Since the beginning of my career in hotel sales & marketing the buzz phrase has been “protect your prime selling time” or something close to that.  The message from hotel sales leaders from the beginning of time has been for their sales team to focus on direct sales efforts usually between the hours of 9AM and 4PM in whatever time zone their sales efforts need to be focused.  Yet, in epic proportions I experience hotel sales managers focus all over the spectrum and far from direct revenue generating tasks during prime client facing activity time.

To help break this out, we need to look at true revenue generating activities out in regards to how time should be managed within those activities to maximize client-facing and engagement vs. administrative functions.

What are the activities that most hotel sales managers perform on a day-to-day basis?

Each of the above tactics are important to running the sales operation, ensuring clients and prospects are taken care of, and the new business pipeline continues to grow and flow through the sales system.

This list is fairly short, actually, but there are many hours packed into each tactical step, and what I see happening on property is that the sales manager allows themselves to get pulled into the activities that are non-revenue generating more frequently because they become urgent matters that need attention rather than planning for those activities throughout the week.

I like to distinguish days on property sales in two categories:  Focus Days and Buffer Days.  Focus days for me are geared 85% toward revenue generating activity.  Buffer days are focused on all of the other administrative activity.  Depending on the property and its unique situation, you could also break out focus and buffer by the hour.  For example, you have buffer hours from 8AM – 9AM and 3PM – 5PM with focus time from 9AM – 3PM.  This makes a lot of sense for many sales managers as they determine their “prime revenue generation hours” to be when customers are available and in their offices.

Here is a breakout of the above list between Focus Time and Buffer Time.

At Plan B Consultants and Sales4Hire our mission is to ensure whether a sales team exists on property or we are the acting sales team, time is maximized, there is focus on what really matters for revenue generation and the hotel becomes more efficient and effective at driving revenue.  Essentially, sales should be focused on the compressed sales cycle at every property regardless of size and situation.  This is essential in winning business.   It takes practice, and discipline and most of all the efforts must be intentional.  Time management for effective sales is not something that can be thrown together each morning and plan the day around reaction to an email inbox or the fire drill of the day.  A strong sales effort must be planned and executed moving toward a specific goal for sales revenue.

What are some other items you would add to the list of either Focus Time or Buffer Time?  How do you plan your sales day, or if you are leading a sales team what are your expectations of a sales team’s time management?  I’d love to hear about your experiences and learn from each other!