By Michael McKean, The Knowland Group
November 3, 2010
 
As sales teams execute strategies and campaigns, sales directors need to be able to manage and evaluate their efforts as well as forecast for the future. For this they need advanced reports with statistics and benchmarking details. They need to know what’s being done and whether it is working. Thinks like:

• How many calls are being made?
• How many proposals and contracts are going out the door, and how many are coming back in?
• Are you consistently losing certain types of business and if so, why?
• Who on your team is succeeding and who is struggling?

Having access to this type of data will ensure sales teams are provided with a clear picture of how successful their efforts have been and if any adjustments need to be made. Sales force automation (SFA) and meetings management tools make keeping track of a sales team’s ongoing efforts easy. They allow Directors of Sales to see early on if there are any problems with a particular sales manager so those issues can be addressed quickly. Often all it takes is a little additional training or a shift to something that better fits a person’s strengths. But these opportunities can be missed if you don’t see the problem coming in the first place. Minor annoyances can become major distractions when overlooked.   

Advanced reporting tools in sales force automation and meetings management applications allow you to quickly see what has been done and what needs to be done, by whom and when. Switch between properties to find out what’s scheduled for each of your hotels or drill down to see activity for a particular sales manager, event, or meeting. These tools are extremely helpful in letting you see the entire sales process as it happens, offering you the opportunity to make both minor and major adjustments to your plan in real time.

Today’s modern hotel business also requires powerful and accurate forecasting tools that allow you to successfully predict bookings based on the proactive outbound sales activity of your team.  These types of solutions will allow your sales teams to see how many calls lead to proposals, how many proposals lead to contracts and how many contracts result in bookings. When you can follow your sales team’s efforts in real time, it makes forecasting for the future easier and more accurate.

Proactive business development is the single most important thing hotel sales managers do. By following Knowland’s four steps, hotels can grow their business in a systematic, measurable, and repeatable way. Learn more about all the steps of professional business development at Knowland’s Business Development Defined, or by contacting the Knowland Group at 410.860.2270 and on Twitter @KnowlandGroup.
 
About The Knowland Group
The Knowland Group is a proven innovator, developing intuitive marketing products and services that streamline and support event and group sales in the hospitality industry. The company, headquartered in McLean, VA, serves over 2,000 hotel clients and 17,000 users globally. Knowland was ranked as the fifth fastest growing software company (public or private) in North America by Deloitte and the second fastest growing private company in the travel industry for both 2009 and 2010 by Inc. Magazine. For more information, visit www.KnowlandGroup.com, call 410-860-2270, or follow us on Twitter @knowlandgroup..
 
About the Author
Michael K. McKean is the CEO and Director of New Product Development for The Knowland Group. He is a hotel business development and group sales expert and regular columnist for Hotel Business Review and Hotel News Now. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter @MikeAtKnowland.