Sales4Hire™ is serving our clients with some exciting wins lately, through some really simple tactics that any hotel can implement with just a little bit of focus & energy.
For example, we have a client in a smaller market that has been hit by the oil & gas market’s downturn and an influx of new supply, making for an incredibly competitive environment. In this market, it is even more important for hotels to uncover new business, start a conversation, and build trust & credibility with prospects BEFORE the competition gets wind of the opportunity. Fortunately for this particular hotel, our Research Team, Activation Specialist, and Sales4Hire™ Account Manager have been working tirelessly to win the race in the market.
One of the benefits of the Sales4Hire™ program is that we offer shared service for hotels to manage their cost & overhead, so our Account Managers work remote and often use Google Alerts to stay ahead of the competition. However, even if your hotel sales manager is local for the property, Google Alerts is an important tool because we can’t all keep up with what is happening in the market, with our competition, etc. Google Alerts makes it simple to always be up-to-speed. Just recently, a $30K piece of business was closed for this particular property using a simple Google Alerts tactic!
Here is what happened:
- In order to stay in the loop on the latest market news, a Google Alert was set up. Here is a quick step-by-step on how to set that up:
How to Set-Up Google Alerts
1. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts/ where you’ll see this page:
2. Sign in if you have a Gmail account. If you don’t have a Gmail account, you can just start filling out the Google Alert form.
3. Enter the search terms you want the Google Alert to track, separated by commas. You can edit this later if you find you have too many or too few terms. If you’re not sure what to track, start with your city/market name and your top 5 target accounts. You may also want to include keyword phrases like “new construction” or “new business” or relevant topics that will give insights on opportunities in the market. You may need to test this out a bit for your individual market.
4. Choose the Type of results you want Google Alerts to find and share with you. You can choose from the following:
• News
• Blogs
• Video
• Discussions
• Books
• Everything (so that you can track it all)
5. Choose how often you’d like to receive your Google Alerts. I would suggest once a day or once a week depending on the size & dynamics of change in your market. You don’t want a flood of emails. You may also want an admin to do this rather than a Sales Manager so as not to distract. We have very “senior” sales staff on our Sales4Hire™ team, so they are able to quickly discern what is necessary to read and spend time on.
6. Choose how many results you want to get. You can receive “only the best results” or “everything” depending on your needs.
7. Choose where you’d like the Google Alerts delivered. If you have a Gmail account, you can receive them via Gmail. If you’d rather, you can receive them via RSS or another e-mail account.
8. Click the Create Alert button and finish.
- An alert was sent to our Sales4Hire™ Account Manager that discussed a very unique event that would be happening in & around the market, which the hotel had not previously been aware of.
- Information was immediately shared with our Research Team at the Plan B Consultants, Inc. Operations Center, where we found a phone number for the organization leading the event, placed phone calls and emails to set up a time to connect on their hotel needs.
- After several outreach attempts, the business was qualified for the hotel, meaning our Research Team uncovered the number of rooms needed, dates, budget, special requests and considerations for choosing a hotel partner, and this information was shared with the Sales4Hire™ Account Manager.
- Our Sales4Hire™ Account Manager worked with the client to negotiate a fair agreement, and was able to close the business, which is expected to bring $30,000 in guestroom revenue to the hotel.
In a struggling market, it is important to have a “hack list” of sales tools & resources at your fingertips, to help navigate the downturn and generate revenue. Sales4Hire™ and Plan B Consultants, Inc. love to share these & similarly successful “hacks” with our hotel partners! Our “done for you” sales solutions ensure proper implementation and management when you are in transition, or just need the extra support to gain traction more quickly.
Give us a shout for a free, no obligation discovery call to see if we might serve your needs through any of our customizable “done for you” services or consulting.
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