DO’s and DON’Ts of Selling Tech to Hotels

By Terence Ronson

INTRODUCTION

This DOCUMENT outlines challenges CIOs and CTOs face when approached by tech vendors, highlighting communication issues that lead to frustration. It provides DOs and DON’Ts to help tech sellers effectively engage with decision-makers. This advice is backed by Martin’s 35 years of International experience, where he managed tech deployment across hotels in the APAC region. His insights are valuable for vendors aiming to successfully market to the hospitality industry, emphasizing best practices for positively impacting guest experiences through technology.

These do’s and don’ts are by no means an exhaustive list, but they go some way to achieving goals, AND THROUGH THE USE OF BEST PRACTICES, WILL HELP ENSURE a positive, memorable GUEST journey – achieved through THE EFFECTIVE USE OF TECH.

DO’s

1. Sell me the benefits, not the features.
2. Understand my business needs; don’t assume – show the problem.
3. Demonstrate how the solution could give my marketing team some “bullets” and provide a competitive edge.
4. Look at all aspects of my business and see how this is a good fit.
5. Show me how I can achieve an ROI.
6. Explain how this can enhance the Guest Experience.
7. Illustrate how this can help with operational efficiencies.
8. Understand that your solution may help me as an individual hotel, but how will it impact my brand?
9. Show how this can help me save costs/improve the bottom line.
10. Show how this can help achieve sustainability.
11. Make sure the presentation is simple.
12. Your research
13. Stay engaged during your pitch – listen to what I say and respond accordingly.
14. Know that for every $1 per room per day your system costs – that’s straight off the bottom line – prove how it can be recovered directly or otherwise.
15. Provide a bespoke presentation, not a generic one. Yes, we are an industry – but one size does not fit all.
16. Ensure your presenter has the entire background of my company and ideally has an existing account management relationship.
17. Know the Company certification approval process and how your solution would architecturally fit.
18. Emphasize the security and privacy capabilities.
19. Pitch your presentation depending on the audience – IT or IT/Business.
20. Limit the time of presentation to 30 minutes up to 1 hour maximum.
21. Spell the name of my company and any specific references/people correctly in your presentation.
22. Visit my office, don’t expect me to visit yours.
23. Be adept at negotiation while remaining aware that this situation differs significantly from the informal bargaining found in a wet market environment.
24. Be on time to present. Not too early and not late.
25. Be clear on the facilities required to make your presentation.
26. Try to schedule over lunchtime for better use of time.
27. Know when it is time to leave; stay within your welcome.
28. Pivot your presentation if it is headed in the wrong direction.
29. Have a customer installation list ready.
30. Bring enough business cards for handouts to a meeting if you still use them.
31. Have a library of benefit statements.
32. Leverage your internal contacts at the Company you are pitching to.
33. Turn on your camera if we speak via Zoom – it shows respect.
34. Be prepared to summarize a meeting and aim to secure a follow-up time/meeting.
35. Be prepared by having the autonomy to approve deal sweeteners or free POCs immediately.
36. Practice your presentation delivery and ‘run of show.’
37. Bring a business decision-maker and a technical expert, but not much else. This should not be regarded as a teaching session.
38. Guage the pace of the presentation early and slow down or speed up as needed.
39. Learn how to say “NO”. We can’t do that, but…
40. Explain a 5-year a TCO [Total Cost of Ownership].
41. Understand the complexities of scale – especially when dealing with a global business with global customers.
42. Send out follow-up notes within 24 hours after the meeting.

DON’Ts

1. Use jargon or acronyms that I may need help understanding. Use my language.
2. Overly complicate the presentation – keep it simple.
3. Underestimate the hidden costs to me when I implement.
4. Forget interface and connectivity issues.
5. Ignore the fact that, as a hotel, we operate 7x24x365. There’s no downtime or holidays.
6. Hope to use my hotel as a showcase or a guinea pig unless you are prepared to make the necessary commitment to ensure 100% success.
7. Subject me to robocalls.
8. Have loads and loads of slides in your deck to explain the solution (focus on the what/why/how/when/who).
9. Forget data security issues.
10. Sell me a trend – many of these are costly failures.
11. Waste my [precious] time.
12. Overprobe for information – learn when to stop.
13. Just say your solution will help upsell rooms – prove it. Not all guests buy into add-ons.
14. Come unprepared to handle my objections.
15. Think because I have a big brand name behind me, we have big budgets – all expenses need to be justifiable to asset owners.
16. Try to sell me a dream that you can’t make come true.
17. Bring too many people to the meeting.
18. Make promises you can’t keep.
19. Be a ‘yes man’ – be honest, and if you don’t know, say you will find out and follow up.
20. Bring coffee and donuts to a meeting – it could be misinterpreted, and there may be rules against accepting gifts.
21. Go off-topic and present things that are outside the scope or generic about how great your company is.
22. Be pushy to sell. Many big companies have a lengthy consensus approval model.
23. Go to Headquarters without the support of the Regional office.
24. Bring piles of hard-copy information.
25. Make your presentation a multimedia extravaganza.
26. Take calls during meetings or play with your phone.
27. Bring people who are disengaged and looking out the window – less is more.
28. Bring something that the customer has zero interest in. Your chances of being invited again will be limited.
29. Pressure the customer based on your sales objectives.
30. Talk too much about your other customers – focus on solving a problem for this customer.
31. Talk about something that isn’t ready.
32. Try to sell me a comb if all I want is a toothbrush.
33. Oversell the product.
34. Under-dress for the meeting.
35. Be nosy in the customer’s office.
36. Take photos without permission – or use group shots for your promo purposes.

This paper is part of our unique DO’s and DON’Ts series, which we are making in collaboration with SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS such as BOOKALLIL ADVISORY.

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