Sales & Marketing Management - January/Februry 2008 - (Page 20) cover story and twice a week for business review. By meticulously going over each team’s potential business, the leadership team is able to minimize interdepartmental price competition and ensure that space goes to the most profitable business available. Rewarding the individuals who give up a potential sale because another team had a better opportunity was a little trickier to achieve. “We knew that if we wanted our employees to have a ‘team first’ attitude, we would have to reward them as a team,” Massari says. “We had an incentive structure in place at the start, and we’ve modified it a few times to find the right balance between individual and team. Right now the incentive plan is about 60% to team goals and 40% to individual achievement, and that seems to work well for everyone.” “We were very careful not to temper the individual’s aggressiveness and desire to succeed,” Ross says. “We don’t want our teams to be content, but we did want them to focus on the bigger picture. It’s tough to pass up a multimillion-dollar sale, but if that deal is worth more money to another Harrah’s property, that’s exactly what we expect them to do. Otherwise we’d simply be cannibalizing our own revenue stream.” The “golden key” to achieving that unity of purpose was to put all management—across every department and division—on the same citywide, shared incentive program. That effectively eliminated the competition for resources, because every manager was on an incentive plan that emphasized the cumulative benefit of all of the company’s properties in Las Vegas. That’s a fine strategy for the leadership team, but what about the front-line sales teams? Due to poorly executed reorganization plans that can drag on for years, many mergers and acquisitions erode morale, increase turnover and put sales efforts into neutral. That’s why the meetings division made the organizational change the same way people remove a band-aid: fast, firm and without hesitation. Some employees who didn’t have direct reports in the previous organization now had them in the new one; others who were compensated by number of nights booked saw their goals change to total revenue. And it all happened in a single day, within the first 30 days after the 2005 merger of Harrah’s Entertainment and Caesars Entertainment. While such a fundamental change could never be 100% free of pain and confusion, the rapid implementation of the new structure kept employee apprehension to the bare minimum. “It was a complete sea change for our teams: the way they think about their competitors, the way they “ attitude ‘team first’ reward them team. ” employees to have a a If we want our , we need to as —Michael Massari and tips that all sales and marketing managers can use in their own operations. One used to be the loneliest number Everything in Las Vegas is tinged with competitiveness and a “me against the world” mentality. Blackjack players may root for the dealer to bust so everyone at the table wins, but it’s a secondary objective to increasing their own personal pile of chips. With dozens of hotels and casinos vying for each meeting and catering dollar, the competition among properties’ sales teams is no less extreme. After all, the most critical resource in Las Vegas is meeting space, and it’s finite. Unlike a manufacturing company, which can simply make more product when demand increases, once space is booked at a hotel, no more can be created. To maximize revenue, Harrah’s needed to ensure that space went to the most profitable contract, regardless of which sales team booked it. As a result, Massari, Clark and Ross needed to achieve two things: excellent communication among the sales teams and an incentive structure that rewarded people whenever they “took one for the team.” Excellent communication can be achieved through regular sales team meetings, and within the organization, each team meets once a week for a sales meeting 20 SALES &MARKETING MANAGEMENT JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 www.salesandmarketing.com www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com por trait by Jeff Green; photos (r.) cour tesy Har rah’s Enter tainment http://www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com
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