Hiring A Winner
Hotel sales requires a multi-talented, enthusiastic, friendly, outgoing
go-getter! Finding such a person requires a combination of luck, skill,
and positive thinking.
There are certain traits to look for in a sales director; five are noted
below. Please note: For this purpose, we are using the female
pronoun when discussing your potential new sales candidate.
However, we do realize there are many wonderful male sales
professionals out there as well!
Fearlessness
Your sales person must not only be willing to contact the hotel's
clients regularly -- she must really love doing so! You want someone
who will pick up the phone and call a customer rather than waiting for
the customers to call her. No "order takers" - we want "business
makers!" This is the most valuable trait a sales professional can
have, and unfortunately, the most rare. The best sales people really
enjoy contact with other people, and they don't mind stepping out of
their comfort zone -- in fact, they may thrive on it!
If you are able to find such a person, the best thing you can do is to
help her LOVE selling your property. This means not only taking care
of her and the rest of the team, but taking care of the hotel as well.
Give her something excellent to sell, and she will sell it faithfully -- even
when she is off the clock. And by the way, you don't have to have the
nicest hotel in town - but you do have to have great customer service
and a clean property. Give her that, and she can sell it!
A Head for Money
In addition to her departmental budgets, your director must track actual
sales versus goals, this year versus last year, what is needed for
future years, and individual efforts (number of phone calls, site
inspection conversion) and productivity. It is imperative that you find
someone with the ability to understand and produce each of the
reports she is expected to generate, especially if you are part of a
management company, which tends to require complicated and
detailed reporting. It is clear the advantage an owner or manager has
when his sales person not only understands these reports, but the
impact her numbers have on the property's bottom line.
Of course, avoid sales people who skew numbers to make
themselves look better or deny other people's groups so they can book
one of their own (my preference is for department-wide bonus
programs, which put emphasis on the overall success of the property,
instead of bonuses for personal goals). She must be able to
ascertain when business is not good for the hotel, whether because
the servicing required outweighs the income received, or because that
low-priced group offsets rooms that prior years show could have been
sold at a higher price. If you have 250 rooms, you can afford to allot 50
to tours and other lower priced groups, but for smaller properties, the
decision to take a discounted rate or not is especially important. Your
director must know and utilize good yield management practices, and
fully understand the expectations of her sales office to bring in
business at times and in ways that most benefit the hotel ... even when
it sometimes means saying "no" to a group.
An Inclusive Attitude
The great leaders are always team players. You want someone who
not only can hire, train, and guide the sales team but who can also
bring out the best in them all. This person will not play favorites, allow
exclusion, suffer gossips, or in any other way let anyone tear her team
apart - including the team members themselves. She will lead by
example. She should be the strongest and most productive sales
person in your hotel, and be able to sell to all market segments, so
that she can cover any of the positions on her team.
Given all of the above, it is wise to let your director handpick her staff.
Forcing the owner's cousin or your neighbor's newly graduated
nephew or even your lovely wife on your sales director is just not the
way to go. That's not to say that she wouldn't consider and interview
those folks -- but please, allow her to build her own team, since she is
ultimately responsible for their output.
An Impressive Creative Writer
Who better to write your brochures, fliers, client letters, and web copy
than the person who best knows your hotel's strengths, advantages,
and ... ahem, challenges? She knows what makes her clients want to
be there, and how best to talk up those points!
Creativity is important so that she can continue to sell your property in
new and effective ways. In fact, a huge hospitality employer in my town
has sales candidates design a brochure to bring to the second
interview -- what a great way to find out the creative stuff they are made
of, and perhaps institute a new marketing campaign!
It is easier than ever to design and maintain a website, thanks to
design services such as Yahoo Site Builder so unless you have a
complicated website, your sales and / or marketing director should be
able to maintain your hotel website. This is handy, since she can
change web copy, packages and specials, update dining room pricing,
banquet menus, photos, etc.
See our list of top Sales Tools for some good online sites that offer
excellent services, including Constant Contact, an email marketing
service that allows her to send out newsletters and holiday cards, and
manage a variety of opt-in email campaigns.
A Long Term Asset
Once you find a winner, keep that person by paying her a decent wage
and giving her free reign to run her department to the best of her ability
(good benefits and perks such as comp time when she has worked
overtime won't hurt either). Build and earn her trust and loyalty, and it
will come back to you many times over. Your goal is a crackerjack
sales professional who will sell your hotel exceedingly well, and be
with you for the long term! Do your part to make it a win-win situation
for you both.
Hotel sales requires a multi-talented, enthusiastic, friendly, outgoing
go-getter! Finding such a person requires a combination of luck, skill,
and positive thinking.
There are certain traits to look for in a sales director; five are noted
below. Please note: For this purpose, we are using the female
pronoun when discussing your potential new sales candidate.
However, we do realize there are many wonderful male sales
professionals out there as well!
Fearlessness
Your sales person must not only be willing to contact the hotel's
clients regularly -- she must really love doing so! You want someone
who will pick up the phone and call a customer rather than waiting for
the customers to call her. No "order takers" - we want "business
makers!" This is the most valuable trait a sales professional can
have, and unfortunately, the most rare. The best sales people really
enjoy contact with other people, and they don't mind stepping out of
their comfort zone -- in fact, they may thrive on it!
If you are able to find such a person, the best thing you can do is to
help her LOVE selling your property. This means not only taking care
of her and the rest of the team, but taking care of the hotel as well.
Give her something excellent to sell, and she will sell it faithfully -- even
when she is off the clock. And by the way, you don't have to have the
nicest hotel in town - but you do have to have great customer service
and a clean property. Give her that, and she can sell it!
A Head for Money
In addition to her departmental budgets, your director must track actual
sales versus goals, this year versus last year, what is needed for
future years, and individual efforts (number of phone calls, site
inspection conversion) and productivity. It is imperative that you find
someone with the ability to understand and produce each of the
reports she is expected to generate, especially if you are part of a
management company, which tends to require complicated and
detailed reporting. It is clear the advantage an owner or manager has
when his sales person not only understands these reports, but the
impact her numbers have on the property's bottom line.
Of course, avoid sales people who skew numbers to make
themselves look better or deny other people's groups so they can book
one of their own (my preference is for department-wide bonus
programs, which put emphasis on the overall success of the property,
instead of bonuses for personal goals). She must be able to
ascertain when business is not good for the hotel, whether because
the servicing required outweighs the income received, or because that
low-priced group offsets rooms that prior years show could have been
sold at a higher price. If you have 250 rooms, you can afford to allot 50
to tours and other lower priced groups, but for smaller properties, the
decision to take a discounted rate or not is especially important. Your
director must know and utilize good yield management practices, and
fully understand the expectations of her sales office to bring in
business at times and in ways that most benefit the hotel ... even when
it sometimes means saying "no" to a group.
An Inclusive Attitude
The great leaders are always team players. You want someone who
not only can hire, train, and guide the sales team but who can also
bring out the best in them all. This person will not play favorites, allow
exclusion, suffer gossips, or in any other way let anyone tear her team
apart - including the team members themselves. She will lead by
example. She should be the strongest and most productive sales
person in your hotel, and be able to sell to all market segments, so
that she can cover any of the positions on her team.
Given all of the above, it is wise to let your director handpick her staff.
Forcing the owner's cousin or your neighbor's newly graduated
nephew or even your lovely wife on your sales director is just not the
way to go. That's not to say that she wouldn't consider and interview
those folks -- but please, allow her to build her own team, since she is
ultimately responsible for their output.
An Impressive Creative Writer
Who better to write your brochures, fliers, client letters, and web copy
than the person who best knows your hotel's strengths, advantages,
and ... ahem, challenges? She knows what makes her clients want to
be there, and how best to talk up those points!
Creativity is important so that she can continue to sell your property in
new and effective ways. In fact, a huge hospitality employer in my town
has sales candidates design a brochure to bring to the second
interview -- what a great way to find out the creative stuff they are made
of, and perhaps institute a new marketing campaign!
It is easier than ever to design and maintain a website, thanks to
design services such as Yahoo Site Builder so unless you have a
complicated website, your sales and / or marketing director should be
able to maintain your hotel website. This is handy, since she can
change web copy, packages and specials, update dining room pricing,
banquet menus, photos, etc.
See our list of top Sales Tools for some good online sites that offer
excellent services, including Constant Contact, an email marketing
service that allows her to send out newsletters and holiday cards, and
manage a variety of opt-in email campaigns.
A Long Term Asset
Once you find a winner, keep that person by paying her a decent wage
and giving her free reign to run her department to the best of her ability
(good benefits and perks such as comp time when she has worked
overtime won't hurt either). Build and earn her trust and loyalty, and it
will come back to you many times over. Your goal is a crackerjack
sales professional who will sell your hotel exceedingly well, and be
with you for the long term! Do your part to make it a win-win situation
for you both.
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The Online Hotel Sales Director
| Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30 (NIV) |
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Friday, 12-Mar-10 09:37:22 PST
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