Hotel general managers excel at handling various aspects of a property's operations, from guest services to front-desk management, housekeeping logistics, and food-and-beverage procurement. Many GMs have gained experience across these departments, shaping their operational expertise.
However, one area where GMs may lack hands-on experience is sales — often due to a misconception that sales functions independently of operations. In reality, operations and sales are deeply interconnected, and the GM who understands they must be their property's biggest sales champion will have a successful hotel. Collaborating closely can ensure real success.
Looking to improve your sales management tactics? Here are four steps you can take to effectively lead your sales team.
Step 1: Take the initiative
Every conversation with members of your sales team is an opportunity to make them feel valued, seen, and appreciated, so make it a priority to connect with them regularly — even daily. This could take the form of standup meetings, joining the team on calls with key customers, or attending networking events—or a combination of all three.
Standup meetings will keep you abreast of the team’s priorities and inform how you can support them in real time. Ask them to share highlights and potential business opportunities, which can help you finetune on-property strategies. Get to know the target list that the team is focusing on and weigh in on other potential targets. Also familiarize yourself with the market and your competitors, as well as how your hotel stacks up to the competition.
Attending sales calls helps you hear directly from your customers, while participating in networking events allows you to engage with the local community and showcase a unified presence from your hotel team. You want to be sure you’re in the loop.
Step 2: Lead with strategy
Many factors impact the way that a hotel does business. It is the general manager’s responsibility to take as many of those factors into account as possible when developing business strategies.
From a sales perspective, this means acquiring a deep understanding of your market and potential opportunities. Work with your sales team to review your property’s forecast over the next few months and how close you may be to meeting your budgeted numbers. From there, leverage resources like STR to identify opportunities for increased occupancy or ADR.
Some questions you should consider include:
- How is the hotel performing?
- How is the market performing?
- Is my hotel performance aligning with market performance?
- Is there an opportunity to shift share on certain days of the week?
- Is there an opportunity to increase rate?
The information gleaned from these questions can and should influence your sales strategies.
A few other areas that should affect your strategy are guest reviews and comp set. You must be tuned into what guests are saying about your property online. Respond to negative feedback to demonstrate that your property listens to guests and is committed to improvement. For the comp set, figure out who your biggest competitors are and look for specific ways to capture their business.
Once you have gathered and processed this information, work with your sales team to develop a strategic 90-day plan. Lead the team in implementing the strategy and give them the resources they need — such as marketing support — to excel.
Step 3: Inspect what you expect
It is critical that a sales team has the autonomy to pursue leads and close deals, but that doesn’t negate a manager’s responsibility for that process. If the sales team isn’t meeting their goals, the GM needs to look into their processes and ensure the team is effective, efficient, and productive. Be sure your team is clear on your expectations and then follow up monthly to make sure they’re being met—inspect what you expect.
Review the sales pipeline and ask about the types of leads your sales team is seeing. Look over the inquiry funnel and flag any dates that have a high number of requests. If the hotel closed business, determine if it was the right business for the hotel.
In terms of sales expectations, ensure the team is proactively selling as well as chasing down leads. If they have certain call or email goals for the month, follow up to see how they were met. If someone fell short, find out why. You aren’t looking to point fingers; you want to help them overcome obstacles and improve their numbers.
Step 4: Recognize the wins
Above all, managers should recognize their teams’ wins and give praise for exceeding goals. As you become more familiar with your sales team and their work, you’ll naturally find more opportunities to call out successes. Make sure your team knows that you see them, you see the work that they’re doing, and that it’s greatly appreciated.
By adopting a proactive and strategic approach to sales leadership, general managers can bridge the gap between operations and sales, creating a cohesive team that thrives on collaboration and shared goals. This alignment not only drives revenue growth but also fosters a culture of innovation and adaptability — key ingredients for long-term success in the ever-evolving hospitality landscape.
Stephanie Atkisson is senior vice president of commercial strategies at Raines.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.