dorothy as you were now still in the hospitality world. But again, constant relationships for me were very core. And then I left Aeroplan in 2015 or 2014, sorry, and started my own consulting business. I thought I'm tired of working for others. I'm going to give this entrepreneur thing a shot. So I was very blessed to have a great business partner, Joanna Walker. We created a company called loyalty and co, and really our business was we were consultants to the stars. We were consultants to some of the biggest loyalty programs and retailers and organizations in Canada. We had a number of us clients and we had a number of clients in Europe. And our basic premise was taking everything that I had learned working for big corporations, big loyalty. All the way along and translating it into how can I help you grow your business? And again, very much relationship. Our business was almost 100 percent referral, and that's probably one of the proudest things that I have in my career is that the referral network that we carried through from working at air models or aeroplane or Hudson's bay or whatever. Those people are still there and saying, how can you help me? How can you help me grow my business? One of my first clients was CIA and I joined, they joined me as a client really as a loyalty whisperer. Jeff Walker, who is CEO of one of our clubs retained me to, or us loyalty and co to help them think about loyalty a little bit differently to talk the journey. And again, I go back to me being a storyteller. I'd love being up on stage. I love talking, I love sharing, and that's what I say. Hey, and over the years. Consulting with I got a little bit deeper into the business, a little bit deeper into the business. And in September of last year I'm still an advisor for loyalty and co, but I decided to join on a full time basis. And now I have a great team that I'm working with in Canada. Great colleagues across Canada our AAA partners in the United States, our FIA partners globally. So it's really the culmination of kind of everything that I've done, uh, to get to this point. And it's probably the happiest I've been in a career in a very long time. Other than probably when I was my own consultant with Joanna, because we had a great business, but from a corporation standpoint or working for a company, I'm in a really good place right now. And I'm very happy. And that's my journey.
Dorothy Dowling:Thank you for sharing that, Stephen. I love the thread of the relationships that you said have really powered your career in remarkable ways. I, I would also say that you've been very transformative in terms of all of the roles that you had because I was in the early days of my career. CompuServe was a very important part. Every project that we did because it, it provided a lot of foundational market analysis. It was, again, a blazing trailblazing kind of business in terms of being able to provide a lot of that geolocation market assessment data. And then I think about every step of your career because air miles, the coalition industry, of course, they powered that whole concept of coalition marketing. new levels. And then club said, of course, sellers was such an important part of the Canadian marketplace and that story on the retail side. So every place you were was at the beginning of a lot of that business development and really value creation for customers. So thank you for sharing that because obviously you're one of those startup. that can really take a new business and really add a lot of value to it. So thank you for sharing
Steve Allmen:that. Yeah it's, you triggered me on one thing, Dorothy and it's part of my career has been, I've been in startups within existing businesses. And that's maybe what got me excited a little bit about setting up my own business. We very much. Didn't sit back and say that's the way it's been for the last 30 years. So we're not going to change anything. And that's part of what we're dealing with at CAA today. It's 110 year old business that's evolving. So yeah, I, maybe that's probably the thread in my business as much as anything else. I didn't even realize it.
Dorothy Dowling:I, certainly I had a long time in Canada before I moved to the U S so just. Having you share that trajectory of your career to me very impressive organizations that you're a part of. And when you're part of actually building that at the initial stage, there's an awful lot of listening, learning from your customers and continue to evolve the product. It it helps me understand a lot of your success. So thank you. Thank you. I'm wondering as you evolved your journey in terms of some of the decisions you made on your career, if you had any kind of personal mantra that drove some of that decisioning.
Steve Allmen:It's a hard question because, and it's a conversation I've had with my children and with people that have worked for me. I think one of the things is don't take it too personally. You can put passion and personality into it. Decisions are made by businesses that sometimes aren't about you or sometimes about other things. So listen, I've been reorg'd out of companies. It's not an easy conversation. I reorg'd people out of my companies. Again, it's not an easy discussion. The good news about it. Every time it happened to me, that's happened three times. I've been a better person for it. Something positive has come out of it. It's how you react to it. Don't get angry. Don't say I'm gonna make you pay. Just deal with it. Look, reevaluate, reflect. Think about what you need to do. I think the other part is sometimes you have to take the emotion out of it when you're making business decisions. I made a decision to leave a company once on emotion, not on on conscious thought and it was a bad decision. Long term, it probably helped me a little bit, but at the time at a young family, my wife and I had talked about it. She thought it was the right thing. I thought it was the right thing. I probably should have taken a deep breath and waited a little bit, but I thought the grass was greener on the other side. So a little bit of that emotional quotient that you need to be thinking about why me. It's not me. It's the business. Or what do I need to do in order to be successful? And again, even coming out of the consulting business and going back into a company is an emotional decision that I had to make long term with lots of conversations with Joanna and still conversations to this day. So I think that emotional part is really core. To how you're thinking about your business.
Dorothy Dowling:I think that wisdom of objectivity and trying to put yourself in other people's shoes as some of those changes that, that is part of, I think the learning journey that we are all on. And I do appreciate you sharing some of that, hard lessons that you had through some of that emotional reactive. eXperience that we've all lived through, but it is about learning from it, growing from it and then saying, okay. How will I approach this differently as I approach that next opportunity? So I'm just wondering if we can talk a little bit about mentorship and career champions. I know you've been a mentor and champion of many. I'm wondering if there's anyone in your life that was important in shaping your career journey.
Steve Allmen:It's a little bit hokey but I'd actually say probably as much my mother. As anybody else. My mom was not a business person. My mom was a social worker. So my father was a high school teacher. My mother was a social worker, very much involved in giving back very much involved. And she was a leading authority on immigration and refugee issues in Canada https: otter. ai World and always had belief in me and always had a bit of you can get it done and like a very close first, if not second is my wife because again, she always believed in me. She always supported me. She let me do what I needed to do to be successful. I think the challenge with work mentors is there's not one. There's a little bit of a lot There's a little bit of a lot. There was, when I think back to my first sales manager, Bernie Abrams, tough as nails, didn't teach me a darn thing, never taught me anything, but taught me nobody's going to be there to help you, you got to do it on your own to think about some of the folks that we had at Dun Bradstreet, Jan Kessel at CompuSearch was a phenomenal and still is a phenomenal leader and allowed me to do some things that. I could do differently and allowed me to become myself. So I've had snippets of people along the way. But I can't say that there's one person that was my North star from a work standpoint on the flip side. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. On the flip side, I think I've also tried to be that mentor for people and help as much as I could. But not one individual.
Dorothy Dowling:But I, I think that's a very interesting synopsis of your career. See, because I think that's true of many that there's a learning journey that we're all on and different people impact that for us, some good, some that we learn and say, that's not going to be how I want to approach some of these things in our lives. But I do think of understanding that it is trying to take that goodness from many and I also do think that, parents and our partners are really important in terms of. shaping our journey and being there with us in terms of some of the good and bad that comes along the way and keeping us enough grounded. Some of the advice that we need to hear that may not be as easy for us to accept, they can tell us the truth. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah. My pleasure. I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about adversity because, as you talked about change and the learning that comes through that adversity is also a big teacher to all of us. Is there any lessons that you have learned through adverse situations that have propelled your career?
Steve Allmen:Yeah, I think, when I think back to some of the transformative times that I was in including particularly, I would say the last year and a half in my journey with AMIA, which was actually the parent company for Aeroplan. I've been very proud of the business that we had built and I was proud of what I had done there. I saw some winds of change and I made some decisions internally that brought me out of the core business and put me into another area. And I realized that I had, again, probably been put into a situation that was not, a way of success for me. It backed me into a bit of a corner. And I dealt with it the best that I could and probably made me a stronger person. But I also suffered quite a bit of stress. There was a lot of mental tension. I think is the only way to describe it. Again, there was a lot of emotional support for me with my family. But I think that was a very hard time for me. But what I also realized at that time was it got me thinking about what I wanted to do next. So I was never one to sit back and just say, I'm just going to wait. And when the time comes, I'll deal with it. I always thought through a little bit of a chess game, if you like, trying to figure out what the next move was. So I actually started building my ideas around a consulting business during that time. So instead of just saying, Oh, woe is me and everything is terrible. I'm not going to succeed. I said, I'm going to use this as a learning experience. And I actually started to talk to Joanna and start to frame out a little bit about what I thought the consulting business could be and how I could leverage the negatives that I was feeling into a positive. So again, it's life's journeys. You learn your way along the way. You fight your way along the way. But I realized there was nobody in Amy that was going to protect me. There was nobody in Amy that really had. Me and in their corner and I didn't have them in my corner, so it was a little bit of a balance, but it was a very uncomfortable time. A very uncomfortable time. And listen, I'm still friends with people that I worked with, but again, I'm disappointed with the way it ended. But I'm very happy to see where the business has progressed. So from and from my standpoint, I think I survived. Okay,
Dorothy Dowling:I think that analogy of a chess board is a good one for thinking about one's career because chess is a game of it's a very thoughtful game. It does require you to anticipate. Different moves and assess where you're going to win and lose on that board. So I do think that's a very thoughtful way to think about your career and it's a thread, Steve, for me about intentionality, because I do think what you're speaking about is controlling your own destiny and making plans for your own future, learning as you go, but certainly not waiting for things to happen to be part of that change to make your life. positive and and rewarding for you personally. So congratulations, because I think that is also a big statement about you and how you have navigated your career.
Steve Allmen:Life is short and life is fickle, Dorothy. So you gotta, and the only one who's going to look after you is you and you got to build the right sort of infrastructure around you, protect the king, protect the queen, whatever you want to think about, but life is very short. And you gotta take everything in stride.
Dorothy Dowling:Yeah. I do think that's a very Thoughtful way to frame up sort of the way we think about our lives and our career management. So thank you. I know you were on the forefront of change and in pretty much every role that you've had through your career and addressing change. I know you talked about it's embracing it and taking advantage of the learning that comes through that, but I'm just wondering if there's anything else in terms of some of that significant change management as you evolved. Through your career, if you might be able to share with our audience.
Steve Allmen:Yeah, I think there's a couple parts and I'm going to use my current role as probably a great example. I came into a, into a team that had, was quite established, had some processes and some ideas that were developed and we're developing still. But there seemed to be, and part of the reason why I joined CAA full time, I had a sense that there needed to be a shift in mentality, a shift in approach. We work very closely with our CAA clubs across the country, so lots of personalities. Lots of, incredibly smart people running their own businesses. And so we basically need to, needed to shift from being, a driven sales team to a consultative support team. And that, that takes a bit of a, of an adjustment. It also meant that there was a lot of relationship building that I needed to do both with the senior leaders across the country, but I also needed to empower my team. My team had felt a little bit Not really in control of their own destiny. And so I've got a great team that works for me. I've really made sure that they understand how we want to design the business and how we want to frame the business is as much their leadership as my leadership. And if I let them do that. They're starting to blossom. I can already see it in the world. They're starting to take over. What might seem mundane to some people is actually a great challenge for them. What might seem, atypical for our business is actually something that they say, if we did it this way, could it work? So for me, it's very much about listening. And if you ask my team today I'm very much, it's not just my decision. If you're waiting for me to make all the decisions, it's going to be a long wait. If you're going to do some of the decisions yourself, come to me with a solution. Don't come to me with a problem and expect me to solve your problem. So it's been really fascinating for me. And I came into a management team that was quite well established too. And we've shifted a little bit of. That approach, so I think, change management is never easy. Sometimes there's some pain along the way, but you have to realize that change is good. And if you embrace it, and if you guide it, but you also have to realize. Things get in the way. COVID who would have predicted COVID and what it meant to us as leaders and how we now need to work in a very remote, my team's all over Canada. I don't literally go into the office other than maybe once a month. So we've really adapted and shockingly adapted quickly. But I think you just have to understand things happen in this world. You just can't control it sometimes and you just got to deal with it, but make sure that you've got the right team. And if somebody is not the right fit for that team. Don't force them into another role. Find out what they're good at. And maybe it's not on that team. And that's where tough decisions have to be made.
Dorothy Dowling:I think that's great advice. And I think just that overarching thought of change is good and embracing it in that way. Steve's just allows people to see it in a positive light and hopefully then, the ideas from that will really be something that will continue to grow and and develop energy around some of that positivity. I also love the analogy that you made, because I do think CAA and AAA are, Really interesting governance. Because it's a federation where as you aptly identified, they are a lot of very successful individual businesses that are part of the federation, but they're also a go to market strategy on a broader platform that requires some degree of collaboration and consistency. Exactly. Of that approach. So it does require an ability to be a consultant and an advocate in working with all of those individuals because you have to respect who their stakeholders are and help them be successful within their own constituency, but then also connect the dots across the many. So I'm sure you're Consulting expertise is something that is highly valued by the network.
Steve Allmen:Yeah. I'm sometimes thinking of myself as a consultant, sometimes as a therapist, sometimes as a coach sometimes as a get things done. It depends on the day. Depends on the individual. We've got great people, great partners. And it's really an interesting business because we put the member first. We're not about profit and I'd come out of some very successful profit driven organizations. Not CA is not about profit. It is about member value. So it's a little bit of a mind shift and maybe that's why I'm as happy as I am. Cause it's not just about profitability.
Dorothy Dowling:And you're on a journey of transformation again. So it's a pretty exciting place to
Steve Allmen:be. Not a bad thing to be doing at the. I don't think it's the tail end of my career, but I've got many years left, but it's been an interesting, it's been a fascinating journey. I've reflected on it quite a bit over the last year. And maybe I'll write a book one day. I don't know.
Dorothy Dowling:We'll see. I am sure that would be something that many would love to read. Work life balance is another area that we ask many of our DEI advisors because generally people that are working in more senior roles, there's a lot of demands associated with that in terms of travel and evening and weekend kinds of commitments. I'm wondering what strategies you have used over the years to manage some of that balance. I know you've got a. A family and your parenting role is important to you. I know that you were a hockey coach and you just continued your role and being a player. How did you find all the time to be able to invest across all of those different things?
Steve Allmen:I think the number one answer to that is Heidi and that's my wife. We made a decision early in our careers that when we had, we have three children. And they're all very successful ones in medical profession. One works at air miles. Interestingly enough, my middle and my youngest is a teacher. We made a decision very early in our life. It's not the right decision for every family, but we made the decision that Heidi was going to take a step back from her career and focus on the kids, which allowed me to grow my career. I think the other. Part of the decision is we were cottage owners. We have a summer full time home now, but a summer home North of Toronto. And we are very focused on family, the cottage and life hockey coaching was huge. I was a baseball coach. I was a hockey coach. I did everything I could to do whatever I could to get back. And for me, it was always just finding that right balance and being very direct with my company saying, I need time, I need a little bit of time with my family. I always made it. A point of being home for dinner. I always made a point of, being there for the plays and for the kids and everything else. I hope my children would confirm that's worked well. They're very well grounded kids and they're all doing well in their careers. The other work life balance, again, part of the impact of COVID is working remote. When I started consulting, I could work remote. I can work from anywhere in the world. We sold our home in Toronto. We moved north of the city. We live in a fairly remote area with just why the lakes behind me, but we made a decision that it was the right thing for us because we could enjoy. Time with our pet and with our country air and all the other good things that go along with it. So you have to make sacrifices and you have to find the right organizations that will allow you to make that sacrifice. And so again, I'm blessed with CIA because they let me work here. They haven't required me to move to Ottawa. And again, it's just finding that right approach and making sure you got the people around you that are going to support you. So it's a lot of different parts. It's not one thing.
Dorothy Dowling:I do think there's some very interesting thoughts there, because one is about making sure you fit with the organization and. that they are going to be committed to you in terms of your needs. I think that other part of self advocacy though, Steve, and making sure that you are committing and also asking your employer for a commitment to support you in terms of some of the things that you do outside of work. Because of course, all the research tells us that morale, more well rounded individuals. Make much better employees because they bring a broader and healthier perspective to the workplace. So I think that's really good advice. And I do think younger generations are much better at advocating in terms of their overall wellness and What's important in their life, not just their work. But I do think those thoughts about finding the right organization and making sure you advocate for what you need is important.
Steve Allmen:Yeah, I don't, it's a bit of a cliche, but not that I'm planning for the, that far in the future, but I never wanted my children to say, my dad did well in his life, but we never saw him. They saw a lot of me. They saw an awful lot of me. And I think it's, and again, that's part of the legacy of my parents being both public servants. They had time and they, there was a lot of trips and vacations, but also education. My dad was an educator. Everything needed to have some kind of lesson in it. Didn't matter what it was. Something needed to be a lesson. I'm sure they'd
Dorothy Dowling:be very proud of you, Steve, in terms of the way you carried that forward. I hope so. I hope so. In your journey on loyalty, cause of course that's something I'm very passionate about myself because it's again taking a new importance in terms of what is happening more broadly with artificial intelligence and the importance of data and how all of these pieces are coming down in terms of personalization, how we're speaking to customers in different ways. So you've always been on the forefront of that with all of the different businesses that you have worked through your career. And I'm just wondering, how do you continue to stay on top of that with your game? Are there books, conferences, associations, newsletters? How do you stay informed?
Steve Allmen:So LinkedIn was my friend when it first launched because it allowed for great Sharing. I think LinkedIn's taken a little bit of a turn. It's becoming a little too Facebooky for me right now. There's a great community of individuals globally. And I've been part of organizations. There was a customer strategy network, which was a group of individuals like me that were independent proprietors of loyalty. I've worked with some incredible leaders. At companies, I'm still great friends with, thought leaders and loyalty a gentleman named Jan Peter Lips, who is the managing director of Nectar, Brian Sinclair, who's just down a couple lakes from me, who was I actually replaced at air miles and 20 plus years later, we're still great friends. The mentors of. Loyalty. There's an incredible gentleman out of Australia. Philip Shelper looks very much like me, funny enough, who has written a great book on loyalty. So I read loyalty. I am a consumer of loyalty. So I belong to about 40 different loyalty programs. I get very animated about it. I get very personal about it, but I also get very frustrated with it when it doesn't work. So I'm not afraid or shy to share my opinions. I do think that there could be me. Far more knowledge about loyalty. Because it's not just about rewards programs. It's about a philosophy. It's about a philosophy of, consumer value, treating data with respect, AI and chat and all this stuff scares me a little bit, but also I think it can transform how we communicate with our members. So I think there's a bunch of things, but I try to read as much as I can. I try to watch, I try to do, I've done some podcasts. There's some great podcasts out there on loyalty. So to me, it's a little bit of a. Of a vacuum cleaner, you just got to put it all in your brain, find some time to do it and talk with people. Dorothy, you and I have talked enough in the past out of the hospitality world and sharing ideas. People love to talk and love to share. But don't just take from them, actually give back. So I think a little bit of is sharing my ideas on loyalty, too. And again, they say I'm a loyalty expert. I was very lucky to be in the loyalty business. I'm really a customer relationship guy who got into the loyalty sector. So there's a lot more brighter people in loyalty than me. I just love what I do.
Dorothy Dowling:I think there's some really valid learnings that you've offered this day, because I do think people that are in that business development world are. Extraordinary good listeners because you do have to bring a solution to your customer. So the learning you gain through others is powerful. You also talked about formal investments in terms of peer networking reading and podcasts, all of those kinds of things that we do. But I also think that the other piece that I heard from you that I think is particularly relevant is actually engaging and being a consumer in all of these things. Cause I've always believed that's marketing one on one, that you have to go on that customer journey yourself and see it and hopefully be able to put the lens of the customer on as you go through that journey. Because there is an awful lot of learning as a user that we bring in terms of being able to impart knowledge to others. So thank you for that because I think there's some really valuable lessons for us all to take from you on those ideas that you shared.
Steve Allmen:Yeah. And I think the only other thing I'd say, Dorothy, and this is the case for every industry. I don't care what industry you're in. It's be your customer. So if you're, you were in the hospitality industry if you build a hotel just for you, it's going to be very Dorothy, but that may not be. What every customer wants when you're building a loyalty program or a rewards program or any kind of customer engagement program, be your customer. Think about how they interact with you, how they develop, how they grow. You'll build a better program. If you just build it like you, there's going to be some very specific things in the loyalty program that somebody in Saskatchewan may not care about, or somebody in Florida may not care about, you really got to be, thinking about the broader base. I think that's just. Again, a little bit of lessons. Every industry is the same.
Dorothy Dowling:No, that's very true. And I do think the power of the data that comes through loyalty so that you can actually see user behavior. We have lots of guest satisfaction or customer satisfaction metrics. All of that together empowers us to be better informed and hopefully bring better value to our customers. So
Steve Allmen:If only the hotels could know that I don't like being near the elevator and I'd like to be on a higher roof, then I'd be happy, but that's coming, so
Dorothy Dowling:It certainly is. I think some of the hotel programs are asking that question and trying to put it into the customer profile. We always ask each one of our DEI advisors as we close out the interview Steve, just in terms of lessons learned, if you went back and we're thinking about your younger self. Are, is there any particular lessons that you would like to offer to yourself that others may take from this journey that you have been on?
Steve Allmen:Yeah, there's three and I live by these all the time. Number one is do better in school. I'm a very smart person. I was never that driven in school and I was never as academic as I should have been. So if you do better in school, you'll open up more doors for yourselves. The second one I've talked a little bit about is take some of the emotion out of it. And recognize that, don't take everything so personally. And I think the third one and probably the most important one is whatever journey you're on is the journey you're on. And the only one who can change that journey is you. There's nobody else who's going to change that journey. That's all about you. The decisions that you make. Yes, you get input from your partner or your parents or your, sometimes your kids want to impart their intelligence on you. But Every decision that you make in every part of your journey, it's the way it is. That's who you are. That's what you became. That's the way you're going to live your life. Be proud of it. But also realize that journey doesn't end at 62 or 63 23, whatever. Every step is a little bit different. So that's probably the one for me. And that's the one I build my, with my kids, every step along the way, you're going to change. And there's lots of stories about very successful people who at 50 found their way or 60 found their way or whatever else could be. So my journey is not over yet. It's just beginning. But every bit is a little bit like a Lego building block. You're building it up. And there's no picture on the front of the box that says this is what it's going to look like. You're just given all the pieces. Now you've got to go build it. So the way you go.
Dorothy Dowling:I think that element of owning the journey yourself and being accountable and that thread of learning in terms of the formal learning, but also that continuous journey. Of learning as you go through your career, whether it's your emotional intelligence that you're honing or some of the formal learning that makes you a better and more successful leader. But thank you, Steve for being so open and honest and sharing that journey with us. And if I may also thank our audience here as we think about DEI advisors. We have a very rich website, DEI advisors. org. So if you've enjoyed this interview with Steve, I hope you'll come to our website. There are many other DEI advisors that I hope will empower your leadership journey, just as Steve has done for us today. So Steve, thank you for making time for us and offering so much wisdom to our audience. Appreciate it. My
Steve Allmen:pleasure, Dorothy. Any anytime. Always happy
Dorothy Dowling:to. Thank you.