doug kennedy
Hotel Sales Training Lessons Learned From a Top-Tier Real-World Practitioner
Doug Kennedy | October 9, 2024
Real-world insights into today’s hotel sales environment While being a sales trainer for a diversity of lodging providers certainly keeps me in touch with what’s going on in the profession of hotel sales these days, I always capitalize on every opportunity to gain insights from real-world practitioners. One such opportunity recently presented itself when I caught up with Jennifer Daudi, Chief Executive Officer of Invigorate Hospitality, which offers remote sales support to a long and diverse list of hotels across virtually all major brands. Besides overseeing her team of expert salespeople, Jennifer herself has decades of experie...
The Tricycle of Guest Service Excellence: A Perfect Model For Remarkable Experiences
Doug Kennedy | October 4, 2024
Complimentary Registration Now Open For Doug Kennedy’s Next Hospitality Training Webcast! Sponsored By Travel Outlook and Track Hospitality Software Register your team and participate live, or view the recording, of Doug Kennedy’s next 40-minute training webcast scheduled for Monday, October 21, from Noon – 12:45pm EST. REGISTER HERE “Speakers and trainers like me are always looking for new ways to represent intangible concepts,” said KTN President Doug Kennedy, “So I’m excited to share the model we use, a simple tricycle. I think it’s the perfect model to represent the components needed for a guest to have an overall ex...
How To Turn Inbound Reservations Inquiries Into Proactive, Outbound, Reservations Sales Leads
Doug Kennedy | September 5, 2024
Complimentary Registration Now Open For Doug Kennedy’s Next Webcast! Sponsored By Travel Outlook and Track Hospitality Software Register your team and participate live, or view the recording, of Doug Kennedy’s next 40-minute training webcast scheduled for Friday, September 20, from Noon – 12:45 pm EST. REGISTER HERE “Many leaders tend to think the role of reservations agents is simply to field inbound calls, answer questions, and book those who are not techno-savvy enough to book online,” said KTN President Doug Kennedy. “Yet when you monitor the cloud-based phone logs at resorts, vacation rental companies, and luxury hotels ...
How To Implement a Front Desk Upsell Program That Outperforms Your Prearrival Email Campaign
Doug Kennedy | August 22, 2024
Despite what digital marketing and tech providers may say, I believe upselling can best be accomplished when warm, welcoming, front desk colleagues have authentic, human conversations. That’s not to say that pre-arrival emails that market upsell options in advance do not serve a role, because they do. For one, whatever upselling revenue they produce is a plus, especially since it is automatically generated. Also, pre-arrival emails tee-up a conversation-starting question that a well-trained receptionist can use to open the door. The challenge is that these days, guests who book travel in advance are inundated with pre-arrival emails explai...
Hotel Sales Habitudes for Booking More Groups, Conferences, and Events – Complimentary Registration Now Open for Doug Kennedy’s Next Webca
Doug Kennedy | August 6, 2024
Sponsored By Travel Outlook and Track Hospitality Software Register your team and participate live, or view the recording, of Doug Kennedy’s next 40-minute training webcast scheduled for Friday, August 16, from Noon – 12:45pm EST. REGISTER HERE “Today’s hotel and event salespeople work in completely different environments than most of their leaders experienced,” said KTN President Doug Kennedy. “Meeting planning and event booking sites have created a flood of leads, which can be overwhelming for salespeople.” When revenues drop, salespeople are required to meet prospecting quotas, based on a set number of calls, sent ema...
Pick Up Your Calls to Pick Up More Bookings!
Doug Kennedy | July 23, 2024
The more important the trip, the more likely they are to pick up the phone. Despite the pundits’ predictions, the phones continue to ring with incoming reservations leads even now in the mid-2020s, and yes, even at branded hotels across all segments. I’m sure some readers are thinking “Well not us. The majority of our rooms are booked online.” Yet if you listen to real phone calls from real callers, as KTN’s QA team does daily through our remote call scoring process, you realize that many people call with questions before booking online, whether at an OTA or the hotel’s direct website. Other guests book first and then call wit...
How To Train Your Guest Service Staff To Turn Every Conversation Into a Sales & Marketing Opportunity – Complimentary Registration Now Open
Doug Kennedy | July 8, 2024
Sponsored By Travel Outlook, Better Talent, and Track Hospitality Software Register your team and participate live, or view the recording, of Doug Kennedy’s next 40-minute training webcast scheduled for Monday, July 22, from Noon – 12:45pm EST. REGISTER HERE As tech solutions continue to replace “touch points” in the guest’s “cycle of service,” each remaining “conversation” becomes ever more important, especially since guests are more likely to reach out to our humans either when things go wrong, or when they have a special request or need. “With so many guests booking online, often through third parties, with an ev...
Avoid Sales “CRM Overwhelm”: Focus on the Three Most Important Things Your Sales Tracking Tech Should Do
Doug Kennedy | June 26, 2024
As I make the rounds conducting hotel sales training, I am afforded the opportunity to peek into how hotel group and event salespeople are using a wide variety of what I collectively call “Sales CRMs.” This is because as part of our pre-training assessment, I get to preview the clients’ sales tech, and when time allows, we have participants do workshop activities in their sales CRMs. As a result, I have seen more if not all of the sales CRM systems offered (or endorsed) by top-tier brands, including legacy systems that have been “rolled up” by tech conglomerates. Additionally, having started in the hotel training field in my lat...
