Hotel & Motel Management - January 7, 2008 - (Page 10) 10 Sales Clinic IN THE details Be proactive in 2008 Create a sales plan Determine specific actions Calculate costs to hotel H&MM January 7, 2008 | HotelMotel.com www.HotelMotel.com/digital_edition In-depth marketing plans increase success ith the start of the New Year, most properties have their marketing plans for 2008 already in place and ready to go. In fact, most plans for the coming year have been prepared months in advance. Most plans look great, but the big question is, “How do we get it going?” The best way to get the sales de- W By Howard Feiertag H&MM Columnist partment to implement the plan is to create a sales plan for the marketing plan: a document outlining the strategies necessary to accomplish the mission of the plan, along with the details of how it will be done. Specify objectives For example, if a goal of the marketing plan is to increase business in specific market segments, then the sales plan needs to spell out what the specific objective is. The specific segment of the market to be increased and the amount of increase expected in terms of percentage as well as dollar amount need to be included. From there, proceed with outlining two or more specific strategies that will accom- plish the goal. For the next part of the sales plan, it’s important to get into the actual action that will take place within each strategy. The plan will next reflect a specific action such as having three site inspections each month by meeting planners who are prospects for business. Then identify which sales staffer will be responsible for this action, when this part of the plan will start, when will it be completed and what the expected cost of taking this action will be. Outline in-house costs When outlining all the actions to take place for each segment, figure out what all this would cost the property. When adding up the costs, come up with the final figure representing dollar cost and how much this would come to as a percentage of the expected increase in business from the objective. If the expected increase in a specific market segment reflected in the objective is $100,000, then how much is the property willing to spend to accomplish that mission? If, for a property, a reasonable amount to spend to increase sales for a specific market segment would be 10 percent, then spending anything less than $10,000 to increase sales by $100,000 should be acceptable. There very well might be a number of strategies to accomplish only one specific objective, with a variety of activities working within those strategies. Then, there would be a variety of objectives to reach in the sales action plan to meet the needs of the overall marketing plan. This document is very critical in laying out the activities of the entire sales department for the year; if followed, it should lead to a very productive period for any property. For a free copy of the sales action plan form, e-mail a request to: howardf@vt.edu. hmm@questex.com Howard Feiertag is on the faculty of the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Va. He can be reached at howardf@vt.edu. CIRCLE NO. 121 http://www.HotelMotel.com http://www.HotelMotel.com/digital_edition http://www.hiltonmanagementservices.com http://www.hiltonmanagementservices.com
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