Hotel Sales Super Star - By Fariaz Morshed Chowdhury

Hotel Sales Super Star

Fariaz Morshed Chowdhury


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 – don‟t take their word for it) and at the end of ninety days hasn‟t 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? What makes 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 (although many 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‟ succeed because 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 created equal. 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 preapproach qualify prospects on the Internet AND they do that in non-prime sales time.

© Fariaz Morshed Chowdhury

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Hotel Sales Super Star Think Revenue not Just Rooms. The successful sales person pays attention to the property‟s 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 both large 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 doesn‟t 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 client‟s 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 themselves –don‟t 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 association memberships 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 hotel – the „daily disciplines‟ that separate the great managers from the mediocre.


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Hotel Sales Super Star .

"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, have still 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" to return to the hotel.


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Hotel Sales Super Star 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 raise the bar on our customer service standards. "Telling" them isn't good enough -- we need to demonstrate, 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 use in 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?

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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.

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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 skill acquisition. 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 first is "smile!" My favorite is "I want my employees to use common sense" -- what the heck does 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 will have "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 apply to 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 a colleague 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' mindsets as 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 the workplace. 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 quote, "…it has an ugly ending." "The


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Hotel Sales Super Star only way to produce sizable profits, to succeed against competition and to chalk up impressive growth 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 an exciting 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 to having 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 obstacles to 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 "It‟s 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 of hotels 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 and clients 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 from existing 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 what‟s in it for them, in terms 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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Hotel Sales Super Star 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 the company‟s fortunes change, will not take the hotel‟s 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 market‟s dependency on one key account. Those hotels that had built a broad customer base fared better than those that didn‟t. An examination of a hotel‟s 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 hotel‟s 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. The „independent‟ 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 person‟s 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 the goal.


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100% Market Share Penetration is Not Good Enough Hotels often brag that they are running 100% market share penetration. If a property is positioned 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, you achieved 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 if your 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 didn‟t you after reading last month‟s 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 location and the hotel that was used will tell you if they are in your „ball park‟.


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Hotel Sales Super Star 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 doesn‟t use hotels.

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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?

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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.

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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 to closing the account.

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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 competition‟s rate structure.

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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. Don‟t 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 don‟t have to think about what you are going to say next and not to dwell on features 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 don‟t mount a skilled and effective sales effort will find themselves beached. Attaining market share over 100% is about rising above the tide.


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Forget the 24 Hour Hold – its 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 whatsoever – that 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 pay room 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 aren‟t logging your turn downs, expect to continue to turn down just as much business in the future because you can‟t change the future if you don‟t know your history! If you aren‟t 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 don‟t want the hassle of breaking down and resetting 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 it‟s 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 doesn‟t book any business in the room anyway – but I for one don‟t 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 going reasonably 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 keep the 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 part of 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 and 3. Designing incentives to reflect Management‟s 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 property‟s revenue.


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Hotel Sales Super Star 

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.

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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 on developing 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 department‟s market segments and time allocations 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.

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Are you assessing the mix of calls? How many are calls to new prospects, how many are routine traces, how many are outside calls? Of those that are traces, where in the sales „pipeline‟ are they – at the qualifying stage, negotiating the contract or closing?

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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 where we 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.

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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 the busy 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 summer month‟s account for a smaller percentage of their annual bonus with a


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Hotel Sales Super Star much higher percentage for group business booked in the winter, they are able to redirect their efforts and benefit both themselves and the property‟s 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 performance that 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 isn‟t what they want, they can cross the street and find another job. In this kind of environment it is a matter of „what‟s 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 money for working in a certain establishment. They have choices. It‟s a buyer‟s market. Hotel sales people are asked to formulate a brief „value proposition‟ with which to gain a potential client‟s interest in the benefits of booking rooms in our hotels. (What – you haven‟t done this!) This includes benefit statements tailored to the client‟s special requirements, not just features, 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 security that it offers the buyer, the benefit. Micheline is not the least expensive tire on the market and your hotel probably doesn‟t offer the 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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Hotel Sales Super Star 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 engineer‟s 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 performance – even 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 have potential 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 that‟s 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 day – are 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?


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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. Let‟s 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 this description and I think it‟s 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.

That‟s 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 by the 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, that‟s 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 it‟s pretty safe to say that there have been times where you have not listened as well as you could. It‟s tougher than it sounds though. It‟s easy for us to say just stop and listen. But we are sales people – we 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. Don‟t 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 it‟s time to start your engine! Problem is that even when the client is talking, we aren‟t 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 it – most 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, don‟t 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 please… Requiring 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 to Banquet 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 more questions, 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 BEO‟s 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 don‟t 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 don‟t you?!) Now that I am used to this approach it just seems logical to me – why get the BEO‟s 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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Hotel Sales Super Star further enhances this flow of information from meeting planner to sales to operations, which then increases the likelihood of repeat business…

Going Postal with 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 Doctor‟s 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 pain – everyone prefers to be sitting back 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 let‟s 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 today‟s 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 a difference twelve months makes! So, now that the business is not just coming right to us, we have to actively prospect for new business. It‟s 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 don‟t 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 today‟s job market you can be pretty sure that they are not going to come running to you to tell you that they don‟t 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 minute training 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 everyone‟s 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 don‟t 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 it‟s almost impossible to make it even to the elevator the offproperty 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 aren‟t 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 “We‟ve tried your product – now 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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Hotel Sales Super Star aren‟t 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 it‟s like being that person receiving all those messages and then try to put a smile on their face by being different. That‟s 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 constantly miss 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 this group. Would you still quote this group the same rate – or 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 (don‟t 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 don‟t 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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Hotel Sales Super Star 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. I know 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 of business 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 you an RFP it is still lost business as you didn‟t 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 rate – or 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 hotel‟s equivalent of Norm in Cheers, and we spend a lot of time getting to know them and taking good care of them. We do, don‟t we? Ok let‟s 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? Don‟t stop with just the hotel needs of your repeat guest‟s 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 leads that 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 everyone‟s business card so that if you aren‟t 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 BEO‟s to the kitchen because their printer doesn‟t 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 can‟t 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 RFP‟s? 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 Chef‟s copies of the BEO‟s because they haven‟t 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. What‟s 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 weren‟t 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 go – let 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 selling – your operations team is depending on YOU to bring in the revenue!


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How much for a gallon of coffee? Ask any Catering Sales Manager how much their property charges for a gallon of coffee and most will readily answer you with a price per gallon. Some will quote you a price per person or per cup, but the principle is the same. Now ask a Group Sales Manager at the same property how much they charge for a guestroom and you will not get such a straight answer. Nor should you… It‟s the same when you call the airlines to ask how much a seat on one of their airplanes costs. This is because airlines learnt a long time ago to manage their yield. Then only a short time ago, hotels figured that they could do the same with guestrooms. So why not the same principle for catering? Consider the following scenario. There is a citywide going on in your location and all of your guestrooms are already sold, as is most of the function space. You only have one boardroom left available to book and it‟s still 4 months away. Its very easy to conclude that that clearly there is significant demand over these dates – so what are you doing to maximize your profitability over these dates? Many will tell you that they simply raise their catering minimums for these dates. Sure, that sounds like a good idea, but its not enough. Raising your catering minimum merely ensures that you will receive a certain amount of revenue on this demand date – but it has done nothing to capitalize on the demand. To truly capitalize on the demand you should be charging more for your catering on such high demand dates. Yes this means that a gallon of coffee costs the client more on these high demand days! And why not – they will pay more for guestrooms on these dates… Any future dates that you are almost sold out in your function space should immediately get a red flag as dates with potential for higher catering pricing… Of course the same applies for the reverse – catering prices and minimums should be lowered to stimulate demand on need dates. But I think most hotels already do this – albeit on an ad hoc basis, when presented with clients requesting discounted pricing. Pure economics says that pricing should be modified to ensure that you are matching your pricing to meet demand exactly. Yes it is a delicate balancing act! There is no easy approach for managing the yield on your catering pricing. But the very first step is to remove all pricing from your catering menus – especially the ones on your website. If you are just starting with this approach the easiest way is to come up with four different levels of pricing (A-D) for all catering menus and items and then update this pricing in your sales/catering computer system. This will probably mean that each item and menu will need to be loaded an additional three times each with different pricing – but this is a safer approach than having a catering manager have to enter a new price with each BEO. Next step is to put together a calendar that easily communicates which future dates are A pricing, B pricing and so on. This calendar will need to be reviewed and modified on a regular basis in exactly the same way that


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Hotel Sales Super Star 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 again – how 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. We‟ve 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 little negative, 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 shouldn‟t be necessary! If everyone on your team understands that being the first responder also equals more business then they shouldn‟t 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 if you want an example – ever heard of Crowne Plaza‟s “2 Hour Response Guarantee”? Yup that‟s 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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Hotel Sales Super Star 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 to ensure 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 is typically not citywides (or weddings). Finally – all 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 nice – but 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 let‟s 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 town – you 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 plumber‟s voicemail – what do you do? That‟s right,


32

Hotel Sales Super Star 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 by professional 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 brandstandard? 4. How do you handle leads when the assigned Sales Manager is away from their desk? 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? Don‟t 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 all responses? 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 instead – so get back to your RFP‟s!!!!


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Is your Banquet Service Charge a ‘Gratuity’ 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 don‟t 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 this amount 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 increased the allotment that is distributed to the banquet team as their gratuity.

This in and of itself does not seem like such a big deal. Surely a hotel should be allowed to increase service fees at its own choice – and whether it chooses to pass on increased profits to its employees in the form of raises is also a decision for an employer to make.

But the area that makes many of us nervous is the knowledge that our customers are concluding that the service charge goes to the wait-staff in its entirety. Ask any of your meeting planners, brides or any other clients what they are expecting will happen with the 22% Service Charge they are paying and I bet you that almost all of them will tell you that they are expecting that it will go to the banquet servers as a gratuity. Heck, ask the rest of your catering and sales colleagues and most of them probably don‟t know that the entire 22% isn‟t going to the banquet servers!


34

Hotel Sales Super Star So the issue here is with disclosure. Our clients have a right to know that the „Service Charge‟ that they are paying is only part gratuity. They deserve to know what percentage gratuity they are actually paying to the servers. If your customers know that they are only paying a 15% gratuity to the banquet servers then they can elect to pay more if they feel the service warranted it.

For this reason, I personally believe that BEO‟s should all state what the breakdown is for the service charge. It‟s just a simple change required in the header of a BEO, and possibly also in the verbiage used in contracts. This has also been the advice recently given to a lot of large hotel groups recently but legal counsel – but I am no lawyer, I just believe it is ethical to give full disclosure…

And for those of you who think that this is something that you can just brush off, I suggest you do a Google search for „Banquet Service Charge Lawsuits‟ and take a look at the court cases that are springing up all over the country regarding this very issue. I am not going to name names, but there are some pretty famous hotels in New York, Boston and Hawaii currently facing the threat of class action lawsuits over this very issue.


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In my previous article I talked about how it in today‟s business environment it is absolutely critical that you are the first responder for all incoming leads. First response equals significantly increased chance of winning the business. In recognition of this, most hotels have written in to policy that Sales Managers must respond to all leads within a given timeframe (eg. Crowne Plaza has the 2 hour response guarantee).

It‟s all well and good to require Sales Managers to respond within this timeframe, but what can frustrate this process is if there are roadblocks that hold up the lead from getting to the Sales Manager as fast as it should. Many hotels have all leads coming through to one centralized person who then assigns them to the Sales Managers. But what happens when that person steps away from their desk? Maybe they only go to the bathroom and are gone 10 minutes, but that is a 10 minute head start just given to the completion! Even if you have a sales admin whose primary responsibility is to assign these leads, you are still adding valuable minutes to the lead response time. Because even if they work at lightning speed they are still not faster than the lead going directly to the correct Sales Manager immediately. In many cases that I know of, that central person is often the Director of Sales. Surely with all of their additional responsibilities this is the worst possible person. If you are Director of Sales you are the last person that would want to be holding up the lead response! I know there is no simple answer, but the goal always needs to be to get the lead to the responder as fast as possible. Meeting Broker (yes I know I am biased!) has fabulous assignment rules that automatically send leads directly to the appropriate Sales Manager (eg. assign all leads with a corporate market segment with more than 50 rooms on peak to John). One other way is set up your online lead channels to send the leads directly to a Sales person rather than a lead catcher. Sites like theKnot.com are a no brainer – this site should absolutely be sending the leads directly to your Catering Sales Manager who handles the Weddings market. If 90% of your StarCite leads are for the Association market, then you may as well have them go directly to your Association Sales Manager.


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One other solution that is a little more out of the box is to give the responsibility of responding to all incoming leads to one dedicated individual. I have seen this managed in a many different ways and all have worked well. One hotel group that I know of split their sales team in to two separate teams – Reactive Sales and Proactive Sales. That way the reactive sales team is entirely focused on responding to those incoming leads – which in turn means a faster response. Other properties give the responsibility for responding to all leads to one person each day and rotate the responsibility around. One other hotel I know of has all incoming electronic leads come through to a generic email address. This email inbox is then shared (possible if you use Outlook) with all Sales Managers so everyone can see if there is a lead sitting there that needs a response. However you achieve this will depend on your sales team dynamic, but the goal absolutely has to be on minimizing the number of people that have to handle the lead prior to its response. If you have people that are receiving leads and then passing those leads on to other people to respond then you are definitely slowing down the lead response time. So have a look at your lead assignment process today – cut out the middle man so that your Sales Managers can receive the leads as fast as possible. One less excuse for not responding to the lead FIRST!


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A recent discussion on the LinkedIn group about the make-up of the SMERFE market (thanks Tiffany!) got me thinking more about SMERFE versus SMERF and all the different definitions… For those of you outside North America, SMERFE is an acronym used to describe group business that does not fall into the traditional market segments of Corporate, Association, Government or Tour & Travel (no, not the little blue men). The most common definition I have seen is as follows: ·

S – Sports

·

M – Military

·

E – Education

·

R – Religious

·

F – Fraternal

·

E – Ethnic

Some hotels will switch out the S for Social, other will replace one of the E‟s for Entertainment – that‟s ok, its up to each hotel to define their own market segments. Essentially the meaning behind SMERFE is the same – what Sports, Military, Education, Religious etc all have in common is that they are groups where it is highly likely that the attendees are paying for themselves and are attending outside of their regular work hours. In other words, being part of this group is not their job. This is a big generalization, but SMERFE groups are usually the most rate sensitive which is why we look to often use groups as „fillers‟ during time periods where we would otherwise be slow. This often works out well as the dates and times that a SMERFE group is looking for is often the opposite of when your Corporate groups are looking for.

The point that I am getting to, is to not lose sight of the fact that what truly defines SMERFE is far more than just an acronym. If your hotel merely uses an acronym to define what SMERFE is then you are bound to have some conflict at some point in the future. Think not? Consider this.

Military is the M in SMERFE, but isn‟t the Military part of the Government, so shouldn‟t that go to the Government market instead? What about a Teachers Association – that‟s Education so is it SMERFE or is it the Association market? What about a training company – is that Education or Corporate? What about a State College – they are Education, but if they are owned by the State aren‟t they Government? If S stands for Social does a Corporate Holiday Party count as


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Hotel Sales Super Star SMERFE? If S stands for Sports then a visiting school‟s football team counts, but what about a professional football team – aren‟t they a business, therefore Corporate? There is no faster way of ruining the morale of a Sales team than by having unnecessary conflict over which Sales Manager the lead goes to. Understandably so, we are talking about people‟s numbers, therefore goals, therefore potential bonuses here. We have all seen a Sales Manager who is struggling to make their numbers (for whatever reason) who is then grasping at straws trying to claim every incoming lead as their own. For this very reason it is so important that hotel sales teams clearly define SMERFE -and all market segments for that matter. Don‟t assume that everyone on your team knows what your hotel‟s definition is, as every hotel‟s definition varies ever so slightly. Directors of Sales – don‟t leave yourself open to accusations of preferential treatment by always being the adjudicator where there is questions over who the lead goes to. My recommendation – take the time to sit down with your Sales team and put together a document that clearly details exactly what type of accounts fall under each market segment. In an economy like this it is especially important and will only help in harmonizing your sales department.

As Papa Smurf said: „Enough fighting! Lets all have a Smurfy day!‟


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A Site Inspection without Clients Recently I wrote about different ways to make your site inspection stand out from the pack. Certainly it is very important to be creative to ensure that your property is the one that the client remembers first when they return to their office. But what about the rest of your prospects that simply cannot get to your property for a site inspection? In today‟s economy, the number of meeting planners that actually travel to visit properties before booking is dwindling at an alarming rate. Resort locations have struggled with this for years, but now many inner-city hotels face the same dilemma. It is one of the greatest challenges that modern day hotel Sales Managers face – how to actually get the client to your property in the first place? Many hotels rely almost exclusively on their proposals to give their clients the best idea of what their property looks like. Many hotels have added pictures and videos to their websites to give prospective clients a better feel for the property. Visually stimulating proposals and websites are an absolute must, but they certainly don‟t replace the hands-on approach of a site inspection in terms of effectiveness. So what‟s the solution? Simple – go into the movie business! What do you mean you aren‟t a movie producer? Anyone can be! All you have to do is have a colleague film you doing the client‟s site inspection! Next time a client tells you that they would love to come to your property for a site inspection but they simply don‟t have the time or the budget tell them „No problem, I will film conduct the site inspection anyway and have my colleague film it for you‟. Go ahead and plan the site inspection just like any other. This means that all the normal rules of site inspections apply – ie. be creative, plan the tour, tailor it to the client, involve the team etc etc. Then enlist a colleague with a video camera to film you doing the site inspection. Obviously your client is not there, so all you need to do is pretend that the video camera is your client! Then when you have finished you just need to email the video file to your client.


40


Some tips: 1. Don‟t use the same video twice. The whole point of this is to tailor your site inspection to the client and not be generic. 2. Put the same amount of time and effort into doing your video site inspection as you would for an “in-person” site inspection. This should not be more work than a normal site, but it deserves as much effort. 3. Don‟t get too hung up about the quality of the video. Remember that the whole point is to make it very clear that you understand that your client couldn‟t get to the property so you produced a short video just for them. 4. Don‟t try to edit the video – this will only make the client think that you have cut out the parts of the hotel you don‟t want them to see. Keep filming the entire site inspection. 5. Think you don‟t have access to a video camera? Think again – there is bound to be someone in your office with at least a video camera on their cell phone! 6. File too big to email? Transfer it to a memory stick and mail that to your client (a hotel branded memory stick would have an even better impact!) 7. Follow up with your client on the phone to see if they want you to film any areas in more detail. Maybe they have a question about how far the walk is between meeting rooms – go ahead and film yourself walking it! And finally – have fun with it! Your clients will be amazed at the effort that you have gone to – when in reality you have put no more effort into the site inspection than if they had actually come to visit. So while your competitors are complaining that they are never able to get meeting planners to their hotels for site inspections you will be able to smile knowing that EVERY meeting planner gets a site inspection at your hotel! So get to it – try out this approach and let me know how it went!


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A Pre-Con for EVERY Group It‟s standard practice within most hotels that prior to the majority of the group‟s arrival at the hotel, a pre-conference meeting is held with the meeting planner (or their equivalent). Most meeting planners are used to the ritual and will readily tell you that the ritual is the same in most hotels! For those of you not familiar with the term „pre-con‟, it is a meeting held just prior to the group‟s arrival, with the meeting planner and representatives from all hotel departments that will be involved in servicing the group. Usually this involves introductions, a review of the group resume, a run-through of the BEO‟s, and then a tour of the function space. The purpose of the pre-con is to ensure that the meeting planner has met all the key players involved in the execution of the group‟s events, as well as to iron out any last minute changes and lingering questions.

The thing is though, we often reserve the pre-con meeting for large (or VIP) groups only. Why is that? Surely the concept of a pre-con should be applied to all groups? Many operations people will tell you that it‟s most commonly NOT the large groups that are the problem groups, instead it is those small groups – not coincidentally, the groups that also don‟t have a pre-con!

So predictably, my recommendation is a pre-con meeting for all groups. That‟s right – every single group! Sounds impossible – but it‟s not – I promise!


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he key here is to re-examine what defines a pre-con. For many people, the concept of a precon means blocking a function room, setting it U-Shape, inviting every department head, ordering hot beverages etc etc etc… This concept is absolutely unnecessary for a 20 person corporate group, that doesn‟t even have a professional meeting planner involved. However, the on-site contact needs the orientation to the hotel just as much as a meeting planner of a large group would. They also need a thorough review of the group resume and the BEO‟s. And they most certainly need introducing to the key players involved with their group. So the best way is to have a second style of pre-con for your hotel. Keep doing the formal precon exactly the way you have been, but keep that type of pre-con just for your large (or VIP) groups. Then the second type of pre-con should be your „Informal/Small Group‟ pre-con. For my small group pre-cons, I arrange to meet the on-site contact in the lobby, where I introduce them to the General Manager, Front Office Manager, Banquet Manager and occasionally the Chef (if their F&B is extensive). We excuse the GM once he has said his welcome, and then all go and sit in the lounge where we review the Group Resume as well as a print-out of the rooming list. If there are no questions at that point we excuse the Front Office Manager, and then we review the BEO‟s. We finish the Pre-con by walking the space and making sure the client knows how to contact the key players and is familiar with where all the group‟s events will be. All-told, this small group pre-con takes no more than 15 minutes in total, but the amount of time it saves in the long run is many times that – not to mention great customer service. So it may sound ambitious to aim to do a pre-con for every group, but it really isn‟t if you redefine the term „pre-con‟ so it is just as appropriate for smaller groups. Your clients AND your operations teams will thank you for it!


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Have your dessert and eat it too! Entertaining – I love this part of our job. I mean who doesn‟t like to eat? And eating on someone else‟s dime is even better right? Lunch is probably the most common meal that Sales Managers spend with clients. I still find it a struggle to persuade clients to get out of the office for an hour at lunch time. The days of long business lunches seem to be long behind us! My struggle has always been to convince clients to actually try our signature dishes. My hotel has a fabulous Key Lime Pie (served with raspberry coulis and toasted coconut shavings) on the dessert menu, but no amount of persuading will get my clients to have dessert. It seems every meeting planner is on a diet these days! So now I play dirty! I go to the restaurant beforehand and pre-order the dessert. I usually order a few different desserts for the middle of the table because shockingly, not everyone loves Key Lime Pie! So now when we finish up our lunch the waiter just automatically brings the desserts to the table. Despite the diets, everyone tries the dessert – and I know the wonders of our chef helps win me business so I don‟t mind playing dirty! If I have a client that is on a real time crunch I arrange for the waiter to bring out the desserts in to-go bags for them to enjoy once they get back to the office. I know of a Sales Manager that actually delivered desserts to her client‟s office one afternoon. She had bought a special pen that allowed her to (safely) permanently write a message on the plate. Once her client had finished their dessert they were able to read the message underneath the dessert: “If you are able to read this then you must have enjoyed the dessert! Call me to book your next group so that your attendees can enjoy the dessert too!” My point here is simple – we all know that a way to win over clients is with food – just make sure you find a way to get them to try your signature dish. Oh and no preparation needed if I am coming as I WILL order dessert!


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“If it‟s not in ###### it didn‟t happen”

Best practices for database management are great – but only when people follow them. We have all been guilty at times in the past of declaring that we were too busy to log everything in the database. We always knew it was best practice to enter everything – but while the leads just continued to rain down on us it was easy to turn a blind eye to these best practices. Do you log EVERY lead? Do you log EVERY turn-down? Do you log EVERY phone call/email/appointment? We always know that we should be logging all of the above, but it‟s so easy when we are busy to fall into the trap of not doing so. Logging all your turn-downs, leads and activities really gets you no closer to making your revenue goals for this month – which is precisely why so many of us tend to use the excuse that we are too busy to do so. Hotel sales teams that did log this in the past are certainly reaping the rewards of that diligence now – they have a lovely database just full of potential prospects to call on. So if you weren‟t logging everything before – now is certainly the time to start! Surely we can‟t use the excuse that we are too busy now! The tough times like now really are the best time to go back to basics and redeploy the rule that “If its not in , it didn‟t happen”.


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I just LOVE making solicitation calls don't you? I know, I know we all hate making solicitation calls. Many of us have relied on the steady inflow of leads over the last few years (when times were good!) to the point that we have been able to avoid making solicitation calls altogether. Well for most of us, that steady river of leads has slowed down to barely a trickle - no surprise given the awful state of the economy. So what do we do? SOLICIT/PROSPECT/COLDCALL etc etc So what is the best way to prepare for a day of telephone solicitations? Well first of all, no-one is prepared to talk to you on a Monday morning or a Friday afternoon. Does this mean you get to sleep late on Mondays and hit happy hour early on a Friday??? Go ahead! While you are at it, I am going to be using this time to prep for my solicitation calls. This means I am going to run reports from my sales database. The easiest report to start with is a report that shows business that your hotel turned away last year and the year before - assuming of course that you were logging those leads in your sales database... (I bet you wish you logged them all now, don't you!) Using these reports I am then going to go and create an activity/trace in my sales system. Just create a generic trace and copy and paste the contents into all the accounts that you plan on calling to prospect. I spend all Monday morning and Friday afternoon creating these traces. This way I am setting up all the calls that I am going to make during the week - during prime-selling-time. It‟s a whole lot easier to churn out a whole bunch of solicitation calls if the boring part of logging all the traces/activities has already been done for you when you make the call. That way all you have to do is add any additional notes, and mark the activity done ----- and then you are on the next call. Oh yeah, and absolutely make sure you have a head-set!


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Cut off my arm, my leg - just don't cut off my room block... It can be said that Sales Managers will protect their groups' room blocks more than even their own lives at times. So much stress and pain seems to come as a result of room block cutoff dates... So

what

can

be

done

to

prevent

some

of

this

pain?

Well, first of all - and this is the easiest part - make sure your group's cutoff date falls on an appropriate date. I know this seems obvious, but make sure its not on a weekend or a public holiday. Most sales systems will automatically assign a cutoff date for you (usually 30 days prior), but this is not set in stone - change it!!!! I actually know plenty of hotels that make it a rule that cutoff dates are not to be within 24 hours of a holiday or the weekend. This becomes even more important for hotels with front office systems that automatically drop room blocks once the cutoff date is reached. Nothing is more frustrating for a group reservations department than to receive a rooming list at 5pm on a Friday afternoon which is also the cutoff date! Sales Managers should really also discuss the cutoff date with their clients as part of the contract negotiations. Make sure that the cutoff date that you are giving them is realistic. Ask them about their past groups - do they think that 30 days prior is realistic. If not - negotiate where possible. And for those of you with sales systems that are interfaced with your front office systems, ABSOLUTELY make sure that your cutoff dates are not too close to end of month/quarter. I know of a Sales Manager who had a huge group drop out of the system on the last day of the quarter. She did not find out until the next day, by which time she had already taken a huge hit on her numbers on the last day of the quarter - she did not make bonus that quarter! I know of a few hotels that mandate that all cutoff dates fall on Wednesdays. Sounds funny at first, but its pretty logical, as we already have a BEO distribution day, yield meeting day, staff meeting day, resume distribution day - why not 'Cutoff Day'. Its so much easier when all groups cut off on the same day of the week - that way when everyone comes into work that day they will all be thinking of which groups need to get their rooming lists in, individual rooms cut off etc etc. Interesting concept hey?! Now of course there is the discussion regarding who should be managing the room blocks to make sure that the rooms pickup prior to the cutoff date - but that's a whole other discussion for another day!


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Are you recreating the recreation of the recreation of the wheel when you work with BEOs? I think it‟s fairly safe to say that typing up Banquet Event Orders is probably the single most time consuming task for any Catering Sales Manager, Convention Services Manager etc. After years of doing the job, many of us have our little routine and believe that we are fast as possible in doing the BEO‟s, but I think it‟s worth revisiting processes every now and then to see if there really is an easier way…

Are

you

copying

old

BEO‟s

as

much

as

you

could?

We all love repeat bookings because (among many other sales reasons) they offer the opportunity to copy last time‟s BEO‟s. Crafty meeting planners often suggest copying last year‟s BEO‟s because they know that there is an increased chance that when we do this that we will forget to change the menu prices on the BEO – which probably have gone up since last year‟s event! So a little piece of advice – ALWAYS print up a copy of any BEO you are sending to your client and look it over before you email it out. You are far more likely to catch any errors that way. I personally prefer the method of having a buddy in the office that you swap BEO‟s with before sending to your clients as it‟s much easier to catch other people‟s mistakes. Its one thing to leave the flip chart off of the BEO, but it‟s another thing altogether to charge last year‟s prices for the coffee! Ok, so repeat bookings are the obvious chance for saving time through copying BEO‟s. But have you ever considered creating template bookings in your system with template BEO‟s purely for the purpose of copying to new events? Think about how many of your events end up looking so similar to each other. Consider weddings. A wedding BEO is probably the most detailed BEO that is prepared, yet most wedding BEOs contain pretty much the same information. I suggest creating a template Wedding booking, with a template Wedding BEO. Spend quite a lot of time putting this template wedding BEO together as its going to become your standard for all future weddings. So put insert all your standard setup information, and include items like „Flowers being provided by:…‟ and „Napkin Fold:..‟ – leaving space to fill in the blanks when you are working on a specific wedding. From this point forward, for every new wedding you work with the first thing you will do is copy over the template BEO and from then just filling in all the blank spaces.


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Once you have copied over the template BEO to the wedding you are working on you can print it up and take it to your meetings/tastings with the Bride so that it‟s a pretty easy worksheet/checklist. Never again will you leave your menu tasting and realize that you forgot to ask the bride which color table linens she wants! The other advantage for using a template BEO for weddings is that it creates consistency for all future weddings. Obviously consistency makes it much easier for the Banquets team. Now think about what other events you could create template BEOs for. If you do a lot of day meetings that are set u-shape, with a projector, water station, AM and PM breaks etc – then go ahead and create a template BEO for day meetings. Same would apply for Bar mitzvahs, Breakout meetings, Holiday Parties – any area that you see a trend. So let‟s be clear – a template BEO: Saves time Creates consistency Decreases the likelihood that you will forget something Makes it easier to provide more detail Seems like a no-brainer right?!


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ENOUGH of the Data Entry Already!

Probably the most common topic that hotel sales people complain about is “how much work it is to enter a new booking into ”. Often this is voiced as a complaint when discussing time constraints or the banality of loading bookings. “Why am I paid a Sales Manager salary when all I seem to do is data entry” is often a common complaint. The complaint is generally even louder for those that work at branded properties where the number of incoming leads requiring responses can be huge. I hate entering leads! I find data entry to be one of the most mundane parts of my job. I really wish we could return to the „good-olddays‟ when I would‟ve had an assistant to enter my bookings for me. But alas we all know those days are not going to return! After years of staying back at work late into the evening loading these leads, I decided it was time for a rethink. There really must be a better (read: faster) way of getting those bookings into the system Good news: there really is a better way! The method that I am about to describe is based loosely on one particular sales and catering system (which for those of you that know me, will instantly know which fabulous Greekcharacter-named-system I am referring to) but I am sure the concept can easily be replicated in all systems. The idea is based around having template bookings that you always copy from when creating a new booking. Template (or „dummy‟) bookings can be created purely for the purpose of copying. I generally create an account in my name, and then load template bookings of a Turn Down status. I rename the booking with my name and a descriptor of the booking. Common examples might be:    

Template Conference Group Booking Template Training Group Booking Template Wedding Booking Template Family Reunion Booking


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When I create the template bookings I fill in all the fields, then load the typical room block requirements, and common rates, and then most importantly load all possible events for the maximum number of conceivable days. Then whenever a new lead comes for a Conference, I just open up my Template Conference booking and copy it to a new booking. All I have to do is then delete the events that don‟t apply and make the necessary tweaks to the room block. Many people complain that loading all the events ( breakouts, breaks, lunches, general sessions etc.) is often the most timeconsuming part, so being able to just delete the events that don‟t apply is a huge time-saver. Obviously you could create different templates based on length of stay – there really is no limit to the number of templates that you may way to use. Many people are accustomed to copying bookings, but most have overlooked the possibility of creating bookings purely for the purpose of copying from. Maybe it‟s because many people are unaware it is possible to copy a booking from one account to another. This method it also ensures that I am never in trouble for forgetting to fill out certain fields or not enter all the details as they are already loaded in my template. I suggest you give it a try – you will be amazed at the amount of time you will save, just by taking 15 minutes to create a few template bookings that you can copy over and over again. I know it sure rescued me from data-entry-induced-insanity more than once.

Less time doing data entry = more time to book business = finally making my numbers again!


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Site Inspection WOW’s I think everyone can agree its pretty competitive out there at the moment. Ok, yes its always pretty competitive but now is tougher than I can ever recall. We are all looking for ways to give us the edge – right?!

One of the ways that you can really differentiate yourself from your competitors is by wowing the client at the site inspection. So many of our colleagues have their standard site inspection routine that they roll out for every client. All of your clients are different – so why the same site inspection for all of them? This makes no sense. Do you make the same prospecting phone call to every account? Of course not – you always tailor your calls to the client – so shouldn‟t a site inspection be tailored too?

Remember there is a good chance that your clients are going to site inspections at other hotels too – and they can get pretty darn boring if they are all the same. Tailoring your site inspection to the client has the following benefits:

1. It tells your client that you really want their business because of the time and effort you have put into planning the site inspection. 2. It reminds your client that you understand who they are and what they stand for – which means you will best be able to take care of their group. 3.

Your client will still remember your site inspection when they return to their office.

A great place to start for inspiration is your client‟s website. Maybe they have a theme to their website. Maybe they have company values that could be helpful to you. Maybe they have background music…


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Involve the rest of your sales team in preparing for the site inspection. At your next sales meeting tell the team about your upcoming site inspection and then have the team help you brainstorm for 5 minutes on creative ways for wowing your client at the site inspection. It‟s also a great idea to involve the rest of the hotel in your site. A Chef in uniform will almost always wow a client – as will food samples along the way! Remember that one of the biggest gripes that clients have is over the check-in experience – so imagine the impact of a Front Desk who actually knows who they are when they arrive at the hotel for the site inspection! One of the added benefits of involving the rest of the hotel in your site inspection is longer term. If your hotel team has been involved in helping secure a piece of group business then they are more likely to go the extra mile to take care of that group – it‟s like they have more of a vested interest. That group is more than just another group at your hotel – to the operations team it‟s a group that they helped win. So, what are some of your site inspection “WOW”s? Click on the link below to head to the „Contact Me‟ page and send in your best examples of things you have done to wow at a site inspection. I will publish a different WOW here each week (and yes you can be anonymous if you want – just state so in your submission).


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Does chatting with a client on facebook count towards my activity goals? Ok, so at first glance it might seem pretty comical to pose this question – but when you start to think about it we really are heading down a path where answers to this question will be needed. Cast your memory back 10-15 years ago. All communication with clients was via phone, fax or letter. Defining what counted towards a Sales Manager‟s activity goals as a “call” was pretty straight-forward – it was a call made to a client over the telephone. Then along came email. At first, hotel sales departments refused to count emails as calls. But over time more and more client communication moved from phone to email. Sure, from a sales perspective we would always prefer to speak to a live person – nothing beats that. But it is just a reality of the times we live in that so many of our clients point-blank refuse to use the telephone - stating that email is their preferred method of communication. So, hotel Directors of Sales begrudgingly began allowing Sales Managers to log emails as calls. So what‟s next in the evolution of communication? Easy answer – Social Media. I have talked a lot on this blog about Social Media and the need for hotel sales people to take full advantage of it to further develop existing client relationships and to forge new ones. Social Media is not going away. So let‟s say as a Sales Manager you have your top clients on your friends list on facebook. One day you message one of your clients via facebook to touch base and ask them if they have any upcoming groups that you can bid on. Does this count as a „Call‟ activity? If you were having the same discussion on the phone (or via email) you would count it. Ok, so that one was pretty cut and dry. Then what happens when you have a chat with a client via facebook (or any other instant messenger for that matter)? Personally I think that‟s as good as a phone call – so surely that counts? What about posting a message on your client‟s wall – does that count? What about posting a comment on their status, or one of their pictures, or even tagging them – does that all count? Communication with clients is to be encouraged – this is how stronger relationships are forged, but are there limits to what we consider a „call‟? Welcome to the murky world of communication via social media!!! Worth thinking about and discussing with your team – sure to inspire some debate!!!


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Diagram Drama! Ok, so for those of you in the wonderful world of catering diagrams are a major part of your lives right? Some of you create your diagrams by using stencils, some completely by free-hand, and others are lucky enough to have fabulous diagram computer programs. Either way it‟s a pretty good idea for you and your team to come to an agreement over some pretty basic standards. I say this because every office has one person on their team that goes totally overboard with their diagrams. You know them – we all know them – maybe you are that person! That person creates a diagram for virtually every event – and they label EVERYTHING! They (or you) think that they are being that much more detailed than everyone else. Problem is that they are making it hard on everyone else when really their efforts could have been better focused in other areas (like maybe more sales duh!) So here is the best way to cut down on all these unnecessary diagrams: Create a Diagrams SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) Binder. Within that binder create master copies of the standard sets that you do in each room. Common examples would be U-Shape with a Screen and Projector. Make sure you have a duplicate copy of this binder in the Catering and Banquets offices. This way when you have an event that is being set per the SOP then a diagram does not need to be distributed. Banquets should be trained that in the absence of a diagram then they are to set per the SOP. Next – make a point of determining exactly what needs to be labeled on a diagram. Remember that we still want the banquet team to read the BEO, so if your BEO says 6ft screen, you should not need to label the screen on your diagram with the size. Obviously all this goes out the window if your client is asking for a diagram that is labeled! Oh yeah, and one last thing – make sure your diagrams have a place for your client to sign off with a discussion about the implication of last minute changes (ie setup fees) – no different to getting a BEO signed really! This could really have an impact on the number of last minute changes…


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How Well Do You Know Your Top Accounts? We all pride ourselves in building our relationships with our top customers, and many of us do that part of our job really well. But it can be very hard to keep abreast of all the constant changes that go on with our top accounts.

Companies get bought and sold on a daily basis. Mergers, Acquisitions, even name changes happen all the time. It can be very easy to be on a call with a top customer and have no idea that their company has just been acquired by another. Knowing such information is important if you want to be sensitive to your client‟s feelings. Conversely, this information is also useful when soliciting for more business. So how do you keep abreast of all the latest news regarding all of your accounts? My favorite way to do this is to use Google News Alerts. I had already been in the habit of using Google to look up the news on my top accounts, but this feature takes all the work out of it for me!

After you set up a Google News Alert, Google will email you with an alert next time your account is mentioned in the news. It really is that simple!


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So let me step you through how to set this up! 1.

Go

2.

Enter

3. 4.

to For

the

the

following

name

of

„Type‟

website: your

select

http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en

account

in

„News‟

the from

„Search the

Terms‟

field.

drop-down.

For „How Often‟ I would suggest you select the weekly option to avoid being inundated with

emails. 5.

Leave „Only the Best Results‟ as the option for „Volume‟

6.

Enter your email address

7.

Click the „Create Alert‟ button

That easy! Give it a try and your will never be left out of the loop with the goings on at your top accounts!


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It may be Thursday afternoon – but before you head home…

I know everyone is just itching for the weekend and Sales people are just about headed for the door, but consider this before you shut down your computer and head to happy hour. How many of your top clients have you spoken with this week? The week may be almost over, but surely there is time left to make 2 or 3 more calls. Go ahead, just pick up the phone and call 3 of your top clients that you didn’t get a chance to speak with this week. If you didn’t speak to them, there is a good chance that one of your competitors did, so don’t let them start poaching that top producer from you. Pick up the phone – end the week on a high note (and then head to happy hour)!!!


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Got Motivation? In case any of you needed any further motivation to pick up the phone and make one more solicitation call consider this:

'A colleague recently shared with me that a 10-room night booking provides enough revenue to his hotel to pay one employee an entire week'.

I have borrowed this quote directly from a great article over on hotelsmag.com by Bart Berkey. It’s a great article all about different motivators for sales people in today's economy. With so many sales people getting disillusioned by not meeting their sales goals at the moment it is really worth taking stock at what motivates us. Remind yourself why you got into this job in the first place and then remind yourself about all the other employees of your hotel that are relying on you to bring in the business. Imagine you are able to squeeze in one more solicitation call each day - you could just have saved one more hotel employee's job...


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Fariaz Morshed Chowdhury C: +88-0171-2200-632 E: [email protected]

Who am I? Just another hotel Head of Sales trying to make my numbers for the quarter! The articles of this book are my own and don't represent any particular company's positions, strategies or opinions.


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©Fariaz Morshed Chowdhury

Hotel Sales Super Star - By Fariaz Morshed Chowdhury

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