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Impressions from IncentiveWorks – Part 2

August 31st, 2010. Written by Doreen Ashton Wagner

Team Ottawa did seem to have great traffic throughout the show. Ottawa reps in orange shirts: Nathalie Boulet, Patrick Dault, and Sabrina Strang with MPI Ottawa President, Carole Saad

I recently had the pleasure of attending IncentiveWorks in Toronto. The following are my impressions of my tradeshow experience:

It’s still a wonder for me how a tradeshow can be “great” or “fantastic” for some and the “worst ever” for others. Sure I can see how booths in the back rows may get less traffic than those monster booths at the front. But I talked to a LOT of exhibitors and even smaller independents at the back of the hall were happy with the flow of attendees while some reps from bigger, more visible booths were belly-aching at the lack of people. I don’t get it. Why are some of these people in sales?

As a registered attendee for the premium side of the show (I did ALL my client & staff Xmas shopping at the show!), I only got one email from one exhibitor and one postcard from another to incite me to stop by their booth. If suppliers are going to spend that much money for a show, why don’t they try to promote ahead of time to generate more attendance?

I was walking the floor with a new strategic partner who specializes in tradeshow marketing. He was surprised at the “blandness” of some booths. Big logos, some photography, lots of which was generic or nondescript (white sandy beaches, people golfing, but once you’ve seen those, haven’t you seen them all?). But little to compel anyone to stop by. This begs the question: how should meetings industry suppliers draw planners’ attention and provide value?

Stopping by booths to inquire about certain products or services, I was disappointed at the rush to “scan my badge” instead of asking me questions about my needs and interests. In one instance I had no use for the product, and said so, but the rep insisted on scanning my badge! Now I’m curious to see what this large communications company (who is affiliated with the show organizers incidentally) is going to do with this information…

So I’m thinking: could tradeshows have lost their lustre not because of lower attendance, but simply because salespeople don’t know how to sell? For years Barry Siskind and various sales experts have been trying to tell us how to improve the tradeshow experience, but are we listening?

With the proliferation of hosted buyer programs in North America (AIBTM, IMEX), will exhibitors learn to maximize appointment time by asking questions and properly qualifying prospects? Will they top up their efforts with pre-show promotion and effective post-show follow-up? Or will we just get lazier and expect planners to show up with business on a silver platter…?

Posted in Hospitality & Meetings, marketing to meeting planners, meetings industry events | No Comments »

Reaching Meeting Planners in a Saturated Marketplace

July 23rd, 2010. Written by Doreen Ashton Wagner

On Thursday, July 15, SPIN Planners ran a webinar titled, A Rare Look Inside the Buying Process of Senior-Level Planners. Participants included third-party meeting planners Kimberly Ruby, CMM, of Ruby Meetings, Blanca Diaz of BND Meetings. Association planner Stefanie Simmons of IAAM. Moderating the discussion was Shawna Suckow, CMP, the Founder of SPIN.

Here are their recommendations on how hotel, CVB and other meeting industry sales representatives should reach out to planners like them:

About cold calling: while all planners universally hate pushy, “telemarketing”-like cold calls, they admit that the telephone is a necessary tool of business. Do your homework, they advise – which means make sure you’ve checked out the types of meeting and destinations they have executed in the past. They also warn to make sure you ask permission when starting the conversation.
A pet peeve: cute, but useless giveaways and leave-behind gifts, said Kimberly.
Because of their frequent business, all panellists report having close relationships with national sales office (NSO) reps. In their opinion, CVB reps are not visible enough and don’t convey the often free services available through their bureau.
About industry events and supplier receptions: planners will attend your event if it is in an unusual or new venue, or features a new food or theme, asserted both Blanca and Stefanie.
About familiarization trips: “no more fams without an educational component!” they plead. Optics are such that planners must justify fams to their bosses and clients. Suppliers should include at least one educational opportunity in their program, and consider giving Continuing Education Units (CEUs) from a provider approved by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET).
When asked by this author about regular, old-fashioned mail, panellists admit they open hand-addressed mail or other unusual, personalized email. Shawna recalled a speaker at a past MPI event who asserted that “lumpy mail gets opened.”
Be careful about email: Mass eblasts seem too impersonal, panellists said. But a direct, personalized message inquiring about interest or through a group on LinkedIn is OK. One supplier suggested sending an Outlook appointment, requesting a phone appointment. Even if it’s “at the planners convenience” planners judged this to be intrusive and even “creepy.” Says Kimberly, “being a planner, I’m a control freak. I want to choose when I speak to a new supplier.”
How else should a supplier get known to planners? Be visible at industry events, volunteer with industry associations such as MPI or PCMA.

Not quite earth-shattering advice, but the good news is that business is picking up. And those suppliers who find ways to balance personal touches and a professional, consistent approach will be successful.

Tags: business development, direct mail, meetings industry, prospecting
Posted in Hospitality & Meetings, best practices - sales, marketing to meeting planners, meetings industry events | No Comments »

Follow-Up Strategy to Speed Up the Sales Cycle

June 28th, 2010. Written by Doreen Ashton Wagner

Recent research indicates that B2B sales cycles have lengthened. In the meetings industry, hotel, CVB and other hospitality industry suppliers are telling us that they have to “chase” clients more than they used for that signature on the contract.

In our post last week we promised to share a strategy we have implemented in our own lead generation process as well as client projects.

This approach was taught to us by our “sales coach of record,” Colleen Francis of Engage Selling Solutions. We use this when we have discussed a business opportunity with the person and have tried to follow-up on at least 4-5 occasions, with no success.

First message: “Hi Sue, it’s Doreen from Greenfield Services. Sorry I missed you. I’ll call you again on Wednesday, at 10:15.”

Choose the date and time before you leave the message so that you are sure to be available. I recommend choosing a time that is a little unusual – e.g. 10:15 instead of 10 a.m. It stands out more.
Protect the time in your calendar right away.
At the appointed date & time, make your call! This is a crucial, trust-building step! If you don’t get the person (and assuming you have dialled 0, tried with the assistant, etc.), leave another message:

Second message: “Hello Sue! It’s Doreen calling from Greenfield Services. I promised to call you today. Sorry we didn’t connect. I will call you again on Friday at 2:45.”

Remember to keep your tone light, never accusatory (guilt is a good thing only if the prospect feels guilty because you’re so nice, not because you sound like their mother).
Always apologize for missing them – it’s your fault not theirs (this helps with the guilt factor!)
Pick a different time frame for each message and let at least 2-3 days go by between calls. To help me keep track, I enter a note in my CRM each time I call, with the date & time I said I will call again.
I’ve tested this dozens of times in the last three months and I get a return call 2/3 times before my third attempt. But if you don’t hear from your contact, try one more time. Again, set yourself a reminder, and call at the chosen time:

Third message: “Hey, Sue. It’s Doreen from Greenfield. I’d promised to call you today and heard you were out of the office. It sounds like I’m really lousy at guessing when it’s a good time to reach you! Because I don’t want to be a “sales pest” I will send you a quick email, and perhaps you can let me know how you wish to proceed regarding our proposal? Looking forward to it!”

If you feel comfortable using humour (as I am), go ahead. The point is to be yourself.
The above gets a couple of important points across: first, it shows that you have held your end of the bargain. You are a trustworthy salesperson, and you deserve respect. Secondly, it shows that you empathize. Stuff comes up all the time and you’ll earn brownie points with the potential buyer when you tell them you understand. It also lets the prospect off the hook if he/she has chosen another option or the business is not happening.
Realizing that sometimes people hate to deliver bad news, I follow up with an email:

Follow-up email: “Hi Sue. I hope you had a great long weekend. I’m sorry we haven’t been successful in connecting last week to discuss the proposal I forwarded on May 14. I’m imagining that perhaps this no longer fits into your plans, or that other priorities have come up. Either is OK. Can you just let me know whether it still makes sense for us to hold space for you for next month? I really appreciate it.”

Recently when I sent the above to a repeat client who’d “gone silent,” I received a “thanks for understanding” email. He was very apologetic for not getting back to me sooner and he promised to phone me with an update. He called when he said he would, and now all is well again. It was a relief for both of us!

In closing, keep in mind that you will also speed up your sales cycle if you have more business opportunities in your funnel. Find time to prospect more often and you won’t have to wait by the phone for that prospect to call you back.

Let us know about your strategies to speed up the sales cycle or whether you have any questions & comments!

Tags: business development, meetings industry, sales funnel, sales tips
Posted in Hospitality & Meetings, best practices - sales, marketing to meeting planners | 6 Comments »

Sales Efforts Making You LOSE YOUR RELIGION?

June 21st, 2010. Written by Doreen Ashton Wagner

Some think the 1991 song “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M. is about unrequited love while others maintain it’s about a Southern expression meaning “at my wit’s end.” Both interpretations are appropriate for those of us in hospitality sales who have lost faith that our efforts are paying off and that clients just don’t love us anymore.

Before you throw your hands up in the air, read on about what the experts are saying:

It’s not you

Contacts not returning your calls? Hot prospect suddenly gone cold? Even with business picking up, hotel sales managers and CVB account rep report having to chase buyers longer to get a commitment. Frustrating exercise, but the silver lining is that this is happening all over the place, not just in the meetings industry.

The Aberdeen Group and CSO Insights both have published extensive papers about how sales cycles have lengthened since the recession. One possible explanation is that in rough times, buyers become more conservative; they stick with who they know even when they have not been completely satisfied with their current supplier. With leaner staffing levels, it’s also likely there are fewer people to get the work done and meeting planners and tougher to reach!

At her April 2010 Sales Mastery Workshop, sales trainer Colleen Francis reported that, across various industries, closing a new B2B client now takes an average of 7 to 11 interactions with the customer. That’s 7 to 11 conversations or meetings – not just one-way emails and voice mail messages.

So stop taking it personally. It’s not you, it’s the way of the marketplace right now.

Be persistent

In a 2008 blog article, Brian Jeffrey describes that 81% of sales are made after the fourth call, by which time 90 percent of salespeople have quit calling. Similar numbers are reported by Stanford University research whereby 85% of clients buy after the fifth meeting and 95% of sales people give up after the fourth.

Sales experts agree: be persistent, without being a pest (for tips on the latter, check out Brian’s article).

Have more leads in your funnel

From personal experience, it’s easier to have faith in your sales process when you have more opportunities in your pipeline. Fear sets in quickly when you only have a few tentative pieces of business on the books…

The only antidote to this fear: prospect more to increase your volume of potential business.

Chewable Chunks

Start with past clients, or prospects you know you have a closer connection with through industry membership such as MPI, PCMA, etc.

When we haven’t prospected in a while it’s easy to get overwhelmed with a long list of overdue traces. Start small: commit to reaching out to 10 customers in one hour. On average at Greenfield Services, our Business Development Specialists connect with 1-3 live prospects in an hour (that’s the meeting planner – not the receptionist!). Be prepared to leave a voice mail, and if you know the client well, follow-up your message with an email.

Next week, we’ll explore voice mail and email tactics we have successfully implemented in our Greenfield LEAD Generation Process. Have a great week!

Tags: business development, cold calling, lead generation, meetings industry, sales tips
Posted in Hospitality & Meetings, best practices - sales, lead generation, marketing to meeting planners | 1 Comment »

Planning Your Lead Generation Program

May 1st, 2010. Written by Doreen Ashton Wagner

Whether looking to venture into a new market or mining for new opportunities in an existing market, lead generation begins with having a clear picture of who is your perfect customer.

Perfection is rare in this world, but the better you understand your ideal target, the better you can focus your new business development efforts so that your lead generation program will bear fruit. As famous American football coach Vince Lombardi once said: “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”

Whether you are looking to generate leads for a hotel, a convention venue, CVB, and independent meeting planning firm or other meetings industry supplier, questions you should consider include:

What is my ideal group size and arrival/departure pattern? (for a hotel, your answer may vary according to seasons; what is ideal for you in the summer may differ from other times of the year when you have more business travellers in-house)
What is the ideal range/extent of meeting space requirements? (e.g. size of main meeting room, average number of breakouts or room-to-meeting space ratio)
What are your ideal customer’s food & beverage requirements? (do you offer special menus that might attract certain groups?)
What are your ideal customer’s AV/connectivity requirements? (as a planner, maybe you’re very comfortable with meetings requiring heavy technical components – note it down!)
What are the ideal rates/fees paid? (ranges may be provided, allowing for variability according to seasons/months)

Clarity about qualitative aspects of your perfect customer is also important. One of our clients wanted to work with organizations with Corporate Social Responsibility mandates. They had done great work with socially-responsible organizations in the past and wished to leverage this success with prospects.

Are there certain companies or industries for which you have executed particularly successful programs? Use your expertise to attract new business in that field. Target the competitors of your best clients. If you recently had a great product launch for one pharmaceutical giant, why not seek relationships with more? According to sales trainer Colleen Francis, by making it clear that you understand the challenges pharmaceutical groups have to deal with, you build trust: “If your company has worked with them, then you understand what we need.”

If you are responsible for business development for a CVB, consider the less obvious attributes your destination offers. One city focused a group lead generation project around the fact they had the highest number of engineers per-capita in North America. This helped raise their awareness and receive RFPs from professional associations in the engineering field.

Documenting and refining your Perfect Customer profile with your sales team is an exercise that will help focus your business development activities and identify niches you may not have considered in the past.

Tags: business development, lead generation, meetings industry, sales tips
Posted in Hospitality & Meetings, best practices - sales, lead generation, marketing to meeting planners | 2 Comments »

Sustainable Marketing for the Meetings Industry

March 17th, 2010. Written by Doreen Ashton Wagner

Lively discussion at Table #10 (photo courtesy of Melanie Hudson)

Last week I had the pleasure of moderating a roundtable discussion at the March luncheon of the Ottawa Chapter of Meeting Professionals International (MPI). The topic was “Growing Your Business with Green Marketing: Sustainable Practices to Make Your Business Memorable and Sales Driven”. When I volunteered to lead this discussion my objective was to generate conversation about sustainable marketing, what works and what doesn’t.

But what is “sustainable marketing” or “green marketing”? Many think it’s the marketing of green products. Others maintain it’s marketing that is more respectful of the environment.

Others say it’s what serves an organization’s triple bottom line of people, planet, and profitability. Peter Korchnak defines sustainable marketing as what aims to: “empower communities by enriching their social capital (people), protect and restore the environment (planet), and generate prosperity for the organization and its stakeholders (profitability).”

While the latter definition was in synch with MPI’s Corporate Social Responsibility objectives, I think we too often overlook the “sustainability factor” for the marketer himself or herself. Are your marketing practices working? Are they bringing in leads for your sales team? Do you have the time and energy to keep up what you’re doing in a sustainable way?

At the lunch, after everyone introduced themselves and gave an overview of their current marketing activities, it became clear that we were all struggling with the same tug-of-war: how should meeting professionals “green” their marketing activities, keep within budget, and maintain their sanity in the process?

Much of the frustration seemed to focus on the role of social media in the marketing mix. How should a hotel or venue use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other sites? Does a presence on any of those sites bring in enough business to warrant the time required to manage them? The consensus at our table seemed to be that while some presence may be warranted, especially on the individual travel or leisure side, but that group leads were far from pouring in…

Rather than settle that debate, our conversation shifted to other activities. Sustainable marketing ideas included:

With over 95% of all B2B transactions being researched on the web prior to a sale, make it easy for planners to do business with you. Put your sales materials online where they are easy to download.
Consider “gating” your more detailed online resources (banquet menus, policies, theme ideas, etc.), asking prospects to enter their name and e-mail address so these resources are forwarded to them. This can be done automatically through many content management systems. You may lose some prospects who do not want to provide their information, but you quickly gather a list of interested prospects with whom you can continue the sales conversation.
Invest in Search Engine Optimization to improve the volume or quality of traffic to your website via “natural” or un-paid search results.
Direct mail: Junk mail is definitely out, but personalized direct mail is in! Make sure your piece is addressed to a qualified list of prospects. Choose Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified/post-consumer recycled paper and print with vegetable inks. Better yet, support a cause by using cards from non-profit organizations such as UNICEF.
If you’re going to personalize any marketing campaign, make sure your list is accurate. Account management experts say the average salesperson can only manage about 250 accounts annually. If your list is larger, cull it back. Most salespeople cannot stay on top of more than that. For tips on how to clean up your list, see our blog post on Keeping on Top of Your Database.
Make your direct mail piece a “keeper”. Provide tips (“top 10 ways to save on your next banquet at…”), checklists, or other resources that planners will want to pin to their wall and remember you every time they see your logo.
Send out handwritten cards. Again, make sure they are the greenest possible (Pistachio cards are great products, available at Chapters/Indigo and online at http://www.epistachio.com/).
Get out of the office! Too much is done by email. Lasting, sustainable client relationships are fostered in person. Aren’t we in the meetings industry, afterall? So pick up the phone, make an appointment and make a sales call.
If you choose a giveaway for a tradeshow or as a leave-behind gift for a sales call, consider items made by a local artisan, perhaps even using recycled materials. Think about potted plants or flowers (Cancer Society’s Daffodil Days). Edibles, such as cookies, chocolates or squares are always a hit, especially if you attach the recipe!

Isn’t it interesting to note that 6 of the 9 ideas listed above are actually “traditional” marketing practices, only with a greener mindset? Happy selling!

Tags: CSR, green marketing, meetings industry, sales tips, sustainable marketing
Posted in Hospitality & Meetings, best practices - sales, database management, marketing to meeting planners, meetings industry events, sales appointments | 17 Comments »

Keeping on Top of Your Database

March 8th, 2010. Written by Doreen Ashton Wagner

When I was mailing out holiday season cards I felt quite smug because our list had been updated just six months prior to the mailing.

I mailed 230 cards this year, and six where returned as undeliverable. Only six, you say? That’s a rate of 2.6% – I was appalled! Being in the data business I am fanatical about keeping information current.

None of the cards were returned because of an undeliverable address since all addresses had been verified and certified with our address correction software. The six returns included two from the same organization whose office had moved just five months earlier (and I guess they didn’t feel it was worthwhile to pay the $$ that Canada Post charges to have the mail follow to a new address…). The other three had left their organization and one had been transferred.

In spite of my very best efforts, 2.6% of my data had gone bad within six months. According to industry standards, this is a very low percentage. The average database perishes at a rate of 15-25% per year. This rate accelerates when the economy is in turmoil, when an industry is growing at a fast pace or is facing consolidation.

So what to do if your database is a mess?

Here are a few tips:

Unlike me, accept that the minute you’ve finished updating your database, something in it will be obsolete. It’s the circle of life!
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water… The data may not be current but if the list includes relatively large companies and phone numbers, chances are you can re-coup some data with a little time and effort. Buying new data isn’t cheap — Dun & Bradstreet, Hoover’s, InfoCanada, charge anywhere from $0.50/record for a simple list to $3-$4/record for detailed data. And it’s no guarantee that those lists will work for your purposes because the meeting planning function isn’t one that is collected by list brokers and agencies.
Update in small chunks. Set aside a few hundred records, get those updated, and feel good about what you’ve done… And keep this part of the database clean from hereon!
Be brutal. If a record can’t be updated in a pre-determined number of phone calls, archive it, delete it, or do whatever, but get it out of your regularly accessible records.
When you make a call, start at the top – the executive assistant to the President often will know who plans meetings. To get by a particularly tenacious receptionist, ask for the Sales Department. Sales is a great place to start since it’s the department that has client events, incentive programs, and sales meetings.
Organize a “data cleansing party”: I remember the days when the boss would have us stay late, ply us with chocolate and coffee and have us purge hundreds of files over an evening or on the weekend (I’m seriously dating myself here… that’s when we had paper files!). Pull from your departments that may be seasonal or under-employed in winter, like reservations. Set them up in a room with the phones and access to only those records that require updating. Give them a short script, and let them dial!
Offer an incentive to keep the data up to date, and be creative! Send out an eblast with the help of a professional firm so that the message will have a better chance of passing by spam filters. Offer a free service, a heavily discounted rate or even a gift if the person clicks on the link to update their information.
Make sure you continually replenish your database. Plan to keep your funnel full by topping it up with new sources of data. Upload that list from the tradeshow, or cross-reference the new MPI membership list you just received. Enter the new contacts in your database and start marketing to them!
What should you expect? Using the telephone and the internet to look up phone numbers, an experienced person should be able to update 10-15 records per hour, depending on whether they are only updating the contact information (the easy part) or if they have to seek the person who plans meetings and events (a more difficult task as we all know).

Some much wiser person than me said that “it’s the simple things that are difficult to do, but those simple things are often all that it takes to be successful.” Data cleansing isn’t rocket science but it’s time-consuming and requires consistency. Remember that clean client and prospect data will make you a more efficient sales organization!

Tags: clean data, cost of data, database, meetings industry, sales tips
Posted in Hospitality & Meetings, best practices - sales, database management, marketing to meeting planners, prospect data cleansing | No Comments »

Posts

Impressions from IncentiveWorks – Part 3 »

This is the third installment commenting my recent attendance at IncentiveWorks in [...]

Impressions from IncentiveWorks – Part 2 »

Team Ottawa did seem to have great traffic throughout the [...]

Impressions from IncentiveWorks – Part 1 »

Observations from meeting industry tradeshow and education event in Toronto August 16-18, 2010.

Reaching Meeting Planners in a Saturated Marketplace »

Meeting professionals weigh in on how they like suppliers to reach out and establish new, viable relationships.

When Is the Best Time to Prospect? Everyday! »

Stop trying to figure out when is the “best time” to call. A tribute to Paul Castain’s “Everyday”.

Follow-Up Strategy to Speed Up the Sales Cycle »

A voice mail and email approach to get your prospect to respond faster — we tested it and it works!

Sales Efforts Making You LOSE YOUR RELIGION? »

Too many hospitality sales people have lost faith that their efforts are paying off. It’s not that meeting planners just don’t love us anymore. Sales cycles across all industries have stretched longer, so hospitality sales professionals need to be more persistent and need to increase the volume of leads in their funnels!

Only a Few “Good” Hours Per Week to Prospect »

Being in the business of creating business development campaigns for [...]

Prospecting is the KEY to Healthy Sales »

Prospecting is the lifeblood of sales. Yet many account representatives in the hospitality industry love to hate “cold calling.” Here are 5 ideas to kickstart your prospecting without starting cold.

Planning Your Lead Generation Program »

The better you understand your ideal target, the better you can focus your new business development efforts so that your lead generation program will bear fruit. Documenting and refining your Perfect Customer Profile may even help you identify new target markets.

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