In December, 2015 we were called upon to assist a hotel partner in an Atlanta Suburb.  This property recently completed an extensive renovation and needed to drive awareness of the completion & get back on track with building a consistent sales pipeline that fit their business needs rather than wait for ideal leads to come through via inquiry.

After a deeper dive discussion with the hotel’s Director and Assistant Director of Sales & Marketing, we determined that our Right Fit Lead® program was a fit for their team to “turn up the volume” on leads that made sense for their newly renovated property in a market with a lot of supply.  They had a solid sales team that was well situated, and capable of following up with these new opportunities.  However, they needed help proactively uncovering groups & meetings that were not already in the middle of soliciting RFPs from them, and every one of their competitors.  They needed to reach out before the customers were in that solicitation mode, before they were lumped in with all of the other competitors, and before they became commoditized.

We set out with the sales team to come up with the best list of target accounts that met their ideal group & meetings profiles.  Through our planning process, which includes interviews with the property, collecting insights around their “backyard” customers, and taking a deep dive into various databases, we came up with a list of around 800 contacts the hotel was not currently doing business with.

From there, our team of Researchers conducted qualification calls to learn more about the contacts’ hotel needs in the market.  Using our proprietary lead scoring system, we scored each lead, and passed along daily opportunities, specifically for leads level 3-5.  Qualifications are as follow:

• Level 3: The contact shares that their hotel business is a scope fit for the hotel, meeting all criteria of size, budget, and history of using like hotels.
• Level 4: All of Level 3 must be true, plus we can determine a next step timeline with the customer. They are able to share when their next opportunity to use the hotel would be, and when they will start planning and/or signing agreements.
• Level 5: All criteria for Levels 3 and 4 are fulfilled, and the contact is ready to engage with the hotel with a proposal, site tour or contract, now!

Our task was to give the hotel a quick-start to generate a new business pipeline.   The hotel partner purchased a guarantee of 25 leads Level 3-5 with no timeline for deliverable as they wished for quality vs. speed and quantity.

In just two weeks, our team over delivered 27 new opportunities at Level 3-5 for the property, which were broken out as the following:

• Level 3: 14 Opportunities
• Level 4: 8 Opportunities
• Level 5: 5 Opportunity

These 27 opportunities totaled an estimate of 2,790 roomnights (on the low end), with six leads stating they had opportunity for Q1 2016, two leads for Q2 2016, two leads in Q3 2016, two leads for Q4 2016, two leads in Q1 2017, two leads in Q2 2017 and two leads in Q3 2017.  Seven of the Level 3 leads did not give a known timeline for their next opportunities, yet stated they had meeting opportunities that pop up unexpectedly throughout the year and could not predict their next exact need dates.  Some also shared that they had already booked their 2016 meetings and were unsure when they would start to look at future years.

During the course of the project, our team developed useful insights from the information we found, and determined that 33% of the contacts uncovered Level 1-5 were in the professional services category, which includes consulting, legal, etc. We also verified that there is not one key competitor in their market, but several with prospects mentioning the competitive set fairly equally across the board.  This kind of information provides added value for our hotel partner to build upon their strategies for new business development, and for our future lead generation initiatives.

Plan B Consultants, Inc. provides “done for you” hotel sales solutions in the form of Right Fit Lead® Prospecting, Plan B Activation™, which is our follow-up and nurturing phase of the Right Fit Lead® Process, Plan B Sales Safari™ Sales Blitzes, and our suite of Sales4Hire™ services.  To view our full-menu of services CLICK HERE.

To see how we might be able to help your hotel generate more, consistent revenue, schedule a FREE consultation call with our Founder, Amy Infante! Or Contact: amy.infante@planbconsultants.com   (312) 636-7384