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I work for a small motel that is underperforming and suffering financially; it has a deficit of approximately 16% of the revenue generated.

There is only one staff member present at the reception area at a time, 16 hours a day, and there is an apartment with a door to the reception area.

I would like to suggest to the corporation that owns the motel that they let go the 3 M-Th staff and have me live in the apartment, work on call from there, and make commission only. There would be two part times working hourly F-Su.

This would produce a cost savings big enough to remove the deficit on years with crappy sales and open the door for the first profitable years in quite some time plus create an opportunity for me to get paid based on how much I actually benefit the company via taking over marketing and business-to-business networking (the first has been all but abandoned since I started years ago and the second has only been done when engaged by other businesses- there is no outreach.)

What can I do to be more likely to succeed in making a convincing proposal that includes some big changes? I want to illustrate the benefits and the risks.

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    What is your actual position in this company? Do you have any managerial pull/push at all? – Zibbobz Jun 19 '15 at 17:48
  • @Zibbobz I am the Information Security Officer and had looked into buying it before (I worked as a desk clerk before my current position so I figured I'd run it myself.) I am able to get things done when I can show that it's in the best interest of the business, part of being a regulatory compliance guy- they are used to having no choice heh. – Hamhot Ptonel Jun 19 '15 at 18:17
  • @JoeStrazzere - I think you're also remembering the Q where the OP wanted to use a pager or cell phone to cover the front desk while elsewhere on the property doing other duties. – mkennedy Jun 19 '15 at 22:50
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The key would be generating a business case. State the problem that you are attempting to solve is running a deficet, show how much they will lose over 10 years if trends continue.

Figure out how much staffing is costing them as a fixed cost under the present system vs how much staffing will cost them as a variable cost under the proposed system (using the past several years as examples). Show them test cases of how things would work out in their favor in bad years and good years.

I don't know how to make a business case for the marketing side of things as results of these activities are less predictable than staffing costs. Maybe try looking for case studies on the effectiveness of B2B marketing.

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    As part of many of these kinds of business cases, a lot of probability and statistics (as well as research and information gathering) is needed to be able to adequately forecast and construct all sorts of scenarios based on how successful (or not) your B2B marketing plan would be across an adequate time horizon. This is actually the material that you learn in business school or when getting an MBA. – panoptical Jun 19 '15 at 19:58

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