DOSM’S & GMs TOP 10 SUCCESS TIPS FOR 2019

2018 has overall been a good year overall without any major global financial crises at play and not any new wars or significant instability other than the unfortunate and usual amounts, as such the Travel & Tourism now accounts for 11% of the total global GDP and continues to move forward.

Travel and tourism is also one of the world’s fastest-growing sectors, with bookings hitting close to $1.8 trillion in 2018. This is due strengthening global economy lying at the heart of our industry growth.

Each year, the global traveller pool is flooded with millions of new consumers from both emerging and developed markets, many with rising disposable incomes and a newfound ability to experience the world.

This is all fine and good to hear but why is it that so many of you are experiencing a more challenging 2018 when compared to 2017? Well, this is all due to the huge rooms supply which is flooding many of the developing markets which in turn is placing a pressure point on rate even if the occupancy continues to rise and eventually placing serious concerns related to overall profitability for the operators and ROI for the developers.

These are the ideal scenarios for great leaders to show their value and worth in leading their teams and properties with the right mindset and strategy to capture more than their fair share and rise against the tide of the cut-throat business environment in which they operate and the below listed 10 tips should set you on the right path to attain success.

Who am I? As an employee, I spent just under 2 decades working for some of the best chains in the world where I eventually became responsible for a region of many countries and varied property types or levels, I as well had the honour to work under some amazing leaders from which I learned so much and my career took me to different parts of the world and I was privileged to be exposed to the global scene and trends of our wonderful industry.

But since moving on and establishing aQedina.com; over the past 3 years I have had the pleasure to work with hundreds of hotels across from huge chains, regional operators, stand-alone properties, different ratings, city hotels or resorts and so on. This has thrust me deep within the hotel industry like never before and has provided a unique perspective to see what makes people, teams, leaders, hotels or chains more successful than others even in the same city.

Being primarily a training company, we work hand in hand with many Directors of Sales & Marketing; some are good, some are great… and some are working hard to improve. What do the great ones have in common? Which activities and disciplines deliver better results? Below is a top 10 to do list we recommend DOSMs or any hotel commercial leader to follow in 2019 for greater success:

1.    Information = Power: You would wish that every team member in your team is seasoned and highlight capable, but that is almost never the case; as such we need to furnish our teams with as much useable information as possible to give them a sense of power over their clients. This seems easy and natural, but in reality it is much more complicated as it is very easy to drown your teams with data that they do not know what to use and how. As such, information must be broken up in 4 sections: 1- Make sure your team know their property inside out: As we mystery shop countless hotels annually, it is perplexing how many sales people do not know the simplest details or USPs of their own product. You need to assign a champion for this project per month and have this person compile and constantly update a concise and sales driven fact sheet on the product the team is selling. Back to basics. 2- Knowledge if your competition is essential, your team must know what sets them apart against their immediate comp set and be allowed to visit and experience the comp set regularly. 3- Market / commercial environment understanding; this aids in leads generation and overall elevated sharpness for your teams when it comes to strategy. 4- Accounts information and this is a must for any new account or ones that your team visit regularly; preparation for every client interaction is key to give meetings a purpose, showcase a high level of preparedness to our clients, save time within meetings which normally gets wasted on data we could have uncovered independently and also helps your teams guide the sales call to their advantage for maximum impact.

2.    Business will repeat: DOSMs must look at the groups confirmed and lost over as many years back as possible (for operating hotels) and ensure their sales team pro-actively connect with those clients to seek out opportunities of the business returning to your destination. This may also apply to other segments, such as leisure, corporate and government. Seek out your producing accounts from 1,2,3 or more years back who don’t feature high on your list anymore. Make sure they have not simply slipped away to your comp set without you putting in a good fight to keep or re-gain them.

3.    Make sure everyone in your team has a clear and constantly updated target: My biggest issue with setting sales / e-commerce or M&E team member targets in September or October during budget season is that these targets never seem to be adjusted as the hotel’s forecast gets adjusted. Business environments can change multiple times during a year but the team’s targets don’t. This is mainly due to owners not wanting to pay bonuses to a hotel that is achieving below budget. However, if you do not give your team a realistic target to reach for a financial reward, and they know from February for example that their numbers are impossible, then they will lose a big portion of their motivation and may even leave. This is a bad business practice that you are operators may not be able to impact with ease but if you do not attempt, then eliminating this issue will never actually happen.

4.    Know your exact cost-per-Booking (CPB): We all know that direct bookings are the most profitable, but are they? Bookings coming through your brand.com; GDS, CRS, affiliate network and similar are still subject to quite hefty fees. So which is more profitable, a 100USD room rate sold to an FIT wholesaler or corporate? How about groups? What if the wholesaler is using a channel manager to book dynamic rates? Is that a fixed fee or per transaction through the channel manager per booking or a monthly standard fee? A successful DOSM should be able to know the exact clean rate that is coming in from each and every one of his / her managed segments, then re-direct the strategy, manning and spend to get more of the most profitable ones.

5.    S&M Budget constant review and allocation: A budget set in September may be null and void come February, but if you retain those barriers around you as you spend your wat through the year; then you are not being effective. Within this S&M budget we all do many forms of activities, whether that is a print run in a magazine or newspaper, SEO, SEM, PPC, wholesaler brochure contribution, Fam Trips, entertainments, sales trips, road shows, exhibitions and more. It is imperative for a sales leader to study the income coming from each of their segments and the cost of getting that business as the year progresses; cost includes the above activities as well as the manning and payroll costs involved. Are you putting in way too much in leisure but not enough in MICE? When and how do you invest in corporate and to know and constantly review the ROI after all your investments per segment. Also remember to spend everything you can! If you don’t, you might be given less money next year.

6.    Embrace and know by heart the metrics owners care about the most: Every single business day, you should be checking key performance indicators (KPIs) that hotel owners, General Manager and Regional Teams (When Applicable) consider as high priority, such as your STR RevPAR, MPI & ADR indexes against your comp set, OTB against forecast & budget and Vs. last year, direct revenue ratio (DRR), OTAs ranking and your customer review rankings on TripAdvisor and others. Monitoring these KPIs will help you understand how your sales and marketing team is actually contributing to the hotel’s revenue targets and overall market rankings. It will also allow you a leg to stand on if you ever need to defend any course of action or receive support to a strategy that you feel needs to be implemented.

7.    Make difficult HR decisions: A team at the end of the day is just like a well-oiled machine, and one bad cog in the mechanism will cause major problems for performance. This is true when you have a team member who is simply unable to carry his / her weight for whatever reason. Also, you may encounter an even worse situation when you have a toxic person within the team who nags, is negative, pessimistic and gossipy; these people can destroy moral and cause factions to build up within the department and have extremely bad repercussions. Only after making sure you give your team all the chances to succeed and tried to coach them away from bad behaviour that they still persist; let them go! And don’t let it take too much time as well. Every day is a lost opportunity.

8.    Many people don’t trust OTAs anymore: Instead of making price parity your lead strategy for combatting OTAs, keep in mind that the likes of Expedia, Booking and Agoda have actually built a lousy reputation for very poor customer service, and many travellers worry about reservations, cancellations, changes, room selection and refunds when booking through them. In response, you should adjust your primary online & marketing message to remind prospective guests at every opportunity that booking direct is the safer play, and you have a 100% commitment to customer service in the event something does go wrong. To be clear, I am not asking you to pick a fight with your OTAs, not at all, that would not be smart. Simply adjust your verbiage and messaging across your own channels to highlight the benefits of booking direct and if you are lucky to have a loyalty program of some kind, then you must always leverage it by launching fenced promotions to undercut OTAs and building direct client loyalty.

9.    Go out and do sales calls: Speak to actual guests! Resist the urge to stay glued to your computer or attend your own meetings all day. Get out and talk to guests in the lobby, or walk the meeting space and chat with attendees during their downtime. Start a conversation and see how things are going. Ask what could make their stay or meeting experience even better. Discover what really matters to them. You must also do sales calls with your team, but don’t let them know that you are planning to do this, surprize one team member a week and jump in their car! Because if you let them know in advance, they will always take you to their best clients and closest contacts so they can look good! This may frighten some people, granted, but it will keep your team sharp and on their toes like never before. 

10. Finally, invest in your team: In today’s world you must understand that your clients are getting smarter, sharper and better negotiators, as such, it is imperative that you invest in your ladies & gentlemen to ensure they are up to the task at hand and that they can professionally and where needed, aggressively represent themselves, their property and brand to prospective clients and that they can negotiate positively to maximize the return on their efforts. Our sales training journeys can assist you to do just that, with a tailor made approach to each team and their needs through the Online Sales Assessment Tool (OSAT), mystery shopping, extensive pre-work, engaging & energizing workshops as well as a bespoke learning summary per participant.

All of the above are highlights and there are of course many more duties that the commercial leaders must perform as our industry continues to grow and become ever more complicated and competitive.

Thank you for reading, sharing and placing your comments below as I would value the input greatly as I work on the 2020 success tips during next year.

Tareq Bagaeen / Founder & CEO of aQedina.com / [email protected]

Below are links of other published articles that from me that you would find beneficial:

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/one-skill-can-make-you-great-tareq-bagaeen/

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/how-make-perfect-cv-tareq-bagaeen/

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/thai-drug-addict-his-chinese-dealer-tareq-bagaeen/

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/top-20-hoteliers-all-time-tareq-bagaeen/