Plenty of people responsible for leading sales teams and hospitality organizations tell me that their people are really working as hard as they can, doing everything possible to dig up business in these lean, recessionary times. I’m sure that they want to think that. It is only natural that they want to believe in their sales team’s efforts being up to the challenge in the murky economic doldrums we find ourselves in.
But sadly, I don’t believe that all salespeople are doing everything possible to corral the fewer clients having meetings and events these days. They can’t be, given the stories and examples that have been relayed to me within the last several months.
When Lynne Valentic, CMP, a longtime planner currently working as a conference director at Custom Management in Charlottesville, Va., tells me the major problem she sees today from salespeople “is getting them to call me back,” there is something really, really wrong. And she is only one of many planners that have made similar comments in this economy.
Lame sales efforts--in a recession? Wait a minute! Stop the presses! Something is wrong with that picture!
The Word on the Street
But before you jump to conclusions that I might just be another cynical author, check out these woeful stories of misdirected sales efforts and judge for yourself. Suppliers, these may shock you. And planners, you probably already know that it could be oh, so much better out there in the arena.
Robin Eissinger, regional catering sales manager for Lake Tahoe, Calif.’s Harveys and Harrah’s, relays the comments a planner gave her on why she got a booking for 800 people recently.
“The planner sent an RFP to six hotels, and only three responded, with me being the first. He said that I had actually followed his RFP when responding with a proposal, but the other two were just random responses that could have gone to any event planner,” Eissinger says. “It seems many salespeople feel entitled, that they expect the business to come to them.”
Darci Motta, CMP, CITE, conference manager for the Northern California, Nevada and Utah division of AAA, was part of the Tri-Valley (Calif.) CVB’s planner panel that I facilitated recently. She told the story of how she requests replies to RFPs.
“Because I am constantly on the road with our meetings, I don’t have the time to talk on the phone or return calls while traveling,” she says. “I prefer to get them e-mailed to me so I can go back to my hotel room at one in the morning when it quiets down, and look them over on my computer. I kept telling this one aggressive salesperson via email to just send me his proposal. I had a deadline to meet. He kept saying he couldn’t send it without talking to me first. He wasn’t allowed to. We went back and forth, but he wouldn’t listen to me. So ultimately, his hotel didn’t get in the game because they refused to bend.”
At the same planner panel, Motta was teamed with Diane Niggli, regional manager for Helms Briscoe, and Jean Greendyke, senior program Manager for Cappa-Graham. As facilitator, I asked the panelists to mention what the most creative thing they have seen from hospitality salespeople recently. I was dumbstruck by their responses—or lack of them, to be more accurate.
They pushed the microphone back and forth, but no responses immediately came to mind.
Finally, one of them said, “I guess I was sent a room amenity on a site visit.” Not exactly a great commentary on salespeople applying creativity or customization to their sales efforts, is it?
Another sales team leader reports that his goal of having his salespeople reach just three prospects a day via prospecting is under fire by his team for being “too unrealistic—we’re being set up to fail,” they claimed. Three a day!? What are they doing the rest of the time?
At another CVB “sales boot camp” recently, one corporate planner introduced herself as someone who puts on 75 to 100 meetings per year to the audience of approximately 40 salespeople.
Shockingly, after the workshop adjourned, just three salespeople came up to her afterwards to say hello to her, and she already knew them. Not one new salesperson approached her and asked to expound a bit about those 75 to 100 meetings, or at least get an introduction going for future follow-up. Just over 7 percent of the audience made the effort to talk with her, as the rest put their coats on and made for the parking lot. Do they have so much business now that they don’t need to take a shot at some of those 100 meetings she plans each year?
Here’s another example: A golf resort property vice president of sales attended a golf industry trade show. The title sponsor—a resort—reportedly spent over $100,000 for those title rights, and had a large booth in the trade show and a big presence with signage, etc.
This vice president went into the title resort’s booth to check it out, and the large sales team they had brought was nowhere to be seen—smack in the middle of the exhibit hours. There was one person in the booth, sitting down in the back, texting. Even when two planners joined this vice president in the booth and began looking at the brochures on the table, this lone booth representative continued looking at his texts. Finally, he said to them (without getting up, greeting them, or doing anything else even a barely mediocre salesperson learns to do at their first show), “Let me know if you have any questions, Okay?”
Thud. Lost opportunity? You betcha. Why did the title sponsor spend the big bucks if it wasn’t going to put the right representatives in the expensive booth to actually sell? Like the vice president asked, “Where was everyone else, at lunch? It was in the middle of the show, two buyers were in the booth, and this guy just kept texting. Unbelievable!”
We have seen the enemy and it is us.
A wedding prospect located in upstate New York sent out an RFP for her wedding reception to four hotels a couple of months ago. She got one e-mail two days later, and it was a “generic response—had nothing to do with my wedding,” she offered.
It gets better—that hotel never ever followed up with her. From the other three hotels, she got one e-mail from one a week later, and after three weeks she had no follow up from them, either. The other two hotels were absent from the picture altogether. Does anyone want this lady’s business?
A director of sales lost who he thought was his top, most-reliable salesperson to another company. Due to budget cuts, he had to jump in and work that vacant salesperson’s substantial territory. In picking up the phone to prospect, he soon became horrified.
He was hearing things from “B” and “C” accounts like, “Oh, what happened to you guys? We haven’t heard from anyone with your resort in five years. We never think of you any more because we always thought you were way too overpriced for us.”
Of course, this DOS has quite competitive rates going these days.
“Obviously, I was mistaken to think that my former sales guy was doing everything he could do to turn over the rocks,” says the frustrated team leader, “when in reality, he was just picking the low-hanging fruit. It blows me away how many opportunities we’ve missed from the so-called B and C accounts by not staying in touch. We’re correcting that immediately.”
Indeed, necessity is the mother of invention.
I recently received an e-mail from a trade show that I attended back in January, thanking me for “spending time” in their booth—eight weeks later! Nothing about what we talked about (I do not remember whether I went into the booth or not. Maybe they just sent this blast e-mail to everyone registered at the show, which is common, unfortunately.), nor was there any particular item mentioned in the e-mail to inspire me to follow up with them.
“We just have to be more creative on the supplier side,” acknowledges Bill Hoffman, executive director of the North Lake Tahoe CVB. “It sounds simple, but a lot of people miss it. During our annual Un-tournament at MILO (Meeting Industry Ladies Organization), I get sales managers on the same staff that want to play together in the same foursome, rather than be paired with possible customers whom they don’t know in another foursome. They see each other every day back in the office. I don’t get it.”
Whatever happened to divide and conquer as a sales tool?
On and On…
So, the beat goes on. There are many other examples of weak or nonexistent sales efforts by legions of planners. Our industry likes to say we should be “hunting, not farming” these days, but not all have hit the woods yet.
Let me also say that it’s not ALL bad out there, by any means. There are some truly super salespeople out there really giving it a go and using creativity to soar above the other “birds.” I’m sure their extra efforts are paying off with more business, too. Especially today, finding that nugget where others aren’t hunting enough, or at all, is particularly satisfying. Hooray for those efforts.
But the premise here is that not everyone is doing “all they can,” and boy, the planners know it. Some salespeople want it like the “olden days” when the phones rang. In my workshops, I see all kinds of learners—some listen, absorb and readily embrace new ideas and methodologies, some give them a lighter touch, and others really think they are above learning anything new, thank you very much.
Well, planners—you have the final say on that! What lessons can both sides draw from these stories?
Face it, planners, you are time-crunched like never before. You are being scrutinized in every aspect of your meeting and event planning process. Strategic Meetings Management and ROI/outcome management is the big dog now. In some cases, you may have to continually justify your existence.
Why would you want to waste your precious time and effort (and funds) awarding your business to salespeople and organizations that don’t get it, don’t help you do your job better, don’t listen or take notes, that just aren’t that easy to do business with?
The Game Plan
Try this game plan to see how quick the idea gets around to salespeople that things need to change. Some of these may seem harsh to certain folks, but that’s the price of glory these days:
- If a site or venue can’t show you the courtesy of returning your inquiry, calls, or e-mails, they are out.
- If a site or venue cannot address your RFP to the exact specifications you asked for, can’t read it over entirely, be accurate in responding, or be on time with your deadline, they are out, too.
- If salespeople and their organizations cannot find ways to make it easy to do business with them, they are out. Go somewhere where they show they care and are willing to make your life a whole lot easier. Your success is important!
- If salespeople don’t bother to ask how you prefer to communicate as you begin the solicitation/pursuit process, and they just keep trying to do what THEY are comfortable doing, then they are likely not the consultative salesperson you’re going to need. Tell them what you expect, or how you can both give a little to make it work. Then, if they don’t listen, they are out.
- Oh, yeah, the listening thing. I recently asked 10 planner panelists to tell me one piece of advice they would choose to offer salespeople. Eight agreed on “Listen to me.” The other two agreed with this advice but added, “And then get back to me.” No listening skills, no business courtesy, no sale. They’re out.
- Salespeople should customize their entire selling approach to you. You and your organization’s needs/goals are not the same as any other planner they will encounter, so why should you be treated the same way? How many planners are sent generic fruit baskets and they don’t even eat fruit? If a salesperson can’t use their creativity and apply it by customizing their approach to YOU, then what hope do you have that your group will get special treatment, either?
It’s All About You
It’s true that salespeople have plenty of creative tools at their disposal to use on site inspections, sales calls, etc.—but do they often think to use them, or where to look for them? If I hear the trite phrase “We think outside the box here” (and it turns into delivering cookies to planner offices as a BIG idea) one more time, I think I’ll throw my fruit basket over the balcony.
Not every creative idea has to cost $10,000, either. Customized room gifts or amenities can be accomplished for a few extra dollars. Customized (and accurate) proposals cost only time. If they won’t make the extra effort to customize for you, they’re either out or down on the list.
Not all is bad. Legions of planners have their favorite salespeople, and vice versa. Our business is founded on, to a large degree, fabulous, long-term relationships between planners and their vendors/suppliers. They might think this list is a bit harsh. It is. But it’s real.
As one planner put it, “You’d think that especially in a recession these things [bad sales stories] wouldn’t happen. They should never happen anytime, but to happen in these times? I don’t get it.”
So planners, take your business to those who “get it.” The only way you as customers can truly affect change is to change your buying habits and thereby send messages loud and clear to your supply-side providers that only the deserving vendors will get your business.
Telling them to “straighten up and fly right” will make your lives easier and your events better. And right now in this economy, you are calling most of the shots.
Sales team leaders, owners, and operators: Please pay attention to these misdirected sales stories. They really happened and are happening today. They may be happening down the hall from you. And it really all can be so much better. You may want to re-evaluate whether your team is truly “doing everything they can,” as these stories bear out that that’s not always the case.
And salespeople; don’t fool yourselves. You can always do a little bit more. Put the mantra “…and then some” into your daily routine with customers. The fruits of victory over your competitors are truly yours for the taking, if you are willing to do the right things. In a sea of mediocrity, anyone who makes the extra effort to do a little more, apply a little more, work a little smarter, be courteous and creative, and hunt the tough hunt has a great chance to rise above the crowd as a shining superstar.
Gary R. Hernbroth, chief motivating officer for Danville, Calif.-based Training for Winners, is a nationally recognized professional speaker, trainer and performance coach with over 33 years of experience in the hospitality and meetings industry. A graduate of The School of Hospitality at Michigan State University, Gary invested 18 years in sales, marketing and operations management positions in various luxury hotels, prior to founding Training for Winners in 1995. He regularly delivers keynotes and programs for ASAE, MPI, HSMAI, PCMA and DMAI. His clientele includes leading hotels of all sizes and affiliations, resorts, CVBs, associations and corporations. Hernbroth’s executive training has been featured in SELLING POWER magazine. He is a frequent author on sales and business topics in both print and online media, including "expert" status on EZine.com. He is a past two-term president of the Northern California PCMA chapter, and currently serves on two committees for the Convention Industry Council. He can be reached at (925) 736-9392 or via e-mail at gary@trainingforwinners.com. His website is located at www.trainingforwinners.com.
