Sales Management in the 21st Century: A Hotel Perspective

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of sales management within the context of the hotel industry, specifically using The Landmark London as a case study. It begins with an introduction to sales management, defining its role in increasing occupancy and profitability. The report delves into the key principles of sales management, such as consistency, delegation, equality, and conviction, and examines their impact on consumer and organizational behavior. It explores the benefits of different sales structures, including geographical and product-based structures, and discusses the importance of having a sales-oriented staff. Furthermore, the report outlines various sales distribution channels available to hotels, including websites, online travel agencies, and traditional methods. It then analyzes key principles and techniques for successful selling, emphasizing the importance of building guest relationships through effective communication, value-driven pricing, and strategic selling techniques. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and highlighting the significance of sales management in the hotel industry's success. This report is contributed by a student to Desklib.

Management in the 21st
Century – Project 1
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
Key Principles of sales management and their response to consumer and organisation
behaviour.....................................................................................................................................3
Benefits of sales structure and implementation of different types of sales structure..................4
Importance of having sales oriented staff...................................................................................5
Different sales distribution channels in hotel..............................................................................5
Analysis of key principles and techniques for successful selling and their contribution to
building and managing guest relationships.................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8
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Introduction
Sales management is a process in the managerial function of selling and distribution
which includes developing sales force, improving sales operations and increasing sales
techniques to surpass sales target. In hotel industry, it is assessed in the nature of increasing
occupancy and making hotel accommodation profitable (Fornari, 2018). This report has been
prepared with an aim to develop a small training manual named as 'Sales Management in the 21st
Century' keeping the hotel, 'The Landmark London' as context. It is a five-star hotel in Central
London and was first opened in 1899 by the Great Central Railway as the Hotel Great Central.
However, it declined with time and in 1995, was purchased by the Lancaster Landmark Hotel
Company Limited and was renamed to its present name. This report includes discussion about
key principles of sales management and various other aspects related to sales to discover their
impact on consumer behaviour and contribution to manage guest relationships.
Main Body
Key Principles of sales management and their response to consumer and organisation behaviour
Sales management includes management of all activities that are related to selling
business products and services as per the objectives set in sales target (Cummins, Peltier and
Dixon, 2016). In a hotel, sales management includes all the activities that are aimed to improve
occupancy of rooms and other facilities offered by the hotel such as advertising, sales promotion,
pricing, etc. In other words, it can be said that operations of sales management does not exist in
isolation and hence, its principles are in the evolving nature:
 Consistency – This principles persists that their shall be a consistency in the leadership
of the managers that could act as standards for performance for the team. Managers of
The Landmark London' hotel should also set some standards of operations like sales
targets, time bars, etc. However, it should be taken care of that consistency should not
lead to inflexibility as it could lead to reduced team morale.
 Delegation – This principles says that managers should delegate responsibilities related
to sales and reporting to juniors. Hotel sales managers must provide independence to their
sub-ordinates so that they can deliver best results and creatively improves the process.
For example, there is a customary way of attracting customers and turn marketing
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activities into sales but a sales person discovers some innovative campaign that is
different but can prove effective. It should be provided freedom to try that campaign.
 Equality – It says that every person of the team needs to be treated equally (Chapman,
Schetzsle and Wahlers, 2016). The Landmark London should develop a set of standards
that decides the base of ensuring accountability for everyone in a fair manner. For
example, setting a uniform a target for all sales persons in a team and in evaluating
results of those targets, none should be given preferential treatment. However, if a person
performs exceptionally well, should be rewarded to promote competitive spirit.
 Conviction – It says that management must be emboldened in their decision making
process with a view of having long term gains even if it causes short term discomforts.
For example, there is a sales representative who delivers best performance and this has
made him arrogant, causing conflicts in the team. Managers must either talk him to mend
ways or release him before, the whole team culture turns toxic.
Benefits of sales structure and implementation of different types of sales structure
Sales structure refers to the segmentation of the sales teams according to the functional
roles that they specialises in (Sharma, 2016). Structure of hotel sales and marketing department
of a hotel are dependent on the scale of their operations and the various segments that they cater.
Below mentioned are different types of sales structure and the benefits of adopting them to The
Landmark London:
Geographical structure
This sales structure is organised by those organisations which caters to different
geographical areas. However, in case of hotel, it should be treated as catering clients of different
geographical locations in the hotel and hotel clientele should be divided into geographical
locations and one sales assistant should be assigned to each, overseen by managers.
Benefits of implementing this structure
Hotel sees customers of different locations and assigning one representative to one
location would enable hotel to serve them in personalised manner, earning positive feedback
from them. However, territory sizing of clientele is a challenging task and can change frequently,
increasing difficulties of sales team.
Product Sales Force Structure
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Under this structure, organisations focus their sales efforts according to their offerings of
products and services. Hotel can implement this structure by assigning different sales team to
different offerings they offer such as one sales team to attract tourists to book accommodates,
another to persuade guests to arrange wedding functions, another to attract business clients, etc.
Benefits of implementing this structure
This structure would help hotel in developing niche product offering, any or each of
which can turn out to be cash cows for the hotel, if sales and promotions are done properly to
attract customers. However, this could lead to higher cost and duplication of efforts for creating
and managing separate product teams (Hase and Busch, 2018).
Further, hotel can also create a combination of two structures by creating a market-based
structure i.e., the one in which first clientele is divided into geographical regions and then
further, as per the particular offering. This will help create optimum sales structure however, it
will also have to suffer from dual costing, duplication of efforts and enhanced need for
coordination among the two segments.
Importance of having sales oriented staff
Sales-oriented staff are those who are not aggressively focused on selling products and
services but also gather information about customer choices, expectations and behaviour (Syam
and Sharma, 2018). Therefore, it is very important for hotel The Landmark London to develop a
culture of sales-oriented staff as it helps the organisation in developing policies that are able to
acquire, develop and retain customers. Such staff know which strategy would work under which
conditions and how and where should it promote and sell its products to convert it into sales.
Different sales distribution channels in hotel
Sales distribution channels are those different channels through which hotel can sell its
rooms for a profit. It could be a single channel or mixed of different channels. Below mentioned
are some channels that The Landmark London can adopt to sell its rooms:
 Hotel Website – Hotel offer direct room bookings from their websites and further,
provides various customisation options and price offers to attract customers. Hotel also
uses its website as a distribution channel. It acts as online direct selling channel. It is not
only able to get hotel directly in touch with its customers but also the visitors help it
collect big data to be analysed further to revisit distribution strategies.
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 Online Travel agencies – These are the digitalised versions of traditional tour operators.
They offer packages to their customers for hotels, cars, flights and others (Gammoh and
et. al., 2018). Hotel can collaborate with them to provide their hotel as the
accommodation place. Along with them, hotel can also collaborate with travel
intermediaries like TripAdvisor, Expedia, etc. to promote their hotel and attract
customers. These are one of the most effective distribution channels in today's time and
offers win-win situation for both customer and hotel.
 Traditional offline methods – These are the methods which were used before the invent
and extensive usage of internet. Under it, hotel can use methods like newspaper
advertisements to reach to client or using phone to talk to customer to ensure their end-to-
end guest experience. Direct selling methods are very effective when hotel is responsive
to customer queries and inquiries and for this, hotel needs to have a strong and informed
front desk team.
Analysis of key principles and techniques for successful selling and their contribution to building
and managing guest relationships
Selling products and services is not easy function for any organisation (Jaskari and
Jaskari, 2016). It is a dynamic process but there are certain underlying principles that remain
same irrespective of the process, situation and organisation. Such principles are mentioned
below:
 Selling is all about relationships – This principle says that it is very important to build
relationship with customers to keep the relationship for a long time. In hotel, this
principle is very effective as it aims to build rapport with customers. Direct selling
methods are really helpful in establishing relationships. For example, a customer books a
room in the hotel from its website. Sales team of hotel should call the customer to
confirm their booking and also ask if they have some expectations and require some
special service from hotel. This will be viewed by customers as hotel's genuine effort in
building trust and relationship with guests and will help it go long way with hotel.
 Price and value go hand in hand – This principle says that price of the offering should
be as per the value offered against it as price and value are two controlling factors that
can differentiate the product of two entities. Hotel offers services and can create
differentiated packages of value and prices to offer to customers to attract them and make
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them prefer The Landmark London over its competitors. For example, a customer is
looking for a room in a five-star hotel in Central London. It has The Landmark London as
its option but another hotel Corinthia London is offering same services at a better price.
This would make The Landmark London as overpriced product and customer would not
buy it considering that it has not been able to create enough value for it.
 Selling techniques - There are various selling techniques that are able to help
organisations make their selling structure and process successful (Johnson, 2016). Hotel
sales team should also follow these techniques like understanding market in general and
in specific, focus on the right leads, leverage CRM, etc. For example, hotel identified its
market but is in dilemma to choose right selling method and right strategy to aim target
market. They should then make use of their big data identified from market survey and
CRM to understand consumer behaviour pattern which would help it choose right path.
Conclusion
Above report is based on concept of sales management. It has been observed above that
sales management includes management of all activities that are related to selling business
products and services as per the objectives set in sales target. It is subjected to many principles
and each principle is influenced by and lays an influence over the consumer and organisation
behaviour. It helps an organisation in developing successful sale structure and relationship with
the guests.
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References
Books and Journal
Chapman, J., Schetzsle, S. and Wahlers, R., 2016. An innovative, experiential-learning project
for sales management and professional selling students. Marketing Education
Review. 26(1). pp.45-50.
Cummins, S., Peltier, J.W. and Dixon, A., 2016. Omni-channel research framework in the
context of personal selling and sales management. Journal of Research in Interactive
Marketing.
Fornari, D., 2018. Trade marketing & sales management. EGEA spa.
Gammoh, B.S. and et. al., 2018. The role of salesperson brand selling confidence in enhancing
important sales management outcomes: a social identity approach. Journal of Business
& Industrial Marketing.
Hase, S. and Busch, C., 2018. Sales management. In The Quintessence of Sales (pp. 77-122).
Springer, Cham.
Jaskari, H. and Jaskari, M.M., 2016. Critical success factors in teaching strategic sales
management: Evidence from client-based classroom and web-based formats. Marketing
Education Review. 26(3). pp.171-185.
Johnson, J.S., 2016. Improving online panel data usage in sales research. Journal of Personal
Selling & Sales Management. 36(1). pp.74-85.
Sharma, A., 2016. What personal selling and sales management recommendations from
developed markets are relevant in emerging markets?. Journal of Personal Selling &
Sales Management. 36(2). pp.89-104.
Syam, N. and Sharma, A., 2018. Waiting for a sales renaissance in the fourth industrial
revolution: Machine learning and artificial intelligence in sales research and
practice. Industrial Marketing Management. 69. pp.135-146.
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