hotel sales super star - by fariaz morshed chowdhury

7/31/2019 Hotel Sales Super Star - By Fariaz Morshed Chowdhury

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Hotel SalesSuper Star

Fariaz Morshed Chowdhury


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Hotel Sales Super Star


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Habits of Highly Successful

Hotel Sales People

Why do so many hotel sales people fail or fail to live up to expectations? You know how it goes

a bright person interviews for the job, has a great smile, been successful in other sales

positions (always ask for numbers dont take their word for it) and at the end of ninety dayshasnt produced very much.

What is the tipping point that thing or series of things thing that makes one person successful

and another less so? When both individuals have been trained in the same manner and have

the same skill sets, why does one sales person excel and another languish in mediocrity? Whatmakes the difference between average and awesome?

There are sales people who come to the industry with no previous experience in hotels and are

highly successful outperforming their colleagues who may have been in hotel sales for many

years. Usually but not always these are people who have come from commission sales of some

sort. It is not necessarily the fact that other industries have better training programs (althoughmany industries do a better and far more consistent job than much of the hotel industry), it is not

just the sense of urgency that comes with having to create an income every month, it also has

to do with the habits that they must develop in order to successfully pay the mortgage and

eat.

This is not about being organized; I would rather have a top producer with a messy desk who is

prioritized. This is not about time management, although that does play a part it is about

habits, daily disciplines that produce success. Like taking a shower, brushing your teeth,

exercising, it is the habits that one forms about meeting goals, making calls, etc that distinguishes

them from the others. I have known sales people who were not the typical hot shots succeedbecause they worked their plan every day without fail.

What are these habits that make awesome instead of average?.

Daily Disciplines -- Eating the Elephant One Bite at a Time. Successful sales

people take their goals, revenue, prospecting, calls etc. and break them down

into monthly, weekly, daily activities. They have a good idea of their call to

closing ratio, that is, how many calls, telephone or e-contacts, they need to make

to close a contract. They know how many prospects they need to locate in a

day and a week to meet their prospecting goals. They practice daily disciplines

every day.

Prioritize Activities. Not all activities, calls, traces, etc, are createdequal. Prioritized sales people call on those prospects most likely to produce

revenue before they do the trace calls to say hello to existing accounts they

prioritize their calls. They will cancel the Chamber of Commerce lunch if a

prospective client wants to see them. They make time to prospect and pre-

approach qualify prospects on the Internet AND they do that in non-prime sales

time.


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Think Revenue not Just Rooms. The successful sales person pays attention to the

propertys revenue management strategy and understands that the name of the

game is revenue not rooms. The revenue management strategy informs their

prospecting activities. For example, in the SMERF market, the group of wine

enthusiasts is more likely to pay the rate than the local scrap bookers club.

Whales and Tunas. Successful sales people know that they need a mix of bothlarge and small groups and accounts to meet their revenue goals and to

balance out the group calendar. Some sales people only want to pursue the big

glamour accounts. The problem with that is it takes much longer to land them

than the smaller, less flashy, tunas. If the whale doesnt close within the timeframe

of the sales persons goals, the sales person may not be there when the whale

account eventually signs the contract.

Intra-preneurs. Successful sales people treat their market or their territory like a

business their business. They function as intraprenuers within the

organization. That makes them think creative and allows them to think out of the

box in addressing issues within the organizations on their clients behalf.

Personal (Brutally Honest) SWOT Analysis. Successful sales people evaluate their

strengths in order to leverage it in to more business and maybe even a better

position for themselvesdont forget the WIIFM factor! They are also honest about

the areas where they could use some training and/or support and actively ask for

it or seek out opportunities to get the training they need. They seek out

opportunities in their market area and never underestimate the potential threats

of competitors.

Sense of Urgency. Successful sales people have a sense of urgency about

working their plan because they know that if they fall too far behind it will be very

difficult to catch up. They stay late when they have to and ask to leave early

when they are caught up. Their sense of urgency is focused and directed not just

a sense of urgency about activity, any activity. They choose their associationmemberships and functions carefully so that they only participate in those likely to

be a source of business.

.

These are some of the habits that distinguish the awesome sales person from the average one

the super achiever from the ones that fail to meet expectations. There are sets of these habits

that accrue to every management position in the hotelthe daily disciplines that separate thegreat managers from the mediocre.


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"Smile" is a Learned Behavior -

Creating a Culture of

Customer Service

I always enjoy Rick Hendrie's articles on customer service. His recent article on "Smile, It Enhances

Your Face Value" is dead on. Unfortunately, it begs the question that many managers express to

me "How do I get them to smile?"

In two other articles. The Case for "Smile" Training and Generation Y: Training a New Generation

of Employees, I made the case for the "smile" and why it is important to transmit this to Gen Ys

(and all the other ones we deal with). It amazes me that the Gen Y article of four years ago is still

one of the most accessed on HotelOnline archives and it tells me that we, as an industry, havestill not addressed some customer service training issues.

It is mid-summer and the industry is experiencing record REVPAR increases driven by rate rather

than demand. The attempt by many hotels and hotel companies to install and implement

check-in kiosks indicates that they have given up on training employees to give great customer

service to travelers who, on average, are paying 9% more in rate than they were paying last

year.

What many hotel marketers and Revenue Managers miss is the value of the repeat customer

who is driven by customer service as well as by price. It is a matter of "the value proposition" --

reaching the right customer at the right price at the right time with the right product! Customer

service is a large component of that "value proposition" that attracts the "right customer" toreturn to the hotel.


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We would all like to think that we hire only those who have the right "attitude" but the reality is

that few of us have a labor pool so deep and so wide that we can hire only those with the right

"smile" attitude. For many of our potential employees, "smile" is a learned behavior. If the number

of body piercings is relatively small, we can train the behaviors that will impress the guest.

"Smile" is a learned and observable (read evaluate-able) behavior. When we learn how to train

employees in observable behaviors that we want to see exhibited to our guests, we can raisethe bar on our customer service standards. "Telling" them isn't good enough -- we need todemonstrate, model and measure the behavior that we expect.

Training managers to train their employees is the most cost-effective way of transmitting

customer service training in high turnover positions. The following are some principles that we usein this program:

Hire for Talent/Train for Skill. Talent is closely related to attitude. It is the ability of a

potential employee to exhibit the "image" and empathy that we want them to project to

our guests. If you were a guest, would you feel good about the person you are

interviewing as a representation of the service that you will experience in all aspects of

your stay?

Identify the Competencies/Skills. What do new employees need to know and how well

do they need to know it? Separate the hard skills from soft skills. Let them know the

metrics you will be using for evaluation.

Make the Expectations Clear. How many of you use a "skills training checklist" by

timeline? In other words, in 30 days we expect the following level of competency in these

skills, 60 days, 90 days, etc. It gives the employees a framework to measure their own skillacquisition. Put it in terms of observable and measurable competency.

Break Down Concepts into Observable Behaviors. What exactly do you mean when you

say "acknowledges the guest?" What behaviors does that concept entail? Hint -- the firstis "smile!" My favorite is "I want my employees to use common sense" -- what the heckdoes that mean to an eighteen year old?

It is not difficult or complicated when you apply "common sense!" (YIKES, did I say that!?) I think

you will find that common sense is a direct result of the experience that the manager has

acquired -- help your employees acquire that experience and you will find that they soon exhibit

"common sense."

Create a "Culture of Customer Service" in your department and your hotel and you will find that

you spend less time and money on acquiring new customers and employees because you willhave "repeat" customers begging to come back!


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Hotel Sales -- Innovation in the

Face of Limitations

The fact of the matter is that it is hard selling anything these days given the restrictions that applyto sales activities.

Someone forgot to tell the bureaucrats who endorsed the no-call lists, the restrictions on

unsolicited faxes and the current proposals to deal with spam that nothing in this country

happens until a sale is made. That's free enterprise, a free market economy.

While I don't like to be interrupted at my precious dinners at home by telephone solicitors, I do

have caller ID and simply don't answer the phone. I receive the occasional unsolicited fax but I

just throw it a way or delete it (my fax is an efax) and while my email inbox also fills with spam,there are a few that are of occasional interest (the Viagra ones are not for obvious reasons.)

However, I defend the right of free commerce to solicit business. These techniques must work or

no one would be using them. It is very difficult to be a sales person of any kind these days. The

noble profession of sales has been given a black eye and this rubs off on our hotel sales people.

One of whom told me that she didn't want to do her sales calls because she felt like "a solicitor."

The problem with this? How does anyone expect to produce new revenue unless you solicit it?

An article in the Denver Post on Monday, November 10 went into great detail about how

companies who have previously relied on telemarketing are changing strategies to more cost

intensive personal solicitation. I would rather have the option of ignoring a phone call than

facing an army of people ringing my doorbell during dinner. A personal email that I emailed to acolleague in an industry association ended up in her 'Spam' box --unnoticed for two weeks!

While the limitations on telephone calls are not restricted in a Business-to-Business environment,

the generally negative attitude toward sales people has permeated our target clients' mindsetsas well. They don't answer their phone; they allow it to go to voice mail. Hence, why "dialing for

dollars" no longer works in most markets. Try cold calling in a large office building in most major

markets today -- security will be on your tail in five minutes, if it takes them that long!

There were actually two articles I wanted to write this month based on two articles I read

recently. Bear with me because they are both related.

An article by Alan Webber, a founding editor of Fast Company, appeared in USA Today on

November 3, 2002 entitled Companies Repeat Mistake of Cutting Investment in Workers. "One of

the easiest ways to make your numbers look better is to cut back on 'non-essential' items.

Training and Development can be axed. (This includes) programs that give executives -- or

any workers -- new ideas, new techniques, new tactics and new approaches to winning in theworkplace. Once the tyranny of numbers sets in, almost any investment in people is an easy

target."

Alan Webber goes on to remind us that in the 1970's American industry was preoccupied with

the "numbers" or as he puts it, financial engineering. The Japanese weren't -- they invested in

their people and subsequently outperformed their US competitors in terms of quality and price.

The same "movie" is repeating itself and as he said and I qu ote, "it has an ugly ending." "The


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only way to produce sizable profits, to succeed against competition and to chalk up impressivegrowth is through constant innovation. And the only way to do that is by investing in employees."

Okay, how are these two issues related? The world of sales is changing rapidly and will continue

to do so. It is tougher and requires a paradigm shift in the way we conduct hotel sales. It is anexciting change for those who embrace it.

A hotel sales person asked the following question after a presentation to her company's annual

meeting. "With the role of technology so prevalent in our industry will we still need sales people?"

Absolutely!

What we need to do is re-define the relationships between sales and operations, especially

revenue management, sales and marketing, sales and reservations. It's not just the sales staff

that needs to rethink how they are going to solicit and how to use the new tech tools, it is the

entire revenue generating engine of the hotel that needs to make a paradigm shift in how we

do business effectively in relation to how our current and target clients have changed.

I can hear all of you thinking "here it comes -- the shameless pitch for training. "The fact of the

matter is that those of us who have enjoyed any success in this industry can attribute that tohaving been trained well, because someone invested in us, not because we are the brightest

light on the tree. I know hotel companies who spend more money training their front desk

associates than they do training their sales staff and have a very high turnover rate Not that the

front desk doesn't deserve training. For both groups and every employee in the hotel, there are

many more training options than existed even two years ago!

Hence, the relationship between the first article on the difficulties of sales and the second on

investing in people.

We have to embrace innovation and train for innovation in the way we conduct sales to deal

with the new challenges presented in the Denver Post article. Our love/hate relationship with

technology is forcing us, kicking and screaming, to re-think the benefits rather than the obstaclesto new ways of producing business.

There are no bullet points at the end of this article -- answers to these issues are not that easy.We need to reframe the questions first.

A business book I recommend is entitled "Its not the BIG that eat the SMALL -- it's the FAST that

eat the SLOW" By Jennings and Haughton. I think the title says it all.

Remember to give thanks for the sales people you have!


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Hotel Sales Training

The Need for Immediate Results

The current employment climate in the hotel industry has put severe limitations on the ability ofhotels to recruit and retain sales people with sales experience and/or a background in hotels. In

many cases, we are promoting from within, usually the front desk, or relying on intuition that

untried recruits are trainable. This situation is even more apparent in the limited to moderate

service sectors, that is, non-convention hotels reliant on their local markets to generate the

majority of their demand.

Compounding the situation in the limited and moderate service sectors are decreasing

occupancies in both the limited service and all suite sectors for 1999 (source: PKF, Revenue

Growth, hotel-online.com, May 2000). This makes an effective sales effort more critical at a time

when flat revenues limit the resources a property or management company has to retain

qualified sales and marketing professionals.

In the current climate, we are dealing with sales people often with no experience, whose

longevity with the property is relatively brief, often only nine to eighteen months. With little

training and a steep learning curve, it becomes the deep end of the pool training. That is, we

throw them into the deep end of the pool and wait on the side. If they float, we figure they will

make it. The other side of the coin is that with such a short average duration on the job, many

companies are reluctant to spend the dollars sending them to training. Is it any wonder that we

burn them out or lose them to another property with better salaries and benefits having given

them so few tools to work with?

With a high degree of turnover and a shortage of recruits, sales positions, both at the property

and corporate levels are left open for long periods of time. Any sales momentum is lost andclients have difficulty being serviced.

In addition, many experienced sales people were never taught the basic steps of the sales

process or how to completely penetrate their markets. Those whose experience has been in the

years between 1992-98, the boom years, were primarily managing the yield from increased

demand prior to the entry of new hotel product into their respective markets and may have little

experience in generating demand from market penetration and additional revenue fromexisting accounts.

Understanding what new sales people are looking for from an employment situation is crucial to

maximizing both longevity and training. Studies show that they are not there for the money

alone, and we all know that the salaries in the hotel sales field have not kept pace with the rest

of the marketplace. On the one hand, they want to feel part of a team that their input and

opinions are solicited and valued but on the other, they want to know whats in it for them, interms of rewards for performance and career potential. (Source: Generations at Work,

American Management Association) When an inexperienced recruit is left untrained, they

become frustrated and are easy prey for the competition or other industries.

As well, clients have become fickle and, with overbuilding in this sector, will switch to a new hotel

for a few dollars less in rate or a newer hotel product with additional amenities such as a two

room suite for the price of a room at a traditional property. They have also become cynical

about building relationships with sales people due to the turnover factor. The days are also


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gone when most companies can drive all of their business to one hotel. Their employees are

demanding more flexibility based on their preferences and frequent guest programs, when

location and rate are relatively similar. The traditional booker now exerts influence but can not

always guarantee the choices that an employee will make.

It is now more important than ever to spread the risk of losing revenue from several key

accounts to a total market penetration strategy that includes smaller companies which, if thecompanys fortunes change, will not take the hotels revenue base down with it. One need look

no further than the Seattle area when Boeing was downsizing and restructuring to see an

example of an entire markets dependency on one key account. Those hotels that had built abroad customer base fared better than those that didnt.

An examination of a hotels source of business report usually reveals that while a few accounts

can be identified that produce a large number of rooms, it is usually no more than 15 to 20% of a

hotels occupied rooms, the majority of the rest being frequent guest programs or unidentified

corporate and discount. The old 80/20 rule does not necessarily apply anymore. In a

corporate market, up to 80% of your business now comes from independents, employees of

larger companies that when location is equal will stay where their frequent guest points are and

contractors and consultants who will make their own decisions based on the same factors. Theindependent client is difficult to identify and woo but not impossible.

Reducing the learning curve and enabling sales people to generate revenue for the hotel in the

shortest period of time is the goal of effective training and should be conducted as soon as

possible following the recruitment of a new sales person. Whether training occurs in a seminar

setting or one-on-one, results should be tangible in terms of a sales persons immediate

effectiveness and quantifiable in terms of additional revenue generation within 60 days after it is

completed. It should include on-going reinforcement through the Internet (this is the dot.com

generation) or, if unavailable, more traditional methods such as conference calls and

availability to counsel via e-mail or telephone. A newsletter with concrete sales tools that sales

people can implement keeps the basic concepts fresh in their minds.

Those hotels and management companies that take training seriously can reduce turnover and

retain staff longer than the average. Recruitment and retention will continue to be a problem

for the foreseeable future, which is why training needs to be ongoing and constantly

reinforced. The General Managers need to be included in the process as often they are the

only ones on property to sell and have the responsibility of overseeing the sales effort every

day. Incentives for sales and GM based on property revenue keep everyone focused on thegoal.


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100% Market Share Penetrationis Not Good Enough

Hotels often brag that they are running 100% market share penetration. If a property ispositioned well in the market in terms of product and rate, 100% market share is what you get for

opening the front door and not chasing customers out the back door with poor service. Over

and above 100% is the result of an effective sales effort.

For example, a client said to me recently that the bad news was that one of his hotels was

$50,000 down for the month over the previous year but the good news was they were running

117% market share and 125% Yield index. In markets that are declining it is still possible to run well

above 100% Market Share so eliminate the excuse that declining market share is a function of a

bad market.

A simple definition of 100% Market Share is that if your hotel accounts for 20% of all available

rooms in a market and you received 20% of all occupied rooms in a given time period, youachieved your fair share of the occupied rooms or 100% of your fair market share. This appears

on your Smith Travel STR reports monthly. However, you who may not have access to that report

because you are in a small market that does not have enough properties reporting to Smith

Travel to constitute a statistically valid competitive set or because you are not franchised or

operate in a market with many independent, non-franchised hotels. In those situations, it is still

relatively easy to calculate market share if the other properties will share their occupancies or ifyour area has a lodging tax.

Defined this way, it should be easy to understand why I say that 100% Market Share should be

relatively easy to obtain. The other argument (excuse) that I often hear for maintaining less than

100% Market Share is that to do so would negatively impact the Yield Index or REVPAR Index. On

the contrary, the opportunity to manage the revenue in order to maximize the Yield Index

occurs when a hotel is running above 100% Market Share.

At less than 100% Market Share, it is difficult to pick and choose clients who fit your ideal client

profiles (you did develop those didnt you after reading last months article in this

publication?). The hotel is accepting the business that comes to it rather than developing

business that will be the most profitable for the property.

Going out and actively soliciting business is key to market share penetration. In any given

market there few, if any hotels, that have their sales people out on the street asking for the

business. The sales team will not totally know which clients fit their profiles without qualifying all of

the businesses or organizations within their market. It is just as important to understand who does

not have business for the property, as it is to know who does. A lot of time is wasted pursuing

clients that have no potential for the property. That is a result of poor qualification techniques.

Once you have identified a prospect that you think may have business for you, do your

homework. This is so much easier now with the resources available on the Internet. Log onto

what you think may be their web site address or do a search. This will give you valuable

information on the organization including the size, locations, mission statement or value

proposition as well as key contacts. In some cases, especially with associations, it will also give

you information on where they held their last meeting and annual conference. The locationand the hotel that was used will tell you if they are in your ball park.


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Going into an appointment prepared will impress your prospective client and give you some

insight into how to approach them. The following are some of the questions to ask during the

qualifying process:

Do you use hotels in the area? I know this sounds like a no-brainer but it amazes me how

many sales people go straight into their presentation only to be told that the contact

doesnt use hotels.

Who in the company (organization) makes decisions about hotel selection and

reservations? How much time is spent talking to someone who has no decision-making

authority?

Which properties do you currently use for your transient and/or group business and how

many rooms do you use over the course of a month or a year? This will tell you a lot

about their rate sensitivity, the amenities that are important to them and potential

volume.

Why do you use them and are you happy with the way they are serving you? This

question will give you insight into the hot buttons or buying factors that are key toclosing the account.

What rate range do you look for in selecting a hotel? You probably have a good idea

on the answer to this one from the above questions but it will tell you if they have a

negotiated rate at your competitors, that is, if you know your competitions rate

structure.

Are you familiar with my hotel? Many people in your local market may not have been to

you property recently or at all. Outside of your local market, a prospective client may

have heard of your property but the information they received my not be recent. You

may have renovated or made significant improvements since they last saw your

hotel. Dont assume that they know your product or your rate structure.

You may only have one chance to see this contact, make an impression and begin a

relationship that could lead to new business for your hotel.

The answers that you receive to the above questions will allow you tailor your property

presentation to the prospects hot buttons or the things that are important to them in making a

hotel selection. The key to a successful property presentation is to know your presentation so

well that you dont have to think about what you are going to say next and not to dwell onfeatures that are unimportant to them.

A wise man once said that a rising tide floats all boats. In most markets the tide is going out and

not rising. Those properties that dont mount a skilled and effective sales effort will findthemselves beached. Attaining market share over 100% is about rising above the tide.


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Forget the 24 Hour Holdits not happening!

Ok, now that business is starting to return to a normal level its also time for us to start returning to

normal in what we consider acceptable business. So the first thing that has to go is the concept

of 24 Hour Hold on function space.

I understand our clients perspective. They do not want to have to break down their events at

the end of each day. But seriously, how much material do they really want to leave in the room

overnight anyway? AV and Room setup is of no concern to our clients whatsoeverthat is what

we have AV and Setup guys for.

Displacement of evening catering revenue is the problem here. Sure, the conference during the

day may be worth tens of thousands of dollars in event revenue, but so is the banquet event for

another organization that could have been booked in that space for that evening had the

space not been on a 24 hour hold for the conference.

If our clients want the function space held for 24 hours then they need to be prepared to payroom rental that is equal to the displacement of a normal evening event.


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History is your only real indicator here of just how much banquet revenue you will be displacing,

and it is for this reason that the catering team should always be logging any turn down business

that they lose because of groups already in that room on a 24 hour hold.

So let this be a lesson to catering if you arent logging your turn downs, expect to continue to

turn down just as much business in the future because you cant change the future if you dont

know your history! If you arent logging your catering turn downs we have no way of knowing

what is being displaced by one of these ghastly 24 hour holds!

The lesson for sales here is this instead of selling your clients on space, sell them on service.

Understand that when they are asking you for a 24 hour hold on the space, its not because they

want that room for 24 hours its because they dont want the hassle of breaking down and re -

setting a room. Once you explain to them that their concern about the room teardown is not a

concern of theirs because it is a service that the hotel provides then they will be fine. Explain

that the Setup guys will break down the room AND set it back up for the next day exactly the

way it was left. Explain that AV will break down the AV AND set it back up for the next day

exactly the way it was left. Also explain that your Banquet Service team is on hand to pack

away any materials that the meeting planner had put out etc etc. This is all part of the service

and its the reason they are holding the event with a hotel and not a hall!

Naturally the above conversations could all turn out to be for nothing if catering doesnt book

any business in the room anyway but I for one dont want to be the sales manager that is

always preventing catering from selling!


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Measuring Effectiveness of

Hotel Sales Departments

Often management does not closely monitor sales effectiveness when things are goingreasonably well. Market share is respectable, REVPAR shows improvement over the previous

year, a perfunctory skim of the weekly sales reports reveals an acceptable level of activity, they

always appear to be busy going out on calls and doing site inspections. Life is good! Or is it?

When demand is high and the issue is one of managing the yield, sales departments can

become confused as to the goals (Do you want the business or not?) and management is

often less than clear on tying yield management goals to sales production goals and

incentives. Sales people, sensitive as they are, become discouraged by what they perceive as

mixed messages on rate versus occupancy.

Let me just say at the outset that what follows is not meant to impugn the integrity of sales

people. Sales people are my favorite people in the whole world next to Ops people who keepthe guest happy and count the beans that sales brings in. However, the fact of the matter is

that nobody does what nobody checks and employees only understand what is important to

management by the questions that are asked. It is only human nature not to care about a partof the job that management never monitors which is consequently perceived as unimportant.

There are three distinct areas that can assist management in measuring sales effectiveness;

1. Defining the areas to be evaluated;

2. Monitoring sales performance in relation to the above areas and3. Designing incentives to reflect Managements goals for the property.

Defining the areas of evaluation.

How do you set sales goals? Do you establish call quotas or revenue quotas based on

the success of top line room revenue in relation to budget and last year? The fatal flaw

with call quotas is that they are easy to fudge (not that anyone on your staff would ever

do that) and a lot of calls made without enthusiasm or with poor sales skills fulfills the

quota but does nothing for the propertys revenue.


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What reports are you requesting from your sales people? The reports that you request

communicate to them what is important to you. If you are asking for raw numbers of

calls without any information on who was called and why, you are not getting the whole

picture.

The next one is tricky but evaluating sales activity in relation to potential revenue is

critical to maximize productivity. For example, is too much time being spent ondeveloping low-rated contract or SMERF business when the denials reflect higher rated

demand is being lost? Have you targeted the market segments most likely to give you

business at the higher rate and restructured the departments market segments and timeallocations accordingly?

Monitoring areas of sales performance.

When a sales person comes victoriously into the office or calls to announce a great

piece of business that has been booked, do you ask how this lead was generated did

we develop it or was it an inquiry? One reflects skill, the other order taking.

Are you assessing the mix of calls? How many are calls to new prospects, how many areroutine traces, how many are outside calls? Of those that are traces, where in the salespipeline are they at the qualifying stage, negotiating the contract or closing?

Do you spot-check weekly reports? There is story about Curt Carlson, founder of Carlson

companies (if I need to mention Carlson Travel and Radisson, then go back to hotel 101),

that may be apocryphal but is a shrewd lesson for all managers to learn. It is said that

when he held meetings with his division heads, he asked them to bring their P&Ls on

overheads. He would then project them on a screen and pick several line items at

random on each sheet and inquire as to what that number represented. His logic was

that if a division head could explain everything that was in that number, they knew what

was in the rest of their P&L. Do you routinely pick items at random on the sales reports

and inquire as to how we got that prospect, what went on during that call and wherewe stand with that prospect?

Designing incentives to reflect Management goals.

Is your sales department responsible for total room revenue of the property including

transient and group? If not, they may overbook group blocks at the expense of transient

to fulfill their group goals.

Does your sales incentive program reflect your fluctuating seasonal goals, higher rates

when demand warrants and higher volume in the off seasons? I have clients, Patrick

Henderson, Vice President and Vicki Sare, GM at the Holiday Inn in Sheridan Wyoming

who were looking for a way to increase the group rate and lower group volume in thebusy summer season. Sales were booking a large volume of group business in summer at

significantly less than rack rate. An examination of the incentive program revealed that

the sales incentive plan was based on annualized group revenue and the demand for

group rooms was significantly higher in the summer than in the winter. Therefore, if the

sales department was going to make bonus they had to make hay while the sun shone

in the summer. By re-weighting the sales incentive program so that group rooms booked

for the summermonths account for a smaller percentage of their annual bonus with a


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much higher percentage for group business booked in the winter, they are able to re-direct their efforts and benefit both themselves and the propertys goals.

The urgency for measuring sales effectiveness when demand is high may seem to be misplaced

but is your hotel doing as well as it could be doing? Remember, a rising tide floats all boats and

when the tide begins to go out (winter is coming and so perhaps, are new hotels in your market),

it is those properties with sharp sales efforts and the methods for measuring that performancethat will thrive.

The competition for employees is intense with so many hospitality establishments trying to recruit

from the same labor pool. There is a limit to the hourly wages we can offer. Most establishments

offer wages in the same range so money is no longer a compelling issue for these

employees. They are a bit spoiled in that this is a generation has never known unemployment.

They also know that if this job isnt what they want, they can cross the street and find another

job. In this kind of environment it is a matter of whats in it for me. When the wage is equal, why

would an employee choose to work for you rather than someone else?

In my article, Generation Y: Motivating and Training a New Generation of Employees, it was

noted that the potential employees we are trying to recruit have motivations other than moneyfor working in a certain establishment. They have choices. Its a buyers market.

Hotel sales people are asked to formulate a brief value proposition with which to gain a

potential clients interest in the benefits of booking rooms in our hotels. (What you haventdone this!) This includes benefit statements tailored to the clients special requirements, not justfeatures, of the hotel.

For those of you who need a refresher on the difference between benefits and features, a

feature is an amenity such as the fitness room or pool; the benefit is how that will enhance the

experience of the guest. A classic example is the Michelin commercial with the baby in the

tire. What is Michelin selling? Not just the feature of the rubber tire but the safety and securitythat it offers the buyer, the benefit.

Micheline is not the least expensive tire on the market and your hotel probably doesnt offer t he

highest hourly wage. It is important to identify then why an employee would choose to work for

you and your hotel. While this may sound easy, it does in fact require some thought.

In my management seminars, I ask participants to compose a value proposition. Often the

responses are a description of health benefits, the company, 401ks (like anyone is there long

enough to for this to be compelling), comp rooms at other company hotels, etc. These are

features tell your prospective employee what you can do for them. This is about more than

the hotel; it has to do with you, your management style and the working environment that you

create.


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One of the best value propositions that I received was from a chief engineer. His value

proposition to prospective employees was In this department, we work hard to make the guest

comfortable. We also provide training and we support each other to get the job done. We

have a great group of people and manage to have a little fun each day. Short, sweet and to

the point. I would work for this manager if I had a clue how to use a screwdriver.

I challenge you to formulate your own value proposition. Think about the following:

1. What is your personal management mission statement? The chief engineers

mission was to make the guest comfortable.

2. Do you provide training so that the new employee has the tools to do the job

effectively as quickly as possible? Do you provide ongoing training opportunities

and reinforcement for all of your employees?

3. Do you model your behavior in such a way that it transmits to your employees

your standards of proficiency and good customer service?

4. Do you solicit, listen to and act upon suggestions and input from your

employees?

5. Do you make the workplace fun with opportunities to laugh and enjoy the

work with fellow employees?

6. Do you recognize and reward good performanceeven if it is only a pizza for

each shift to say thanks for a job well done?

An effective and honest value proposition can mean potential employees are eager to work for

you. If employees are happy working for you, they will tell their friends and soon you will havepotential employees calling you for an interview. How easy would that make your recruiting!


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How can you sell if you have no sales

people?

I want to try to avoid making this sound like a rant, but it just

seems so odd to me that hotels are still laying off sales staff due

to the bad economy. I know I am most likely preaching to the

choir here, but does it make sense to anyone else?

I have heard of so many hotels that have halved their sales

force in the past year. The justification has been that the hotel

was seeing half as many leads come in so therefore they

needed half as many in sales. This just seems so short-sighted,

and is based on assumption that all that sales people do is

respond to leads. In an economy like this the need for sales managers to be out on the road (or

the phone) prospecting is greater than ever.

By the way, when times were good it used to drive me crazy when I would hear hotel

management boast that their sales team were too busy responding to the truckload of

incoming leads to even think about prospecting. Why would you want to boast about that?

Sure thats all well and good if you are content with just the business that comes to you but I

know there is always better business out there if you prospect. These are the same hotels that

have since downsized their team to match the flow of incoming leads.

So if your sales team is too busy in any economy to prospect then they are clearly understaffed

as a sales force. So, not only is your hotel competing for a smaller number of leads, you are also

missing out on the golden opportunity to rebuild relationships that will position you for growth

when the tide does eventually turn. Meanwhile the sales team at your comp set is circling your

hotel like vultures!

Yes there are plenty of hotels out there that have NOT let go members of their sales team. Sure,

they will be the first to admit that very few of their Sales Managers are making bonus at the

moment. However those Sales Managers are pounding the pavement and working the phones

to build and rebuild stronger relationships than ever before. These are the hotels that will be

stealing away tones of business from other hotels once the economy improves.

So, which category does your hotel fall into? If you are one of those hotels that has retained

your sales team tell us about it go on, BRAG! Was it a struggle convincing ownership that you

needed to keep the entire sales team? What are your Sales Managers doing all dayare they

prospecting all day? What has been your approach to handling goals? Are you one of the

hotels that let go of a number of Sales Managers? If so, how are you handling this?
http://www.hotelsalessuperstar.com/nosalespeople.htmlhttp://www.hotelsalessuperstar.com/nosalespeople.htmlhttp://www.hotelsalessuperstar.com/nosalespeople.htmlhttp://www.hotelsalessuperstar.com/nosalespeople.htmlhttp://www.hotelsalessuperstar.com/nosalespeople.html


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Shut up and Listen!

Are you a talker? Chances are if you are in hotel sales and catering then you probably are.

Lets face it most of us in hotel sales are pretty outgoing gregarious individuals that love being

the center of attention. Is that a fair call? Those of you that know me know that I certainly fit thisdescription and I think its fair to say that most of you do too.

But is this trait a good one when it comes to sales? Certainly, being outgoing is a trait that we

look for in sales people, but we all probably have to learn to balance this trait with the art of

listening a little better.

Thats right listening. Did you hear me? I said listening!

I know, I know we have all heard this, at the most basic of sales manager training classes out

there. But how many of us truly listen ALL as much as we should?

There are the obvious examples of sales managers launching in to their standard sales pitch

about their hotel without stopping to ask their clients what is important to them first. So many of

us are so quick to start selling that we forget to hold back until the prospective client has finished

telling us what they actually want.

I overheard another sales manager talking on the phone the other day to a prospective client.

She was talking at length about the fabulous new bar that her hotel had just built out by the

pool. She was doing a wonderful job of conjuring up images of these wonderful cocktails out bythe pool in the Southern California sunshine. Just listening to her I had visions of Tom Cruise in

Kokomo making a Pina Colada with a big umbrella!


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Problem was that the meeting planner was representing a group of Southern Baptist Ministers

from Florida. Had she stopped to listen she would have realized that being Southern Baptists, this

group has absolutely no interest in drinking, and being from Florida the sunshine really is no great

novelty to them! All she needed to do was listen a little to this client before launching into her

sales pitch and she would have known not to bother with the pitch about the pool bar.

Ok, thats a pretty blatant example, but it makes my point. You probably have never made the

mistake of trying to sell cocktails in the California sunshine to a bunch of Florida Southern Baptists,

but I think its pretty safe to say that there have been times where you have not listened as well

as you could.

Its tougher than it sounds though. Its easy for us to say just stop and listen. But we are sales

peoplewe want to sell. So many times we are like racing cars at the Formula 1 and as soon as

we have a telephone inquiry we think we are seeing the green light to start speeding around

the raceway with our sales pitch. But the reality is that we need to put our foot on the brakes a

little more. Dont worry about the brake pads, they can be replaced! Sit there at the starting

block a little longer and listen to what your client has to tell you. When the client has finished

telling you everything and you have collected all the information you could possibly need, then

its time to start your engine!

Problem is that even when the client is talking, we arent listening, I mean REALLY listening. Be

honest here what is the first thing you do as soon as your prospective client has told you the

dates that they are looking at? Admit itmost of you are already looking at availability before

they have even finished that sentence! WHY? Because you are already moving in for the sale!

You have taken your foot off the brake way too early! How can you possibly be listening to all of

your clients needs when you are scrolling through your guestroom availability and your function

diary?!

So here is a tip: Next time you have a client inquiry over the telephone, turn OFF your computer

monitor. Free yourself from that distraction and pull out your notepad and start taking notes

about what your client is telling you about their group. Then (no, dont turn your monitor back

on yet!) ask them a bunch of questions. If you need to, prepare a list of standard questions to

ask them. Then, when you feel like you know as much information as you need about this client

you may turn your monitor back on and start your sales pitch while checking your availability.

I guarantee your sales pitch will be far more effective, and your client will feel rest assured that

they have a sales manager who gets them. This part is key!

So be content to let your competitors start speeding off without you remain in your starting

blocks a little longer while you listen. I guarantee your chances of seeing the checkered flag are

greatly enhanced when you shut up and listen!


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Sign on the dotted line pleaseRequiring a signature on a contract in order to

confirm a piece of group business is a well accepted

practice throughout the world. But when it comes toBanquet Event Orders and Group Resumes there is

quite a bit of disparity throughout our industry.

Here in the United States, most hotels require a client

signature on the Banquet Event Order in order to

confirm the menu choices, setup requirements, audio

visual specifications etc. But in some other parts of

the world it is pretty rare for a hotel to have the client

sign off on this document. I wonder why this is? To me it just makes perfect sense to have the

client sign off on the BEO to safeguard the hotel against potential issues later, or from last minute

changes.

But what about the Group Resume? This document goes by many different names depending

on what part of the world you operate in, but essentially this is the document that is distributed to

all operational departments to give them the details for the group. Typically the Group Resume

contains all the information that is not contained on the BEO ie. Not specific to any one single

event, but rather the group booking as a whole. This document is a very important one, so why

do so few hotels get this signed by the client?

I admit, when my previous Director of Sales told me that she wanted me to start getting client

signatures on all Group Resumes I was pretty skeptical (and resistant). But I actually grew to

really appreciate this approach for a couple of reasons.

Firstly (and this is probably why she really wanted the client signature), by presenting the group

resume to the client, I was forced to put more detail into the document. This meant asking morequestions, and keeping better notes. This resulted in a far more detailed resume going out to all

the departments.

Secondly, I noticed that once I started asking my clients for their signature on the group resume

they would actually add to my detail by correcting any inaccuracies and adding any additional

information that I had missed. Again, this also resulted in a more detailed document.

I suggest sending the group resume to clients at the same time you send their BEOs for signing.

This really helps the inexperienced meeting planners out there as they really have no clue what

information should be on the BEO or not, so giving them both documents at the same time helps

them see the full picture. Of course this does mean that if you have any notes that you dont

want the client to see you should not be putting them in the Group Resume instead make a

separate not to bring this up at your weekly Group Resume meeting (you do have one of those

dont you?!)

Now that I am used to this approach it just seems logical to me why get the BEOs signed but

not the group resume? I know of hotels that also send a print-out of the rooming list for signing

too, which only strengthens the accuracy of group reservations.

Surely any extra steps that we can take to ensure that our operational departments have all the

information that they need to take care of our groups the better right? I believe this approach


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further enhances this flow of information from meeting planner to sales to operations, which then

increases the likelihood of repeat business

Going Postalwith Sales Calls(Alternative title: Zip through your Appointments)

So you are going out on the road for any number of reasons. Maybe you are off to drop off a

contract (because you always hand deliver a contract when it is local, right?!). Maybe you are

stopping by to see one of your top accounts. Maybe you are off to a NACE/HSMAI/MPI

meeting. Maybe you are off to a Doctors appointment.

Either way you are heading out of the office and you are in your car. Why not knock out some

sales calls in the process? I know, I know Sales Calls are a paineveryone prefers to be sittingback at their desk and just waiting for the leads to flow in over the fax/email/phone etc. But as

much denial as we like to live in, we know that the sales calls are a part of our job.

So how to knock out a whole bunch of sales calls without spending all day at it?

The easiest way to do this is next time you are planning on heading out of the office for any

reason, do a search in your sales database for any accounts that already exist in the SAME ZIP

CODE. If you have the ability to search for accounts in the same building even better!

This way you can minimize the time and expense of driving all over town. And lets face it you

were already headed to that part of town anyway what does it take to do 5 extra sales calls

while you are already there.

I am not suggesting that you call to set up these appointments. In fact in my humble opinion

they work even better if you show up unannounced. The goal here is really to spend as little

time as possible setting up and getting to the appointment.

Really this is just a part of account management.


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Does your sales team REALLY know how to prospect?

One of the ugliest realities of todays sales environment is the fact that for many of us the phone

has simply stopped ringing. Remember what it was like twelve months ago? Many sales people

barely had time to scratch themselves through all the incoming leads! Those were very long

days of answering the phone, responding to internet leads and sending proposals. My what adifference twelve months makes!

So, now that the business is not just coming right to us, we have to actively prospect for new

business. Its easy for us to say this but does everyone on your team actually know how to

prospect? Sure, the seasoned sales managers on your team have been through this before

due to the cyclical nature of the business, but there is a good chance that if you have joined this

business in the last five years then you have never really had to learn how to prospect.

My message here is really directed at Directors of Sales just simply giving your Sales Managers a

goal of how many prospecting calls they need make a

month is useless if they dont know how! Problem with this is

that they will log lots of prospecting calls to satisfy those

reports that you are running but were they effective

prospecting calls?

How do you find out if your Sales Managers know how to

prospect? In todays job market you can be pretty sure

that they are not going to come running to you to tell you

that they dont know how to prospect they know how

important this has become! You could listen in on their calls

but that could be pretty counter-productive.

My preferred approach is to make this the key focus for morning stand-ups or weekly sales

meetings. Give each member of your team a training topic and have them do short 5 minutetraining sessions for the whole team. Keep the topics basic like:

Opening the prospecting phone call

Calling from reader boards

Following up after the call

Prospecting with google

Prospecting using social media

The best thing about running regular training sessions like this is that no-one on your team will feel

like they are being targeted and everyones skills can be further enhanced.

Now, if you run in to the situation where no-one on your team knows how to prospect, now

might really be the time to bite the bullet and pay for some sales training. I know everyone will

complain that they dont have the budget for this but do you have the budget for not doing

this?!


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Get Creative with your

Prospecting!

Are you tired of just getting voicemails whenever you prospect? It can really take a lot of

willpower to keep pushing on through all the prospecting calls when all you seem to get is

voicemail. There comes a point where you really start to question whether leaving another

voicemail for that client for the third month in a row is really making a difference

At that point it really is time to try another approach.

My personal favorite is to just show up at their office

unannounced! Of course not all clients respond well to this

but at least you are able to get some face time with them.

But in this day and age of locked down office buildings where

its almost impossible to make it even to the elevator the off -

property cold call is becoming tougher and tougher to do

unless you already have an established relationship with the

client in which case the phone call probably would have

worked anyway.

So how do you get a prospective client to call you back? Well

basically you have to make your message stand out from the

crowd. That meeting planner is probably getting dozens of

voicemails similar to yours each day. Why should they call you

back? They probably arent even listening to most of the message

I once knew a Sales Manager who would rehearse and sing his voicemail messages over the

phone to his prospects. Sure he had a shocking singing voice but the vast majority of them

returned his calls as they thought it was hilarious! I remember him telling me that many of them

actually played the voicemail back to their entire office which sometimes even resulted in

other meeting planners from the same office calling him as well!

At a previous hotel where I was working as Business Development Manager, I was having a

tough time trying to get any traction with a particular coffee and Tea Company which I knew

was bringing a lot of business to a competitor. I had left a million messages and no return call.

So one morning I went out and bought some to-go coffees from one of their stores and bought it

back for the sales team. I then took photographs of everyone on the team drinking their coffee.

I then packaged up the empty coffee cups with the photos and mailed them to the meeting

planner with the message Weve tried your productnow will you try ours?! Needless to say, I

received a call from the prospect a few days later!

Another time I tried the same approach for a particular cosmetics company this was hilarious

as we made all the guys on the team try on the cosmetics for the photo-shoot with the same

message about trying the product. We actually scored business from that company.

There is no one single approach that will work for you every time but the point here is if you


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arent getting through by leaving voicemails then try another approach. At your daily sales

meetings ask your team for suggestions on how to get through to a specific prospect. Be funny.

Be creative. Be different. Imagine what its like being that person receiving all those messages

and then try to put a smile on their face by being different. Thats how you break through with

your message.

Oh yeah and this is so much more fun than leaving lots of voicemails!

"Yes - I am Quoting Rack Rate!"There is a barely a day that goes by that General Managers,

Head of Sales and Revenue Managers are constantly

reminding us of how many rooms we have left to sell on any

given date. So much is the focus on filling the group ceiling,

or indeed filling the entire hotel, that we seem to constantlymiss the more important question.

Forget how many rooms you have left to sell the important

question you should be asking is How many rooms do my

competitors have left to sell?

Think of it this way if you had a spy in the sales department

of all your comp set hotels it would be wonderful to know

how many rooms your competitors had left on any given day. Imagine you receive a lead for a

nice corporate group for 3 months from now. Then, prior to sending your proposal your spy tells

you that none of your competitors have enough rooms and function space left to house thisgroup. Would you still quote this group the same rateor do you think you would quote higher

than normal?

If all of your competitors closed for renovations at the same time you would do the same thing

(dont we just wish)! It is basic economics that we want to charge what the market will

bear. And if you are the only provider left with availability then you have the ability to charge

whatever you like. Similarly, if you know that all of your competitors still have availability then

that tells you that right off the mark you need to be competitive if you really want the piece of

business. Or if you knew that only one of your competitors still had availability then you would

know exactly who you were selling against

But the chances are that you dont have a spy working in the sales department of each hotel in

your comp set. Nor do you own a working crystal ball or magic mirror. (Side note: if you do

happen to own a crystal ball there is a job opening in my sales team that I would love to talk to

you about!)


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So, short of infiltrating the sales teams at all the other properties in town how are you supposed

to find out your competitors availability three, six, nine months out?

One of the best ways of doing this is to absolutely make sure that you are logging ALL lost

business. You should be logging every single lead in some way. You should then have some

form of calendar notation that people can easily access when they go to check availability. Iknow of some sales teams that create calendar entries that list the names of the potential

bookings that were lost (or turned down) for each date. That way when a Sales Manager goes

to check availability that calendar date is flagged as having lost business.

I know of one sales team that goes so far as to have an Excel spreadsheet that lists all lost

bookings by hotel for each date subtracted from their

total number of guestrooms. Other properties I know

have a large lost business calendar in the sales

office where they color code lost business with a

different color for each competitor.

This means that it is critical that every lost piece ofbusiness is tracked with the following important

details:

Number of guestrooms per night

Amount of function space needed

Name of hotel they ended up booking with

And this probably means you need to loosen your

definition of Lost Business. Lost Business is truly the

opposite of Won Business meaning that if you find out of a group that has booked at one of

your competitors then you should be logging it as lost business. Yes, even if they never send youan RFP it is still lost business as you didnt win it!

I am not necessarily suggesting you put the same amount of detail into loading all these lost

bookings, but as long as you have the three pieces of information I listed above then you will be

armed with some very interesting information. However you do it, you need to keep track of

every group that has booked with your competitors.

Arm yourself with this information and you will be ready to maximize your revenue when you

know that your competitors are unable to take the piece of business. When the day comes that

your competitors are sold out, you want to know it as far in advance as possible so that you can

fully maximize your rateor even (gasp) sell rack!


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Unlocking the Sales Potential of your Business Transients

If you are a hotel with a certain amount of corporate transient

business you know for a fact that a large number of your rooms

are filled with regulars each night. They are the hotels equivalentof Norm in Cheers, and we spend a lot of time getting to know

them and taking good care of them. We do, dont we?

Ok lets get real we tend to leave this up to the Front Office

team to really nurture those relationships with the regular guests.

And yes, that really is a large part of their job but surely we as

sales people should want to know these people too?

We need to stop thinking of these people as just regular guests.

They are potential goldmines of information and potential group

and catering business. I know that we all do this to a certain

degree, but can every sales manager out there honestly say that

they have gotten to know every single repeat business traveler in their hotel, and hence

exhausted every possible opportunity they present for group and catering leads?

Why? Well these people have to work somewhere. And wherever they work that business has

other business travelers that are potentially staying elsewhere. That business also probably has a

holiday party somewhere. They potentially have board meetings, regional managers meetings,

conferences and so on. Where is all that business going right now?

Dont stop with just the hotel needs of your repeat guests workplace. More than likely your

repeat guest comes into contact with many other businesses on a daily basis and all of those

have the potential for even more leads.

We often talk about incentivizing our staff (and even our competition) for providing us with leadsthat eventuate actual bookings well why not provide incentives to your top business travelers

as well?

Think of it this way they keep staying at your hotel because they like it. They are the perfect

spokespeople for your hotel.

But all of this starts with you the sales manager doing lobby duty on a regular basis and getting

to know those business travelers. Make sure your front desk is collecting everyones business

card so that if you arent able to meet every guest in the lobby you can at least make contact.

Besides the fact that your business travelers can bring you all this extra business, they also love

feeling valued and highly regarded by their hotel of choice.


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Seems like a pretty easy question to answer I am a Sales

Manager therefore yes I am selling all the time. But am I

really? Stop and ask yourself how much of your day really is

spent selling?

As Sales Managers in a hotel we are being paid for the

primary purpose of finding business for the hotel which

therefore translates into revenue. So why are so many of us

finding ourselves spending large portions of our day in tasks

that are not in any way contributing to more sales?

You know the tasks I mean! Tasks like helping out the Front

Desk check in a group because you want it to go smoothly, or helping banquets finish setting

the ballroom so that it will be ready in time for the Wedding, or hand- delivering revised BEOs to

the kitchen because their printer doesnt work.

Why do we do all of these tasks? Well we keep telling ourselves that its because we are taking

care of our clients, so we cant possibly let our friends in the operational departments make a

single mistake. You know what we are? We are ENABLERS!

So the end result is that we spend all this time in the operational areas of the hotel sharing their

responsibilities. Sure we are being team players and we are there to make sure that the

operations team looks good. But when was the last time your Banquet team offered to come

and help with a Sales Blitz? When was the last time the Chef offered to come and do

Prospecting Calls? When was the last time the Front Office team assisted with responding to

RFPs?

Being team players is very important but there comes a point where you lose the ability to

perform successfully in your own role when you are so busy enabling other departments by

performing their roles for them. Every hour that you spend down on the Banquet floor is an hour

that you could have been prospecting for new business. Every minute you spend in the kitchen

updating the Chefs copies of the BEOs because they havent read the change log is valuable

time that could have been spent responding to leads. Every room that you help strip because

housekeeping are behind with turning rooms for your big check-in is 15 minutes that you could

have used to steal some business from a competitor.

Sometimes you really do have to let go. Step back from Operations and let them run their own

departments. Be cruel in order to be kind. Yes this could potentially cost you a couple of groups

in the short term if your operations team is not rising to the challenge. But hold them

accountable. Whats more your operations team may actually surprise you they may be way

better than you actually give them credit.


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I suggest that all Sales Managers should keep a tally of how much time you spend on any task

other than selling. Add that time up at the end of the month and determine what percentage

of your time you are spending on actually producing business. Then if your operations team is

not on-board, present them with the numbers.

Let me give you an example. If you determine that you are only spending 50% of your time

selling, and last month you booked $100,000 worth of business, that means you COULD have

booked $200,000 of business if you werent busy enabling all the other departments. Is your

hotel willing to miss out on that much revenue or are they now willing to force the ops teams to

take control.

I say let golet go now! Let the operations team run the operation and get back to selling! Its

not easy to let go (ask any parent with a child learning to ride a bike!) but in an economy like

this the stakes are too high. Get back to sellingyour operations team is depending on YOU to

bring in the revenue!


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your Revenue (or Yield) Manager manages the pricing on your guestrooms.

There are already plenty of hotels out there that are already doing this and it may seem tough

to start doing this in a bad economy, but I would argue that this is the perfect time to start doing

this. By removing fixed catering pricing now it becomes a lot easier to start charging more for

catering once the economy does improve it just means that more customers are being

quoted your D pricing at the moment than will be the case when things improve.

And for those of you out there that are reading this and saying that it will never work, remember

that many people said the same when hotels starting varying their room rates, and look at how

successful that has been!

So ask yourself againhow much can you get away with charging for a gallon of coffee?!

You Have a Lead The Clock is Ticking!No discussion over responding to leads can avoid the

topic of lead response times. Weve already

acknowledged that a ridiculously high percentage of

business books with the first responder, so whatever you

can do within your sales office to ensure your team is the

first responder is necessary.

One way to do this is to set lead response targets or

deadlines. Use whichever term you feel comfortable

with I just find the word deadline sounds a littlenegative, but maybe you feel your team needs a bit of

a bomb under them!

The first thing to point out is I recognize that this shouldnt

be necessary! If everyone on your team understands

that being the first responder also equals more business

then they shouldnt need a real-life clock ticking they

already have their own. But until your property is the first

responder all the time then a lead response target is

probably necessary.

So what is an appropriate lead response target? Well ifyou want an example ever heard of Crowne Plazas 2 Hour Response Guarantee? Yup

thats right, if a Meeting Planner sends a lead to a Crowne Plaza, the brand guarantees that

they will have a response from the hotel within 2 hours or they will receive a 5% discount off their

final bill. I just recently noticed that Omni Hotels has exactly the same policy.


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At first, 2 hours may sound pretty ambitious. Just ask the folks at any Crowne Plaza how they felt

when their 2 hour response was first put in place! I am not suggesting that you need to start

today with a 2 hour response time target, but your first step should be to at least ensure that you

have a target at all! Then you should gradually start reducing that response time target.

So after setting your response time target you will then need to devise a plan as a team toensure that you actually meet that target! When putting together your plan you will certainly

need to discuss the following points:

1. What type of response is needed within the deadline? Is

a verbal response ok, with a formal written response later? If

a verbal response is satisfactory it needs to be more than just

acknowledging that you have received the RFP rather you

need to be letting the client know that you want their

business, have availability and provide them with rates.

2. Who is the responder? If you do not have a central

person to respond to all incoming leads (worth considering),

then who will respond to a Sales Managers leads while they

are away from their desk? If a lead response target is to be

met it will need all hands on deck all the time for responding

to all leads.

3. How will you respond when you need more information from the client? Surely any lead that

needs further qualifying should be responded to via phone call immediately to gather more

information and potentially respond verbally at that point.

4. Do all leads require a response within the deadline? Maybe it is necessary at your property

to exclude citywides or other very large business from the lead response target. Bear in mind

that our goal here is to win the business that is likely to book with the first responder. This istypically not citywides (or weddings).

Finallyall leads and their response times should be tracked and tied to performance. I know of

lots of hotels that provide incentive payments to Sales Managers (separate to their revenue

goals) based on meeting established lead response targets. In my opinion a team goal is the

best approach to this as it will encourage the whole team to jump in and respond to any lead to

ensure the hotel is the first responder on all business.


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Are you converting all of your leads into definite business? That would be nicebut more likely

you have plenty of leads that you respond to, only to never hear from them again (If you are

converting ALL your leads then I want to know what your secret is!)

Remember the days when an RFP would come through on the fax machine, the lead

coordinator would log the lead and then assign it to a Sales Manager who would then put

together a proposal and mail it out to the prospective client? That procedure has changed

somewhat with the advent of technology but the principle is still very similar (side note: if that is

still your exact procedure then you definitely need to read on!!!)

There is a range of mind-blowing statistics being floated around the industry but the underlying

theme behind all of them is that increasingly, small to medium sized group business is booking

with the first hotel to respond. Some statistics state that up to 75% of group business is booking

with the first responder!

Translate this to mean that quite simply if you are not the first responder then you ARE losing

business!

To illustrate my point lets talk about plumbers. Imagine you leave work this afternoon and go

home to find that you have a leaky pipe in your bathroom and you have water all over the

floor. Your initial reaction is I just need someone to get here fast and fix this so I can instead

focus on preparing my dinner or something to that effect. If you are like me you are not

interested in spending all night researching all the different plumbers in townyou just want

someone to fix the pipe, fast! So you pick up the phone directory and call the first plumber that

catches your eye. Imagine you get that plumbers voicemail what do you do? Thats right,


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you probably hang up and keep calling plumbers until you get a hold of someone who is able

to come and fix the pipe at a reasonable price in a reasonable amount of time.

Many groups are a lot like leaky pipes!

Remember that as we have discussed before, a significant number of groups are not booked byprofessional meeting planners. Instead they are booked by Personal Assistants, Admin staff,

Managers, Trainers etc. For these people booking groups is not their primary work

responsibility. Quite simply they have other more important tasks to get back to. Just like you

wanted to get the pipe fixed with the least amount of work on your part (so you can cook

dinner instead)they too want to get the group booked and that task crossed of their to-do list

as quickly as possible.

So as you can see if you are the first responder (with a proposal that meets their requirements)

the odds are stacked heavily in your favor to win that piece of business!

So what can you do to make sure you are being the first responder?

1. Reevaluate your lead assignment procedures. You need to look closely at your

processes to see if anyone (or thing) is slowing down the lead from getting into the hands

of the Sales Manager that will respond. Remove the middle-man if possible.

2. Can you better utilize your existing technology to improve the lead assignment

process? Will new (or additional) technology help?

3. Set a response time target and then over time gradually reduce this time. Some brands

already have response time targets in place, but can you do better than the brand-

standard?

4. How do you handle leads when the assigned Sales Manager is away from theirdesk? Can those leads be handled by someone else so as to ensure a faster response?

5. Review your procedure for quoting rates and reviewing business. Can you set up free-sell

guidelines so Sales Managers are not forced to wait for a Business Review meeting

before sending a proposal?

6. How do you respond to telephone leads? Is it possible to streamline your processes so

that a client can actually be quoted a rate and space availability over the

phone? Dont let them hang up the phone until they have a verbal quote (just like a car

salesman hates to let a potential customer leave the lot).

7. Examine your proposal process. Is there a faster way for you to respond? Plenty of

technologies are available to assist with this. Is a full-blown proposal necessary for allresponses?

I am going to be talking about the above points in more detail in future articles but one thing I

can guarantee you is that right now there are hotels in your competitive set that ARE responding

to leads faster than you. You know that lead that is sitting in your inbox? Maybe your

competitors have already begun responding to that lead, whereas you chose to read this article

insteadso get back to your RFPs!!!!


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Is your Banquet Service Charge aGratuity or an Administrative

Charge or a combination of the two?Ok admit it, for a long time now we have all felt a tad uncomfortable knowing that for many of

us, our hotels have been collecting a service charge on catering and not distributing the entire

amount to our banquet service staff in the way that our clients are expecting Yes it feels

wrong but we tend to just pretend we dont know about it right?! For those of you unaware of

what I am referring to, let me explain

Typically catering charges will accrue a Service Charge for all Food and Beverage. Some

hotels will also apply this charge to Audio Visual and Room Rental charges. Many years ago thisamount used to be 15% but over the past decade or so it has crept up significantly - the going

rate for service charges in the United States seems to be somewhere between 18-22%.

Traditionally, the entire service charge on a banquet check was considered to be the gratuity

and was distributed amongst the banquet wait-staff. However

as hotels have increased the service charges, most have not

hotel sales super star - by fariaz morshed chowdhury

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