Implement Systems For An Easier Life

Within your hotel you already have plenty of systems. I would guess that most of them are associated with housekeeping, the restaurant and the kitchen. Some of them will have developed as a result of custom and practice, and some you will have set down in writing after consulting your team.

However, you probably have few written systems that govern your sales and marketing activity. This is a shame since there is so much money to be made by implementing systems that can take care of business development even when you are not there. For example, how often do you worry that the person answering the phone will not be as thorough as you are in chasing the sale? You need to think of the absence of a system as a potential ‘leak’. If it was the roof you would put in a monitoring system to make sure that it didn’t leak, and if it did you would make every effort to repair it as soon as you spotted it.

Everything you do is a system. A system is made up of a series of steps, in a specific order, and with a designated outcome. Tying your shoelaces is a system and so is driving a car. The steps have to be learnt at some stage; we learnt them because we wanted to achieve the designated outcome. To take the driving analogy a bit further, some of us pick up some bad habits and we really should go back to school and take an advanced course.

The same applies to our sales systems. From time to time we should analyse them and change the steps so that they deliver the results we want. For example, I was working with a client who had a system for promoting Christmas parties – he put some very poor quality leaflets in a rack in the reception area and wondered why his advanced sales were not very impressive!

He managed to improve sales fourfold just by changing the system – a better quality leaflet was put in all outbound mailed confirmations and the party special was mentioned over the phone to all inbound callers. I know this is not a very impressive marketing campaign but it does show that by making small changes to a system that is not delivering you can experience improved results.

Every marketing system can be improved to generate better results. Take a look at these ‘systems’:

• sales development
• inbound calls for rooms
• inbound calls for functions
• restaurant menus
• brochure and tariff enquiries
• referrals
• testimonials
• promoting special events
• up-selling in the restaurant.