DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILTIES
Managing Sales Activities
• Solicit, book and develop local group business.
• Recommend booking goals for sales team members.
• Develop and manage group sales revenue and operation budgets, and provide forecasting reports.
• Work with management team to create and implement a group sales/marketing plan addressing revenue, customers and market.
• Assist with selling, implementation and follow- through of group sales promotions.
• Execute and support the operational aspects of business booked (e.g., generating proposal, writing contract, customer correspondence).
• Coordinate and deploy group sales resources on- property to monitor the pull- through and sustainment of sales strategies and selling solutions.
• Verify that the hotel implement a seamless turnover from sales to operations and back to sales while consistently delivering high level of service.
• Manage the company’s reactive and proactive group sales efforts.
• Monitor the effective resolution of guest issues that arise as a result of the sales process by creating mechanisms to channel issues to property leadership and/or other appropriate stakeholders.
• Maintain successful performance by increasing revenues, controlling expenses and providing a return on investment for the owner.
• Implement the brand&039;s service strategy and applicable brand initiatives in all aspects of the sales process.
• Maintain ultimate accountability for verifying that the team maximizes group revenue opportunities by up- selling and accurately forecasting revenues (e.g., catering and group rooms) for all events.
• Perform other duties, as assigned by Director of Sales & Marketing to meet business needs.
Building Successful Relationships
• Work collaboratively with off- hotel sales channels (e.g., Group Sales with the Sales Office, Area Sales, Enterprise Sales Team to verify the hotel needs are being achieved and the sales efforts are complementary, not duplicative.
• Interact effectively with guests/clients, vendors, competitors, local community, catering associations and other hotel departments in order to maintain guest satisfaction.
• Execute exemplary customer service to drive customer satisfaction and loyalty by assisting the customer and monitoring their satisfaction before and during their program/event.
• Serve the customer by understanding their needs and recommend the appropriate features and services that best meet their needs and exceed their expectations, while building a relationship and loyalty to the hotel.
• Gain understanding of the hotel&039;s primary target customer and service expectations; serve the customer by understanding their business, business issues and concerns, to offer better business solution both prior to, and during the program/event.
• Develop a close working relationship with operations to execute strategies at the hotel level.
Leadership
• Manage and direct the on- property group sales effort to achieve hotel revenue goals by proactively targeting current and new high value accounts in the market and implementing effective sales deployment strategies to grow market share.
• Work with the Director of Sales and Marketing to establish understanding of sales strategy and effective implementation of this strategy for the hotel.
• Partner with Human Resources to attract, develop and retain the right people in order to support the strategic priorities of the market.
• Create effective structures, processes, jobs and performance management systems are in place.
• Forecast talent needs and manage talent acquisition strategy with Human Resources (HR) to minimize lost time due to turnover.
• Keep an active list of the competition&039;s best sales people and execute a recruitment and acquisition plan with HR.
• Support tools and training resources to educate sales associates on winning catering solutions.
• Champion leadership development and workforce planning priorities by assessing, selecting, retaining and developing diverse, high- caliber talent that can lead the organization today and strengthen the leadership bench for the future; continue to upgrade the sales & marketing talent; work with HR to anticipate future talent needs based on business growth plans.
• Identify, train and mentor group sales associates; utilize all available on the job training tools for associates.
• Transfer functional knowledge and develop group sales skills of other discipline managers.
• Share responsibility for achieving group revenue goals, guest and associate satisfaction.
• Provide day- to- day leadership oversight to the on- property group sales associates with a focus on building long- term, value- based customer relationships that enable achievement of the property&039;s sales objectives.
