It’s happening – some hotels are cutting back on sales training as an “unnecessary expense” to shore up dwindling profit margins.  But it’ll cost you share in an already dwindling Market RevPAR pie.

September 11, 2001

Before this infamous date, industry analysts were already predicting the greatest RevPAR decrease in forty years.  The crisis that befell America as the World Trade 

Rightfully, hotels in crisis mode are first concerned with the most basic financial survival tactics:  maintain skeleton staffing to meet whatever customer demand there is; improve worker and manager productivity; cut overhead; and manage operating expenses only to replace inventory necessary to sustain business volume.  These are natural first reactions to the immediate and significant occupancy drop experienced after the attack.   But there is evidence that the low occupancies of September will not be sustained as fall progresses and the nation gets on with life.  Recent press coverage has reported that most cancellations in the weeks following the September 11th assault were due to postponed meetings, not outright cancellations.  The first week in October was already showing signs of travel rebounding.  But even in times of crisis management, hotel leadership cannot sustain cash flow and improve market share without a sales effort that drives results like never before.

Training is Not Superfluous

An ill-trained desk clerk cannot check guests into your hotel, no matter how the staffing grids are prepared.  An ill- trained housekeeper will likely leave unsatisfactory product in inventory to be sold to guests who have a lot more options about where they might stay next time they’re in your market.  And an ill-trained Sales Manager, or more likely, one who has had little to no formal training at all, cannot compete for market share in a downside economy.  While expenses must be carefully monitored and controlled in the wake of this recent market occupancy decline, to forego Sales Manager training altogether should be filed under ‘C’, for “Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face.” 

Many Sales Managers in our industry today have only been taught how to sell in the good times.  Over the past ten years, our industry enjoyed a period of unprecedented growth, with each year of the nineties reporting record profits over the year before.  While there were pockets of over-built markets starting to show the strain of intersecting supply and demand curves (such as Dallas and Atlanta), most of the country, particularly California and the Northeast, barely had to do more than answer their phones to book the business.  Sales Managers in these markets probably are today ill-trained in matters of prospecting, cold-calling, telemarketing, negotiating, persuasion tactics and most importantly, closing the sale.  It is in these areas that a sales training program should be focused and if there were ever a time when these skills were needed, it is now.

A Critical Shortage of Talent

There is a severe shortage of sales talent in our industry right now.  Even the largest and most stable companies will whisper their concern over the lack of available talent to recruit into their fold and of sales positions that remain vacant for months on end.  For years, our industry has struggled with providing sales incentive plans that were lucrative enough to attract high-producing sales talent while meeting ever increasing profit expectations.  We believe that the start of this problem occurred when most lodging companies created sales incentive plans to be competitive against other lodging companies, when in fact, they should have been creating sales incentive plans that compete effectively against other industries.  A good many Sales Managers that came from our industry are still selling today.  But they sell in other markets for industries producing other products.
 

• Having an Incredible Hunger for the Business – The best Sales Managers have great tenacity in finding potential clients and seldom take no for an answer.

• Wanting it More that the Competition – Outselling the other guy, beating him to the punch and closing the sale before he even gets out of bed.

• Being More Creative than the Other Guy – A proposal is a proposal until you do something different to make is stand out from everyone else’s.

• Maintaining a Stronger Field Presence than the Competition – People do business with people they know.  And they know you if you’re putting your face in front of them over and over.

• Utilizing your Strengths and not Dwelling on your Weaknesses – It’s called simply, selling around your faults.  No hotel is perfect.

• Recognizing that You, not the Market, Control your Success - Avoiding excuses is the hallmark of a winning Sales persona.

• Maintaining a Balanced Attack in all Opportunity Areas – Don’t overlook the obvious.  Many a Sales Manager makes sales calls in “feeder markets” while not knowing who is located in the office building across the street.

• Being Better in the Future than You were in the Past – Strive for excellence, not perfection.

• Building Relationships through Loyal Client Partnerships – Look always for win-win scenarios; help people get what they want, and you’ll always get what you want.

• Knowing the Decision Makers No One Else Knows – Get to the ones that decide, not the ones that investigate and report.

• Showing Appreciation to Those who Support You – Just have the manner to say “thank you” for starters, which has become something of a lost nicety in today’s business world.

• Listening More than Talking – Most Sales Managers love to talk, but know when not to is actually more important.

• Selling Service First and Personally Committing to it – No client ever bought a banquet because of great carpeting.  Are your Sales Managers talking about the hotel’s great people that deliver great service or are they talking about the last time the ballroom was refurbished?

• Providing Diligent Follow-Through – Do exactly what you say you will and before you said you would.

• Utilize All Resources Available to You – How comfortable are your Sales Managers in calling the CEO of your company and asking for help making a sales call?

• Celebrating Success – The most often cited reason why Sales Managers voluntarily leave is because of a failure to have been recognized for their efforts and contribution.

• Selling the Company (or the Brand), Not Just the Hotel – Sell yourself as an organization behind an organization.

• Being a Unique Product as Well as a Unique Individual – Individuality is the key to getting noticed and what makes great sales people great.

Don’t pull the plug on keeping your Sales Managers trained.  It isn’t a superfluous expense. It’s a necessary hedge against the competition, and a safe bet to recruit and maintain a motivated sales staff in today’s difficult market.

Specializing in diagnostics of under-performing assets, Turn Key Hotel Advisors will quickly and accurately assess a hotel's competitive environment and strategic positioning.  Their consultants then provide action plans for both owner and manager that will improve the hotel's RevPAR yield, increasing revenue and drive both profitability and owner cash return.  Turn Key Hotel Advisors guarantees their results.

For hotels undergoing refurbishment, repositioning or re-branding, Turn Key Hotel Advisors created the Delta Process™, which has been successfully used in assets, to date, undergoing $200 million in redevelopment dollars.  The Delta Process™ ensures the hotel's sales and service delivery teams have specific, concrete action plans to deliver on an owner's or lender's return-on-investment expectations.

The company also conducts due diligence exercises for assets undergoing ownership change, market assessment studies for new lodging development, as well as hotel sales training, account management tools and hotel marketing products.  It is affiliated with The Consortium - An Alliance of Hospitality Companies.  Turn Key Hotel Advisors also operates a subsidiary company, Integrated Selling Systems with innovative technologies for the lodging industry, including CD Business Cards, Web Designs and On-Line Customer Reservations Booking Engines.  Turn Key Hotel Advisors is an allied member of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.