Professional Sales

1
Professional Sales

• Objective Introducing personal selling in
  tourism and hospitality. Special emphasis will be
  given to Fam Trips.

2
Personal Selling

• Concerned with direct interaction between the
  seller and buyer.
• Highly effective form of communication.
• Offers chance for the seller to respond to the
  individual needs of the customers, provide a
  tailored and flexible solution, answer questions,
  gain feedback immediately, and adapt the message.

3
Advantages

• ability to close sales
• ability to hold the customers attention
• immediate feedback and two-way communications
• presentations tailored to individual needs
• ability to target customers precisely
• ability to cultivate relationships
• ability to get immediate action

4
Disadvantages

• high cost per contact
• inability to reach some customers as effectively

5
Functions of the Sales Team

• Finding new customers
• Selling services
• Communicating
• Representing the organization
• Establishing and maintaining relationships with
  customers or other stakeholders

6
In the tourism and hospitality sector

• Due to nature of the industry, staff
  responsibilities include a sales function.
• Staff has the opportunity to make a sale, even if
  they are not part of the sales team.
• Many staff has chance to sell up or cross
  sell.
• Familiarization fam trips by tour operators and
  hospitality trade to agents have a major role in
  tourism.

7
Role of familiarisation trips

• Familiarization trips are vital to overcome the
  intangible nature of tourism services.
• They are quite common for intermediaries and
  travel press in tourism.
• With the help of such trips, intermediaries can
  have first-hand information and experience
  regarding tourism destinations and operations and
  then they act as opinion leaders.
• Relationships between the media and tourism firms
  and destinations result in greater exposure.

8
Management of Professional Sales

• In tourism and hospitality, regarding personal
  selling, the following should be considered
• Nature of hospitality sales
• Sales force objectives
• Sales force structure and size
• Organizing the sales department
• Recruiting and training a professional sales
  force
• Managing the sales force
• Managing strategic client relationships

9
Nature of Hospitality Sales

• Sales personnel function as the companys
  personal link with its customers.
• The cost is high but it is the most effective
  tool for hospitality firms since sales
  representatives perform important functions
  including
• Prospecting salespeople find and cultivate new
  customers.
• Targeting salespeople decide to whom to spend
  their time.

10

• Communicating salespeople communicate
  information between the company and the
  customers.
• Selling salespeople know how to approach,
  present, answer objections and close sales.
• Servicing salespeople provide a number of
  services to customers including consulting on
  their problems, providing technical assistance,
  arranging financing, expediting delivery.
• Information gathering salespeople do market
  research and fill in call reports.
• Allocating salespeople decide who to allocate
  scarce resources.

11

• Maintaining strategic partnership senior
  salespeople including the sales manager provide
  planning assistance to clients.
• Today, rather than just concentrated on selling,
  sales people should focus on customer
  satisfaction and company profits.
• They should know how to analyze sales data,
  measure market potential, gather market
  intelligence, develop marketing strategies and
  proficient in sales tactics.
• They should be knowledgeable about marketing
  (e.g. yield management) as well as selling.

12
Sales Force Objectives

• Hospitality firms set objectives for their sales
  force.
• Setting objectives is important because they
• help companies reach their company goals. Goals
  include revenue, market share, improving
  corporate image, etc.
• help the sales force to plan and execute their
  sales programs.

13

• Sales force objectives must be customer designed
  annually.
• Annual marketing and sales objectives are broken
  down quarterly and monthly objectives.
• These are further broken down by the sales force
  into personal objectives by day and week.
• Sales managers are responsible to assign
  objectives to individual salespeople.
• Common sales objectives include
• Sales volume, upselling and second-chance
  selling, market share or market penetration,
  product-specific objectives.

14

• Sales volume is measured in terms of occupancy,
  passenger miles, total covers within tourism.
  They all mean increasing number of customers.
  Emphasis on volume alone means price
  dicscounting, attracting undesirable market
  segments, and cost cutting.
• Sales volume by selected segments establishing
  sales objectives by specific market segment to
  improve revenue.
• Sale volume and price/margin mix establishing
  sales volume objectives by product lines to get
  the desired gross profit. It is the basis for
  revenue management.

15

• Upselling and second-chance selling selling
  higher-priced products such as suite rooms
  through upselling. On the other hand,
  second-chance is about selling additional
  services to clients who have already booked some
  services such as a meeting room for 2 days.

16

• Market share or market penetration compared to
  sales volume, less important for most hospitalit
  operations. However, rather than the individual
  operations, corporate marketing departments of a
  chain is likely to be concerned with market
  share.

17

• Product-specific objectives occasionally sales
  force may be given specific responsibility to
  improve sales volume for specific product lines
  such as memberships.

18
Sales Force Structure and Size

• Common sales force structures in hospitality
  include
• Territorial-structured sales force
• Market-segment-structured sales force
• Market-channel-structured sales force
• Customer-structured (key accounts) sales force
• Combination-structured sales force
• Sales force size is determined by going through
  the following steps

19

• Customers grouped into size classes according to
  their annual sales volume.
• The desirable call frequencies (per year) are
  established for each class.
• The number of accounts in each size class is
  multiplied by the corresponding call frequency to
  find out the total workload.
• The average number of calls a salesperson can
  make per year is determined.
• The number of salespeople needed is determined.

20
Organizing the Sales Department

• In hospitality, traditionally, departments are
  organized along functional lines.
• Therefore, in a hotel, there may be a sales
  department, a guest relations department, an
  advertising and public relations department, but
  not a marketing department.
• Recently, some hotels started to have sales and
  marketing department.
• A sales manager is responsible from sales and
  marketing, although sales is often more
  emphasized.

21

• Today, there are two types of salespeople inside
  sales force and a field sales force.
• Inside salespeople there are three types
  technical-support persons, sales assistants, and
  telemarketers. Technical-support persons provide
  technical information and answers customers
  questions. Sales assistants provide clerical
  support to field salespersons. They call ahead,
  confirm appointments, carry out credit checks,
  etc. Telemarketers use the phone to find new
  customers. They may call up to fifty customers
  per day compared four or five that an outside
  salesperson contacts.

22

• Field sales force in hospitality, there are
  different types of field sales force as
  commissioned reps and salaried sales force.
  Commissioned sales reps are used for distant
  potential markets, since some may not justify to
  have a salaried sales force. These reps may
  represent several different properties or chains.
  Salaried sales force are paid a salary plus
  benefits. This one is the backbone of the sales
  force.

23
Recruiting and Training

• It is important to select the right individuals
  for sales. Research showed that top 27 percent of
  the sales force bring in over 52 percent of the
  sales.
• In sales force, the following traits are
  important risk taking, powerful sense of
  mission, problem-solving, care for the customer,
  and careful planning.
• Among the most important traits, empathy and ego
  drive (strong need to make the sale) comes.

24

• The person should be also right for the corporate
  culture of the organization.
• Especially new graduates with no experience
  should be trained.
• However, sales training is not a onetime process.
• Sales force require training regarding
• Product/service training
• Policies, procedures, and planning training
• Sales techniques training

25
Managing the Sales Force

• Sales success depends on the development of
  long-run relationships with clients or accounts.
• The 80/20 rule prevails within the hospitality
  industry. Most of the business comes from a
  minority of the firms customers. They are
  referred to as key, national or major accounts.
• Based on the concept of key customers, the
  following general strategies must be followed by
  the sales force

26

• Six key sales strategies
• Preventing erosion of key accounts
• Growing key accounts
• Growing selected marginal accounts
• Eliminating selected marginal accounts
• Retaining selected marginal accounts but
  providing lower-cost sales support
• Obtaining new business from selected prospects

27

• Sales force tactics, in other words, these are
  the principles of personal selling. The ultimate
  purpose of a sales force is to sell. Sales people
  are trained in tactics to make a sale. Following
  are the major tactics used in personal selling
• Prospecting and qualifying
• Preapproach
• Approach
• Presentation and demonstration
• Negotiation
• Overcoming objections
• Closing
• Follow-up/Maintenance

28

• Motivating the sales force special incentives
  can be given to the sales force to make them work
  at their best level. The following may be used
• Sales force compensation
• Supplementary motivators
• Evaluation and control of the sales force sales
  force should also be evaluated on their
  performance. The following may be used in
  evaluations
• Sales quotas, time-and-duty analysis, cost/return
  effectiveness of trade shows, formal evaluation
  of performance, other control techniques (such as
  sales reports, customer complaints etc.).

29
Managing Strategic Client Relationships

• Relationship marketing is based on the idea that
  important accounts need focused and continuous
  attention. Salespeople should monitor key
  accounts, know their problems, be ready to serve,
  and become part of the clients team, rather than
  just call when they think the client is ready to
  make an order.

30

• Strategic alliances are highly developed from
  relationship marketing. They are relationships
  between interdependent parties who agree to
  cooperate but still keep their separate
  identities. They may share databases, market
  knowledge, resources, risks, technology. In
  hospitality, there are three types of alliances
• One-night stands
• Affairs
• I dos

31
Sources

• McCabe, S. (2009). Marketing Communications in
  Tourism and Hospitality Concepts, Strategies and
  Cases. Butterworth-Heinemann Oxford.
• Kotler, P. Bowen, J. and Makens, J. (1999).
  Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism (2nd ed.).
  Prentice Hall New Jersey.
• Kotler, P. Bowen, J. and Makens, J. (2010).
  Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism (5th ed.).
  Prentice Hall New Jersey.
• Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2010) Principles of
  Marketing (13th ed.). Prentice Hall New Jersey.