The easiest way to increase your RevPAR

If you have stopped winning, it can be easy to get complacent in your sales effort. You may feel stuck in a rut, frustrated, and worn out. In today’s ever-changing economy with new rules, new travelers, and new expectations from both the hotel industry and the consumer, it’s not surprising if you are experiencing a slump. If you feel REALLY busy, but are not producing results, it is time to re-evaluate your sales strategy and reset your priorities. Basically, it’s time to improve your sales performance and get your mojo back!

Let’s be honest. Winning is what makes the sales process fun. Winning contracts, relationships, referrals, bonuses… it’s fun to win. The best salespeople in the world are most driven when times get tough. Their competitive nature goes into overdrive, uncovering every opportunity, and succeeding when no one else can. So, what’s their secret?

Here are the top 10 tips to start your hotel sales on the path to success now and start smelling victory again.

1. Reset your strategy. When market conditions change (or seemingly, in the middle of a never-ending pandemic), it’s time to look at what makes an impact. Since everything has changed, your sales strategy should too. Your best clients may not be traveling, local events may have been cancelled, RFPs have dwindled to nothing, and your phone stopped ringing. If your focus is on what worked before, you may not see wins soon. Consider reactive sales a colossal bonus, but put your effort into prospecting. Cast your nets wider and consider all opportunities with travel needs.

2. Start Discovering. Look at all opportunities to extend your hotel’s distribution. Now is not the time to pass on an opportunity that may not have been right before. This means increasing the size of your backyard where you are searching for potential new business and potentially, re-examining your target market. If you haven’t performed competitor parking lot shops, start. Find out who is traveling in your market now and learn as much as you can about their business.

3. Increase your knowledge. When casting larger nets to drive sales you may need to look at market sectors you have never worked with, or know little about. Educate yourself on industries that are currently traveling. Subscribe to news releases. Stay up to date on articles, press releases, and the industry’s unique challenges and current needs. Consider how your hotel can meet these needs by re-evaluating what your most desirable features and benefits are today.

4. Build relationships and communicate often. Even though your previously top-rated clients may not be traveling, it is essential to stay connected and top of mind for when their travel returns. For new bookers and travelers you are working with, understand their experience in securing hotel partners, booking rooms, and negotiating. Use this understanding to educate them on how to best accomplish their goals and become a trusted partner. Share information with them as their go-to consultant on all things related to the industry. Consider the lifetime value of the relationship. What business is there right now? In the future? Referral potential? The more meaningful connections you can make during this time, the more success you will see in the future.

5. Be honest. Take an exact look at your product and the service you provide. What has changed? How could you pivot to create more value? You may not have all of the answers. Be honest when working with a new client. Promise what you can and then overdeliver. Perfect your listening skills to better understand their needs and how you may offer a solution.

6. Look for Solutions. Now is the time to get creative. Health and safety currently tops the list of consumers’ buying motives. Communicate how your hotel is dedicated to providing the safest experience possible. Discover what is essential to your new travelers so that you can collaborate with the client and your team to develop solutions that stand out.

7. Create WOW experiences. EVERYONE SELLS. Now more than ever, your sales force it is a team effort. Encourage communication and buy-in from your team. Provide ways that the team can help you to uncover leads and provide exemplary service. Elevate your efforts to increase your success.

8. Train others and learn from experts. Engage with other sales professionals on social media. Share what you have learned and what is working with your team. Discuss new expectations. Lean on others in the hospitality industry who have seen success, and work together more than ever to develop unique solutions. Take a virtual training course or enroll in a training workshop. Learn as much as you can and develop new sales skills.

9. Communicate with your team. Share successes and challenges. Realize that hotel sales in this new era is different for all of us and can be overwhelming. We are all in this together. Be authentic, vulnerable, and positive. Show appreciation when others step in with new ideas and deliver new leads.

10. Breathe and keep going. Remember that even the best salespeople experience the occasional slump. If your confidence is at a low level, don’t keep beating yourself up. Get up and fight! Many of your peers won’t. That gives the go-getters a strong advantage! Learn something new and accelerate your results.

If you surveyed your organization and asked people whether they would rather attend training or serve on jury duty, what would the outcome be?

Most people innately like learning new things. How many times have you asked Google a question today? We know reading is critical to exercising our minds. Continuous learning forms a necessary part in acquiring essential thinking skills and discovering new ways of relating to people and situations.

Learning helps us to excel in our positions and careers. However, in our experience, when salespeople are told they need to attend a training workshop, the result is all too often a shrug and not-well-hidden eye roll. Whether for a single hour online, or a four-day jaunt across the country to participate in a conference filled with a room of their peers, rarely is the response positive. Thoughts go through their minds of “I really don’t have time for this.” “Great…another wasted day, terrible presentation, and irrelevant information I will never remember or be able to use.”

We’ve been there; we get it. We aim to change the attendee’s mentality and the attained results. Our sales trainers at Jacaruso Enterprises are sales professionals with real experience selling. In today’s market. Our trainers competitively compare whose sales training receives the highest reviews, and more importantly, RESULTS. Our training is different.

Here is what we have learned and what you can expect:

     1. Skilled and Knowledgeable in the Industry

Our trainers are industry experts. They understand the challenges facing salespeople in the field because they are currently walking in their shoes. They tailor both virtual learning and the classroom experience to meet participants’ needs in today’s environment. Our experience is directly related to the hospitality industry, hotel operation, and sales strategies.

Jacaruso Enterprises has led the industry in supporting the sales efforts of hotels in the US, Caribbean and Latin America with experience in all markets, brands, and economic conditions.

     2. Engaging and Relatable Delivery

The best sales trainers are passionate, and it shows. They embrace storytelling in their presentations. The stories are relatable and directly reflect the concepts they are coaching. The best trainers give their all to the class for the entire time frame, like an athlete playing at 100% the whole game. The payoff is huge when it comes to impact. We commit never to facilitate a class that is too long or lacks energy. Our training aims to present each new concept quickly, effectively, and in a way that clearly shows how to put it into practice.

     3. Relevant Content

If the information doesn’t resonate, the impact and results will be evident. While core skills may be transferable across industries, the authenticity of hospitality sales, hotel operations, and everything in between is directly related to travelers’ expectations. Your success is dependent on the changes

you make to accelerate your results. Our dedication to providing customized, industry-specific training that guarantees results and leading-edge techniques you can implement today.

     4. Embracing Vulnerability

If you cannot be comfortable asking questions, providing honest feedback, and taking risks while learning new skills, are you really learning? We embrace vulnerability. Our participant-focused training delivers tailored, challenging, and inspiring learning experiences in a safe environment for learners to complete at their own pace regardless of skill level.

     5. SHOW, Don’t TELL

Training should model the skills and concepts presented and share best practices for implementation. Scenarios, examples, and resources are provided throughout the training experience to provide insight on how to implement them effectively.

     6. Concepts for Solutions

Our training provides high-value, needs-based solutions to challenges you are encountering today. The focus is on ways to take a new perspective of your current situation, apply the skills you know, and pivot your solution to meet consumers’ needs today. We provide new concepts and tools that you can add to your arsenal to produce your desired results.

     7. Encourage Collaboration

Teamwork and collaboration are at the core of what we do. We know your hotel’s success is not with one person, sales department, or idea, but a tapestry of everyone working together cohesively. We strive to involve all key stakeholders in the training experience and focus each individual’s goals toward the effect they have on the hotel’s overall objectives. For your success to accelerate, each teammate should understand the business of hospitality and how their role affects the results.

To consistently outperform, we welcome your feedback. We beg for it. It’s that important to us. We strive to be the best trainers, continuously improving, inspiring your team with new ways to overcome challenges and positively impact performance. We are committed to you, your organization, and your results.

Mistakes happen in every sales training class, by every trainer, at one point or another. Maybe it was something you said or the way you addressed an attendee that fell flat. Maybe the time ran out, or the internet failed. Whatever the fault, it happens. The goal is to realize the mistake, learn from it, and not repeat it. However, as you prepare for your next training workshop, you find yourself creating the same “Death by PowerPoint” presentation, repeating the same script from the last 100 training classes you’ve practiced in the shower over and over again, and getting the same lackluster results. Stop. There is a better way that you and your attendees will appreciate.

For a moment, consider everything that you don’t like about facilitating information. Next, put yourself in the attendee’s shoes and think back to sales trainings you’ve attended. What did you enjoy? What did you dislike? MOST importantly, what activities and behaviors produced the most significant RESULTS? Start there. Jacaruso Enterprises has helped sales professionals and business leaders overcome challenges and achieve their goals. Here are a few must-implement tactics we’ve learned to make sure your sales training is effective instead of a “snooze fest.”

The FUN of training is in the RESULTS.

Realize that FUN does not mean kitschy costumes, themes, games, or activities. We aren’t saying that you can’t implement these into your training – but, if the training content doesn’t produce measurable results, then all you have is a party with hospitality industry professionals! They will enjoy their time with you and then forget you. The sales trainer that can help participants actually produce results is memorable. When you create meaningful partnerships, it leads to future training engagements.

Ditch the script.

Develop stories that speak to your training program, but try not to repeat them. Tailor your stories to each audience and make them authentic. Great trainers recognize new training content stories every day in their own experiences. Use these experiences to craft stories relevant to your audience and the hospitality industry.

Create a training environment that embraces vulnerability.

Everyone has something to share and something to learn. When one person is doing all the talking or answering, your engagement is shot. Comfortability in the environment is crucial. The way you address the answers is vital to continued collaboration. Learn to appreciate all responses and ask others for their experience in the situation. Creating an environment focused on collaboration, engagement, and participation results in the most effective classroom, whether virtual or in person.

Don’t let the clock drive your presentation.

Consider the attention spans of your attendees. Twenty minutes per topic is about all anyone can handle, and that is assuming you are presenting relevant information with an engaging technique. Keep it short, relevant, and impactful. Timing is important, but your conversation is more important. When discussion and collaboration are at their peak, don’t look at the clock and say, “Oh shoot, it’s time for a break. We’ll pick this back up in 15 minutes.” If you do that, you are dead in the water and will likely never resume where you left off.

Appeal to all styles of learning.

Create content and offer options in multiple formats. Reading, listening, watching, and practicing are elements to include in each new concept presentation. Online training is no different. By allowing

various learning style applications, you’ll increase the likelihood of training engagement, completion, and ongoing sales skill implementation, which leads to the best results. When developing online training, be clear on how to access and navigate the platform and do not be afraid to overcommunicate how to do this. Provide mobile options, use impactful images and videos, and bring real-life scenarios to life whenever possible. If the training platform is too difficult to navigate, your participants will give up before accessing your content.

Be careful of information overload.

When presenting a new skill, there must be clear objectives for that section. Tell them what they will learn. Show them. Practice the skill. Review key takeaways. Lastly, provide the next steps with clear goals for implementation and resources to help make the goal a reality.

Track progress.

To keep your training top of mind, relevant, and retained, it is important to revisit the core skills or concepts learned, both throughout your training course and after training is complete. Encourage competition and provide the next steps to key stakeholder and leaders. Utilize transcripts and leaderboards throughout your training to provide the most significant impact.

Business professionals today want to learn how to be more successful in their field. If your content doesn’t allow for a new mindset, creative solutions, implementation, or directly affect results, what exactly are you training? Don’t miss the mark. Drive results! Your attendees will appreciate you and your content, and look to you as a trusted resource for future training needs.

Hotel sales training often misses the mark for several reasons. When information has been regurgitated from a past sales course, it is not relevant to today’s economy or marketplace. Training has a high probability of failing if it takes too long to complete, or is either too advanced or too basic.

What’s better is sales and hospitality training that overcomes all of these obstacles. Accelerate eLearning is an innovative training solution that meets each participant right where they are. Accelerate content is developed by hospitality experts who are currently and actively leading hotels’ sales and revenue efforts. The training program, sales skills, and techniques offered through Accelerate have been designed by industry leaders who are winning in today’s marketplace.

Accelerate is also designed to accommodate different kinds of learners. One-size-fits-all training can be boring to some while overwhelming to others. Accelerate concepts are demonstrated with several key learning styles in mind. Whether participants learn best by reading, listening, or practicing, Accelerate offers options. The learning content was developed by sales experts, trainers and facilitators who have experience in and out of the classroom.

Accelerate puts participants in the driver’s seat with a platform that’s easy-to-navigate and interactive. They can choose where they want to start based on their knowledge of a topic or target market. Accessible in 101, 201, 301, and 401 level courses, learned concepts build upon each other throughout the training experience.

Time constraints are also taken into consideration with Accelerate eLearning options. If participants have 5, 15, 30 or 45 minutes to dedicate to training, there are lessons designed specifically for that amount of time and attention.

The Accelerate eLearning training program is bundled in a monthly subscription service. The membership includes exclusive benefits and access to a wealth of materials that would be cost-prohibitive for hotels to source and purchase separately. The Accelerate eLearning membership is $99 per user, per month, which includes access to the following:

1. 5-minute prospecting tip videos to help sales leaders find business right now
2. 15-minute eLearning courses to get the ongoing results you need
3. 30-minute webinars that offer solutions to the problems faced by hoteliers and hospitality industry professionals
4. 45-minute Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT) diving into topics you want to explore further
5. The Vault of customizable, downloadable, printable resources to help achieve your revenue goals

Let’s take a deeper dive into each of these Accelerate eLearning elements:

•  Take 5 Quick Tip videos provide hospitality professionals with insight into using a learned skill, concept, or tool. They are designed for the quick break in the day when you need a boost, but don’t have much time. In less than 5 minutes, you will uncover ways to implement techniques to start winning new business today.
• Our 15-minute eLearning videos tackle topics in short, easy to understand, digestible content. Each lesson takes 15 minutes or less to complete. These cover topics such as Digital Communications, Direct Sales, Leadership, Service and New Sales Essentials. Each topic has a corresponding interactive lesson that can be accessed and completed from multiple devices, including a mobile phone.
• Join one of our 30-minute webinars delivered by a hospitality industry professional to take a deep dive into current problem hoteliers face today and discover available solutions.
• A Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT) offers an in-depth analysis on topics of interest. These lessons allow you to collaborate with an Accelerate trainer, your team, as well as other industry professionals and experts.
• The Vault contains a multitude of valuable resources with access exclusively for Accelerate eLearning members. Access the Vault allows you to download tools to assist you in training your team and communicating with your guests, along with prospecting collateral that you can implement today.

Sales training programs are designed to transform your sales team to accelerate results. Many organizations invest in training programs to further develop their team. In the hotel industry, we place emphasis on sales training in an effort to learn new sales strategies for making a hotel profitable. Training that hits the mark is highly effective at getting practical results.

Harvard Business Review reports that participants in sales training forget more than 80 percent of the information they were taught within 90 days. What are some key reasons sales training fails? When participants get information overload, it is difficult for them to retain information. Training that is too detailed loses participants’ attention. Also, minds begin to wander if sales training is too long and unengaging. Successful sales training should clearly state how the learner can apply the concepts to real-life situations, it should be consumable in realistic amounts of time, and it should be dynamic and interactive to get and keep participants’ attention.

An example of effective sales training for hospitality professionals is Accelerate eLearning. Through extensive research and conversation with hospitality management executives, travel industry leaders and other professionals from the hospitality industry, Accelerate eLearning was born. Accelerate dives into practical, actionable solutions to problems participants are experiencing. It provides sales training that hits the mark for sales leaders that need to learn new skills and concepts to increase their sales performance today. Curated by sales professionals who are digging up business in the trenches right now, Accelerate eLearning is a virtual training program for your entire hotel team.

As a training program intentionally created in multiple formats to ensure the retention of key concepts, Accelerate’s training program consistently revisits these concepts throughout the courses. It also provides hands-on learning scenarios where participants can practice sales skills in a safe environment.

Accelerate eLearning also offers Vault Resources where customizable, downloadable, printable resources give participants solutions they can implement immediately – putting the learned skills and sales strategies into practice. These training materials are available in 101, 201, 301, and 401 lessons where skills build upon each other as the participant advances.

For those that want training in more consumable periods of time, Accelerate offers hospitality sales professionals different options based on their available time.

These options include:

1. 5-minute prospecting tip videos to help sales leaders find business today
2. 15-minute eLearning course to get the results you need
3. 30-minute webinars offer solutions to the problems you are facing
4. 45-minute Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT) dives deep into topics you want to explore further

Knowing that time is valuable, the Take 5 Quick Tip prospecting videos walk participants through a prospecting concept and show them how to use the sales skill, feature, or tool to increase sales performance and reach their revenue goals!

Because it meets participants right where they are, Accelerate eLearning is a training program that hits the mark for all hospitality professionals.