Develop Your Strategy | By Michael McKean - The Knowland Group

Once you know who your potential clients are, then you can begin to develop strategies on how best to attack that universe. Plot your course wisely. Decide things like:

• Which pieces of business you want to go after
• Which should be targeted first
• What your sales pitch is for each
• What your pricing strategy will be

Before you can implement your sales campaigns, you must study your leads to determine which are the most valuable or viable and how best to approach and interest them in your property. The quickest and easiest way to go about this is with an advanced lead generation tool that includes detailed profiles and booking histories of each group. With this crucial information, sales pitches become easy.

Before executing a strategy, a hotel director of sales (DOS) must decide on the logistics of the sales plan:

• Who will do what?
• Will some people contact different types of leads?
• Do you assign your best salesperson to contact the most profitable businesses?
• How can you best leverage your junior people?

Ensuring your sales plan is well thought out will help ensure that it is well executed. Using true SFA and meetings management tools like Knowland’s Target Net to develop the entire sales plan from start to finish will yield maximum productivity. Campaigns can be automatically configured to auto-assign leads to selected managers based on easily defined criteria. Designate a starting and ending date as well as expected response and revenue so your sales team has quantified goals to drive their efforts. By creating a sound and detailed strategy, you are building the foundation for successful business development.

Look for the next in this five-part series on business development, “Step Three: Execute.” In the meantime, learn more by contacting the Knowland Group at 410.860.2270, online at www.KnowlandGroup.com, or on Twitter @KnowlandGroup.