Your sales team will be evaluated based on the following areas of expertise:

 

The Basics

Does your staff understand the sales cycle of your business? We’ll look closely at your unique product and customer base and make sure your staff gets it.

 

The Relationships

Emotional intelligence and relationship-building skills are essential to developing a successful sales force. How does your team measure up when it comes to connecting authentically with clients and building trust?

 

The Details

Is your staff dropping the ball when it comes to the details? We’ll examine your booking systems and staff skill levels to see if your sales force has all the tools they need to provide exacting detail management for your clients.

 

The Intangibles

Travel products have ephemeral qualities. Once we’ve determined what makes your product unique we’ll explore whether or not your staff is currently able to communicate these qualities clearly and influentially to your customers.

 

Closing Ability

Do your friendly, bright employees have the expertise, interpersonal awareness and authentic enthusiasm required to close business? We’ll look at the people side of your analytics to see if your staff are functioning as effective experts and guides that win your clients’ business.

 

 

STAGE 2 - PROPOSED CORRECTION

 

Once your business or department has been assessed, we’ll deliver a comprehensive plan that will include our recommendations for training in the five areas listed above.

 

Here’s an example of how this works for a company looking to increase their conversion rate:

 

Low Conversion Rate

Let’s say your company has a 24 person reservations department booking a group of eight hotels in Sanibel Island, Florida. Analytics show call numbers are high yet conversions are low so you know something’s not working on the people side of sales when your call center has so many possible customers on the phone.

 

After our assessment period which included one of our experts going through your training program and actually acting as a salesperson in your reservations department, in addition to inspecting your hotels, meeting with your marketing department about your demographics, and interviewing your highest, middle and lowest range producers, we proposed the following program based on our five areas of evaluation:

 

Sample Training Program

*The order of our recommended classes below will be designed so all new knowledge works together to build an overall effective sales approach.

 

The Basics

We noted your training program didn’t offer your staff a list of questions to help funnel your customers through the sales cycle and that half your staff had never actually sold anything before working for your company. Also your new hires never had any role playing training.

 

Our recommendation:

 

• Basics classes in small groups of 4-5 staff members, 2 half day classes until whole staff is trained. These classes start from the beginning, explain the sales cycle, questions to ask clients to determine their travel dreams and techniques to funnel customers toward a booking. Includes role playing sessions with different types of customers.

 

The Relationships

We noted some of your people were clock watchers who quickly churned through calls to get them over with. Some really didn’t like their jobs and were just going through the motions and some were friendly and helpful yet didn’t create a sense of expertise or authority in order to book more rooms.

 

Our recommendation:

 

• Emotional intelligence classes in small groups of 4-5 staff members, 2 half day classes until whole staff is trained. These classes explore the authentic moments your staff has on the phone, how to know how customers are feeling and how to open yourself up to listen carefully and deeply to your customers’ travel dreams in a respectful and authentic way. These classes also connect people to their jobs so they can experience more fulfillment in their working lives.

 

The Details

We noted your reservations system had a lot of screens your sales force had to cycle through while they were on the phone with customers.  Sometimes they missed screens that needed to be filled out which led to incomplete bookings.

 

Our recommendation:

 

• We work with your software provider to see if there are work-arounds or upgrades to improve customer experience.

 

• Technology refresher class - 2 hour classes in 2 large groups until all staff is trained.

 

The Intangibles

We noted only 30% of your staff had ever spent the night in one of your hotels and 10% of your staff had not inspected all 8 hotels. In general the staff did not have in-depth descriptions of the hotels and how they differ from each other ready for customers when they call.

 

Our recommendation:

 

• Product Knowledge Pods – Two 2-hour sessions for all staff + an overnight. Since you have 8 hotels, we recommend dividing your sales force into groups of 8 and having each person overnight and dine in one of your hotels and report back to the other 7 in their “pod” about their experience. Each pod needs to fully inspect all 8 hotels together. Each pod comes up with a product description list for all 8 hotels using fun language that inspires the imagination.

 

• 2-hour Product Knowledge Pep Rally of whole staff to generate vocabulary and enthusiasm. (Let's party!) Each group needs to report on what they loved about the hotels to the rest of the sales staff to generate a hotbed of excitement about the hotels at a salesforce-wide meeting.

 

Closing Ability

We noted the people you hire are bright and helpful people. If your salesforce goes through the above classes in the basics, relationship-building, technology and product knowledge, they will have the tools they need to be experts on your 8 hotels. Using the relationship building skills and knowledge of the sales cycle gained, they should then be ready to guide every caller through the sales funnel to book a room at one of your hotels.

 

Recap of recommendations for this client for a 24 person sales force:

 

2 half day Basics classes in small groups of 4-5

2 half day Relationships classes in small groups of 4-5

1 2-hour technology refresher course, groups of 12

2 2 hour Product Knowledge “pod” meetings

1 complimentary hotel overnight for each staff member

1 2-hour Product Knowledge meeting of whole staff to generate vocabulary and enthusiasm.

 

Training Program Materials
A set of training materials will be left with your manager for future new hires with full instructions on how to implement the new training process.

 

Follow Up

Six months after your training program is completed, we’ll check in with you to hear your comments and review your analytics to see how successful the program has been and if we have any additional recommendations.

 

******************

 

Estimated Training Hours and Prep:

 

Assessment & Plan Outline: 80 hours

Training Prep: 80 hours

Training Hours: 96 hours

Training Materials Prep: 20 hours

Follow up: 4 hours

 

280 hours, 7 weeks to fulfill objective: increased conversion rate.

 

Interested in upgrading your sales force?

 

Next Step

Contact us today at (206) 618-1107

or use our contact form here.