| Sales Tools
Turn Key Hotel Advisors offers sales training and account management
products to owners that will help their sales organizations deliver improved
revenue producing results and put more heads in beds! All products are
presented with a satisfaction guarantee.
Sales Associate Education Workshop
PKF Consulting is forecasting the greatest RevPAR decline nationwide
this year in over forty years. These troubled economic times mean
that hotels are having to fight like never before to keep the customers
they have and sell like never before to find new ones. TURN KEY HOTEL
ADVISORS has specially created the "Sales Associate Education Workshop"
for hotel sales teams. Structured as either two full-day or four
half-day Workshops, the emphasis is in getting back to the basics in sales,
including personal presentation in sales calls, prospecting for new business,
account qualification, creative product exposure techniques, proposals
that will get you noticed, the basics of blitzes, knocking down objections,
negotiation strategies, persuasion tactics and closing the sale.
The Workshop is customized to ensure your hotel's culture and sales processes
are incorporated seamlessly into the subject matter of each module, and
includes exercises and role-playing sessions designed to reinforce
basic sales practices. Find out more here
and learn how this new product from Turn Key Hotel Advisors can prepare
your sales team to do battle in today's highly competitive environment.
Creating a Sales Savvy Culture
All financially successful hotels have one thing in common: a
successful sales effort. If a sales operation is successful, it is
because it thrives in an environment that reinforces what sales people
do every day. Turn Key Hotel Advisors knows that general managers
who understand this concept see themselves as part of the sales process,
not merely the supervisors it. What comes as a result of this understanding
is an executive leadership team that drives a sales culture through the
hotel. This six-hour seminar, "Creating a Sales Savvy Culture" for
general managers and members of the hotelexecutive and sales teams teaches
how to foster a sales savvy culture that will drive loyal client partnerships
and incremental revenues. What should a DOS expect from a GM?
What should GMs expect their DOS to deliver and how? How are these
two positions interdependent in achieving the hotel's financial goals?
Old school conventional wisdom says the DOS does sales and the GM does
operations. Nothing, in today's competitive hotel environment, could
be more outdated and further from the truth. Let this six hour class
help your hotel reap deep dividends in improved sales, increased revenues
and better market position.
Volume Account Management Toolbox
Volume accounts with a locally negotiated rate (LNR), Base accounts
like aircrew and flat-pattern training business, Preferred accounts that
provide benefits to the booker, and accounts that are represented by the
large consortia travel agencies - all of these can be a sizable portion
of a hotel's strategic mix in many markets, especially those that thrive
on repeat corporate clientele. Unfortunately, many of these accounts
are co-mingled, mismanaged and misunderstood. Some hotels may not
be ensuring that the right amount of volume business is being taken at
the right rate and this could be working to the detriment of more profitable
business that might otherwise be available in the market. Turn Key
Hotel Advisors has created the Volume Account Management Toolbox to help
you ensure your hotel is taking the right amount of business and that LNR,
Base, Preferred and Consortia accounts are being managed and priced correctly.
That means maximum rate yield and better flow-through dollars to your bottom
line.
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| The Delta
Process™ - A Plan for Hotel Repositioning
Change, as a result of capital investment in a hotel asset for major
refurbishment and repositioning, must be managed with the same intensity
that the expenditure of capital funds themselves must be managed. All too
often in the hotel investment community, the scope of a capital Redevelopment
plan is limited to the improved physical features or refurbishment of a
hotel asset. This is but one of five critical elements that must change
in the Redevelopment of a hotel asset and if left unmanaged, the remaining
four areas of change are doomed to happenstance, mediocrity or blind luck.
Thus, the potential yield of the investment cannot be fully realized unless
the total scope of change has a strategic direction, a tactical plan to
achieve that strategy, and a means to monitor execution of and make continual
adjustments to that tactical plan.
Redevelopment of a hotel asset then, means much more than investing
capital to alter the physical appearance or functionality of an asset.
Redevelopment must also include a redeveloped strategic direction for the
hotel; a redeveloped position within the new competitive set; a redeveloped
service strategy; and a redeveloped tactical sales plan that speaks to
new methods of achieving sales goals. New customers must be attracted to
the hotel. New pricing objectives must be achieved. Group demand must be
generated and transient demand must be managed differently. The marketplace
will react to these changes and the hotel must be able to respond to their
changing market dynamics quickly. Indeed, they must anticipate them before
they occur.
A redeveloped strategic direction means creating a new strategic mix
of business with volume and rate objectives in every market segment. Since
the strategic mix of the hotel must change, the newly refurbished attributes
of the hotel, vis-à-vis the specific needs and wants of each market
segment, must be defined and a plan must be created to marry them. This
cannot occur without considerable contemplation, deliberation and time
spent in both strategic and tactical planning.
A redeveloped position within the competitive set should be the expected
end-result of a revised strategic mix with its new volume and rate objectives.
Newly defined goals in RevPAR penetration of the hotel competitive set
must be defined and understood by the Sales team. Indeed, the competitive
set itself must be reevaluated and could also change. For example, if the
refurbishment of the subject hotel includes the addition of meeting space,
this would imply a change in the strategic mix to capture additional group
business. As such, competitors with an equivalent amount of meeting space
previously not considered a competitor in the group segment would now be
a direct competitor for that business. Clearly, the investment in the physical
asset is being made for an expected financial return. This will not likely
occur unless the asset assumes a higher position within the competitive
set through improved rate penetration and greater market share in that
segment.
A redeveloped service strategy means dissecting the way in which the
hotel has delivered service in the past and through a self-critical analysis,
reinvents itself with new goals for guest satisfaction. This process mandates
new skills and service training for line-level employees and renewed leadership
motivation to attain those goals. Often times, an asset undergoing Redevelopment
must not only overcome negative guest perception of quality in terms of
the condition of the physical plant, but also in terms of the service attitudes
of its management and employees. The philosophy of hotel service delivery
must be redefined, clearly communicated and well understood by every employee
in the hotel. A new service culture must therefore emerge as a critical
part of the repositioning exercise. This is not an easy task and thus,
it is one element of hotel repositioning that is often glossed over and
underachieved.
Finally, a redeveloped tactical sales plan must be created. This is
vital. Unless the sales team thoroughly understands the expectations of
the new strategic plan and the associated return on owner investment that
this plan is intended to deliver, the hotel will not effectively reposition
itself and the anticipated strategic mix is not likely to be realized.
These tactical plans must be continually monitored and refined as the competition
adjusts their own strategies to countermand the effects of new market dynamics
created by the repositioning of the subject hotel.
A wise man once said, "The only person who appreciates change is a wet
baby." The truth in this statement rests in the fact that humans are inherently
adverse to change. Change is neither easily created nor accepted. Changing
the scope of the physical plant is perhaps the easiest of all changes that
must be managed in the repositioning of a hotel asset. Changing human behavior
is generally more difficult because it is not as tangible or as easily
defined. Redevelopment plans that manage and embrace change behaviorally,
from both a sales perspective as well as a service delivery perspective,
can result from a process created by Turn Key Hotel Advisors called, "The
Delta Process".
The Delta Process™ will accomplish the task of repositioning strategic
sales and service delivery plans through four steps: (1) an examination
of the market and hotel performance data that led ownership to conclude
that the subject hotel asset is worth an investment for an anticipated
return; (2) an analysis of the subject hotel's past performance, its strategic
and tactical sales plans during the prior eighteen to thirty-six months
that brought the hotel to its present position in the market; (3) a review
of the physical elements of the refurbishment plan with both the sales
and service delivery teams enabling each team to integrate the new hotel
attributes into a redefined sales mission and service delivery culture;
and (4) a means to examine the attributes of each competitor's market position,
its strategic mix, operational intensity and service performance. This
last step will allow the subject hotel's sales and service delivery teams
to: (a) ascertain the appropriate market niche that the repositioned asset
will hold; (b) which hotels within the competitive set will most likely
deliver the fiercest competition; (c) which hotels are already entrenched
in the subject hotel's desired market position; and (d) how the newly redeveloped
sales and service delivery plans must overcome competitor position and
potential subsequent competitor moves.
The Delta Process™ culminates at the Delta Meeting, though it neither
begins nor ends there. The Delta Meeting is a means to bring the focus
and mental energy of the sales and the service delivery teams in concert
with the physical Redevelopment that is proposed, ongoing or recently completed.
Optimally, however, The Delta Process™ should begin three to six months
prior to commencement of the refurbishment plan with the Delta Meeting
occurring within thirty to sixty days of the most active phase of the refurbishment
schedule. This meeting is a convergent point to create a master Redevelopment
critical path. The output from the Delta Meeting is the essence of hotel
Redevelopment. It is the plan by which hotel leadership will manage the
extraordinary changes that must occur as a result of a successful product
repositioning after the physical refurbishment has concluded. The plan
is a tangible expression of managing the change associated with a new physical
plant, a renewed hotel sales mission and a revitalized service culture.
It speaks to improved operational intensity and redefined revenue management
strategies that ultimately have but one purpose: to deliver owner return
on the investment being made in the subject hotel.
Turn Key Hotel Advisors provides everything the hotel needs to initiate
The Delta Process™, including workbooks, business plan outlines, analytical
tools, presentation templates, meeting formats and agendas, and workgroup
exercises. Our experienced advisors can facilitate a Delta Meeting for
maximum results or train your in-house talent to do their own.
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| Asset Development
and Recovery
Turn Key Hotel Advisors offers specialized, custom services that quickly
respond to hotel owner concerns to help improve operating results.
All services include an initial, personal consultative session and are
presented with a satisfaction guarantee.
Asset Assessment and Recovery Services
An asset failing to deliver on owner expectation may signify operational
problems that are not readily apparent, even to a management company in
charge of the asset. With experience in over fifty US markets and
asset supervision ranging from limited - service roadside to four-star
multi-segmented hotels, the experienced operational eyes of Turn Key Hotel
Advisors can provide Asset Assessment and Recovery Services that will surface
asset problems and provided recommended "turn key" solutions. Why
spend your internal talent trying to figure out how to improve problem
asset performance? Focus them instead on assets in upswing markets
to "make hay while the sun is shining" and deploy Turn Key Hotel
Advisors on your non-performing assets. Our diagnostic services will
yield a prescription to bring hotel asset performance back to yield expectations
in less time and less expensively than your own in-house talent will cost
you in lost productivity and opportunity. The power of our consortium
can find the right solution for any asset problem.
Due Diligence Services
Due diligence of an asset disposed for acquisition is a complex task.
While predicting the future is an inexact science, Turn Key Hotel Advisors
has years of experience in making market assessment and asset production
pro-forma statements. Owners need to be sure they are seeing everything
they need to see: the upside potential as well as the downside risk.
Don't make the mistake of relying on your current management group to provide
due diligence services and pro-forma estimates.
The potential conflict of interest in this practice lies in the vested
interest management may have in ownership closing the sale if that secures
a new management contract. Turn Key Hotel Advisors can provide Due
Diligence Services impartially, without a vested interest in the outcome.
We'll point out the potential opportunity, what that opportunity will cost
and where the risk is. Pro-forma statements can be generated in as
little as ten days.
Consulting Services
Turn Key Hotel Advisors has a wealth of experience in all facets of
hotel operations and development. Our association with outstanding
management groups and hotel brands in over fifty US markets have given
us the confidence to provide "turn key" solutions to your hotel asset problems.
On-going or project-specific Consulting Services are available with flexible
fee structures to meet your specific needs.
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| Training
and Education
Turn Key Hotel Advisors offers training products to owners that will
help their managers become better operators and deliver improved operating
results. All training products are presented with a satisfaction
guarantee. Review thumbnail descriptions on this page or click on
the product you're interested in for more details and pricing information.
PEOPLE DO WHAT THEY DO (because of what they get after they do it)
Hotel executive and middle management alike need to know what motivates
their employee team and how to avoid what de-motivates them! This is a
day-long seminar that will leave a lasting impression on the hotel leadership
team so they learn the dynamics of human motivation and the role they play
in building morale and maintaining high productivity. In today's
booming economy with unemployment at its lowest point in years, hotels
cannot afford to lose line level employees to the competition. What
do employees want most? To be valued for their contribution; to have
a voice in matters that concern them and to arrive each day at a hotel
they call "a great place to work." Turn Key Hotel Advisors created
the "People
Do What They Do (because of what they get after they do it)" seminar
to show hotel leadership teams how to give employees want they want most,
which will reduce turnover, recruitment and training costs, generate improved
productivity and greater bottom line results.
Managing Employee Productivity
This is a four hour instructional course that may be purchased for use
in your hotel. It is also a "turn key" solution to ensure payroll
controls are in place at your hotel and that new and newly hired operations
managers have the necessary tools and education to manage your number one
property expense. Turn Key Hotel Advisors offers this self-contained
course in an easy-to-use, fill-in-the-blank Microsoft Word™ template.
Input your property specific information and print out a quality, professional
Facilitator's Guide and Participant Workbooks. The templates can
then be easily and inexpensively reproduced and conveniently updated for
continual, on-going use at your hotel. Payroll and associated benefits
expenses easily amount to fifty cents on each $1.00 in revenue. "Managing
Employee Productivity" is good insurance to make certain this expense is
being minimized and wisely spent.
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| Financial
Reporting
P&L Statements and STAR* Reports are a maze of dizzying information,
not easily analyzed to extrapolate the most important information to an
Operations and Sales team. An exclusive product from Turn Key Hotel
Advisors, the Hotel
Performance Summary Page will quickly tell a hotel management team
what it needs to know to drive better operating results. It's a P&L
Statement for the new millennium!
The Hotel Performance Summary Page - A modern approach to financial
and statistical reporting.
The hotel Profit & Loss Statement was created by accountants for
accounting purposes and has remained largely unchanged since the 1950's.
It typically is comprised of five generic revenue-generating departments:
rooms, food, beverage, telephone and miscellaneous income; four overhead
departments: administrative & general, sales & marketing, plant
operations or maintenance (sometimes laundry as a separate department)
and employee benefits. Along with a plethora of varying degrees of other
market data and statistics, most hotel P&L statements are at least
a dozen pages with monthly performance information, year-to-date performance
information, and comparisons to performance in the prior year.
Hotel general managers are busy people. Demands on margin improvement
in the last decade have required most hotels to tighten their belt, demanding
fewer staff members who deliver higher productivity than ever before. GMs
are faced daily with operational concerns in staff shortages as the strong
economy and low unemployment create challenges in service delivery at any
given moment. GMs are further faced with training, employee counseling
and motivation, dealing with customer issues and complaints, participating
in the sales process, and in general, minding the store. Especially in
limited service hotel environments, all of this does not leave much time
for P&L analysis and strategic planning.
P&L statements do not provide an easy methodology for operators
to extrapolate relevant information. After all, accountants, to fulfill
the needs of accountants, created them. In order for operations to derive
meaningful information from a P&L statement, it requires time, a calculator
and the ability to think in terms of operational tactics. A prudent GM
will pull relevant financial information and cost relationships in order
to find the five, six, or seven most important things on which he and his
team must focus to improve operating performance in the upcoming financial
reporting period. Unfortunately, most general managers simply don't have
the time or the wherewithal to complete this kind of analysis, let alone
communicate its results in a meaningful way to the hotel leadership team.
As such, department heads are oftentimes not given feedback on their operating
performance that would otherwise encourage them to alter some behavior
in their workaday routine that would drive more profitable operating results.
Thus, the Hotel
Performance Summary Page was created by Turn Key Hotel Advisors to
provide both operators and owners with a quick and easy method to extrapolate
the most relevant data from a P&L statement and communicate its results
in terms of opportunity costs, or theoretical impact to EBITDA (earnings
before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). The single page
summary (either for monthly or year-to-date information) is both easy to
understand and can be a tool to communicate important financial information
to the hotel leadership team, who often have neither the training nor the
experience to fully understand the financial implications of their day-to-day,
minute-by-minute operational decisions. The Hotel Performance Summary Page
can also be an invaluable tool to monitor and evaluate the financial performance
of the leadership team. Quickly comparing year-to-date results with monthly
results will determine if any given performance criterion is trending in
either a positive or negative direction.
The Hotel Performance Summary Page also includes a quick extrapolation
of market and hotel performance data provided by Smith Travel & Research,
if your hotel is already subscribing to this service. The "STAR" report
is a three page matrix of sometimes confusing and potentially superfluous
information and many hotel sales & marketing teams do not know how
to find the three most relevant numbers in this maze of statistical information:
market penetration of occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR from the prior year. This
information is a key indicator as to whether or not the hotel's strategic
plan is achieving its goals.
The Hotel Performance Summary Page is an "Operations P&L." It takes
accounting information and turns it into operational information that can
be used to improve daily hotel operations and financial results.
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| Integrated
Selling Systems
CDs the Size of a Business Card
Turn Key Hotel Advisors Adds Dynamic New Marketing Product to Client
Offerings
February 8, 2001 - Turn Key Hotel Advisors announced an agreement with
Network Media Partners, LLC, to add a unique CD Card to its product line
as an intriguing marketing tool for lodging and related businesses.
Dale Turner, President of the Dallas based advisory group, said the agreement
grants his company exclusive retail distribution rights to hotels, resorts,
tour operators, tour and travel wholesalers and other businesses with affiliation
to the hospitality and lodging industries.
Robert Schwab, general partner of Network Media Partners and manufacturer
of the CD Card under the label CityCDCards.com, said, "We are delighted
to enter into this agreement with the principles of Turn Key Hotel Advisors.
Their insight and knowledge of the hospitality industry will enable us
to quickly find a whole new conduit for distribution of our product that
would otherwise take us months to cultivate."
The product creating all of this intrigue is called a CD Card and in
essence, is a compact disc, roughly the size of a business card, packed
with up to 50 megabytes of multi-media images, eye-catching graphics, action
video and stereophonic sound. Any company's product or service can
be digitally represented on the CD, which can then be merchandised to potential
customers as an electronic brochure and even linked to the company's web
site. The CD is about 3 x 2-1/4 inches, just slightly larger than
a typical business card. In fact, it can be silkscreen labeled and
used as a business card, which has the benefit of doubling as a virtual
sales brochure. Schwab said, "After a year of manufacturing this
product, we have perfected our production techniques. This CD Card
is a novelty that few people have experienced and it is very attention-getting."
"I couldn't believe it would actually work on my computer when someone
showed me a demo for the very first time," recalls Turner.
"But I put the CD in my laptop just like any regular sized CD and it started
right up. My computer screen became a five minute commercial for
a real estate group. I couldn't stop watching it. The CD was
vivid and interesting, and it ended by linking me directly to that company's
website."
Schwab and Turner are collaborating on a demo CD specifically aimed
at hotel sales and marketing teams. Turner will use the demo to showcase
the product with hoteliers during upcoming trade shows this spring.
"Essentially," Turner said, "I think the product will sell itself.
Once a savvy hotel operator sees that they can produce their entire sales
kit in an electronic medium for two-thirds the cost of printing hard copies
and with far greater viewer impact, they will want it before their competitors
get hold of it."
Turner also announced his company's new division, Integrated Selling
Systems, which will serve as its retail entity to market, sell and distribute
the Hotel CD Cards. In addition and through the Consortium of Turn
Key Hotel Advisors, Integrated Selling Systems will also offer web designs
and on-line hotel reservation booking engines.
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