Register your team and participate live, or view the recording, of Doug Kennedy’s next 40-minute training webcast scheduled for Friday, April 25th, starting at Noon EST. REGISTER HERE While this webcast will be of interest to all hotel salespeople, it is a “can’t miss” for those who sell catering events and weddings.
“Although the jobs of an events and weddings sales manager and hotel sales manager might seem similar, the real-world skills needed are actually quite different,” said KTN President Doug Kennedy.
“Often, the ‘need’ behind a group sales booking is more commodity-based, such as a coach or parent-volunteer who is booking a sports team block, an admin booking a small, routine meeting, or the increasingly automated process of bidding on negotiated corporate rates and even meetings,” said Kennedy.
“On the other hand, the leads catering sales managers field are more likely coming directly from those personally planning emotionally important events,” such as weddings, retirement parties, annual awards banquets, holiday parties, Quinceañeras, and Bar/Bat Mitzvahs as he explained.
Simply replying with generic templates, sending quotes back via in-app messaging, or emailing over pricing and menus, creates a sense of “choice overload,” and planners may have difficulty deciding because the proposals are similar in content and presentation.
In this webcast, Doug will cover training tips from KTN’s catering sales training workshops:
Overcoming lead fatigue caused by “weak” leads from catering and event booking channels.
Obsessing on salesperson availability and back-up lead catchers.
Standing out in a sea of sameness when your hotel has parity of product, price, and place.
Creating client connections: Loop-it-Back Listening, Storified selling, using snappy taglines.
Consultative selling to gain client confidence.
Organizing and embracing “process” to enable follow-up that is both tenacious and personalized.
“Out peopling” the competition.
Recordings of previous webcasts are available on KTN’s YouTube channel and are now also being distributed on your favorite podcast channel or on KTN’s Spotify channel.
Everyone who registers for this and all KTN webcasts receives a link to the recording, even if they cannot attend. The 40-minute format is perfect for “lunch and learns” or excerpts can be shared at staff meetings. The target audience is anyone who is interested in upskilling themselves or others, and the topic areas are broad enough to be relevant for all sectors of the lodging industry.
“We are grateful to the generosity of our sponsors who have allowed us to offer complimentary admission,” said Kennedy. “It takes a lot of time to design, promote, and deliver these events, and so we would normally charge at least $99 registration per person, but this series is now completely free to all.”
Sponsors include: Travel Outlook, the only KTN Certified call center, and Track Hospitality Software, a TravelNet Solution, whose products include a PMS and CRM.
Complimentary registration can be accessed at www.KTNwebcast.com. Here are the additional topics scheduled so far.
Train Your Team To Deliver E.P.I.C. Hospitality
Friday, May 16 (Noon EDT)
REGISTER HERE
The word “epic” has found its place in the vernacular of our daily lives. It has become the name of so many Epic “things” such as an Orlando theme park, an International ski pass, a company that produces popular video games, and another company that provides kids with digital access to books. What’s more, it has arguably become one of the most popular descriptive words and is currently used as an adjective, adverb, and noun, especially by younger generations.
In this workshop, Doug dives into an acronym he created from this word and will walk your guest-facing staff and leaders through how the concepts of empathy, patience, intuition, and compassion are foundational for creating truly memorable guest experiences while allowing for a lot more fun at work. And, for those wise enough to take these philosophies home at the end of the workday, they are also the key to having a more fulfilling and fun life. Here are a few of the concepts covered in this webcast.
What many leaders call “soft skills” are actually “heart skills,” and “heart failure” is the leading cause of lost business!
Seeking the higher good without selfish motives brings us peace, joy, and happiness!
Evolve your empathy through a better understanding of life across the desk, bar, phone call, or email exchange, as opposed to the bad habit of “deanonymizing” the humans we call our guests.
Patience. Developing patience starts with admitting you have a problem called impatience, and then building your mental strength just as you would build muscles at the gym.
Intuition. Traditional hospitality training always preaches anticipatory service, but intuition allows us to do more than hand over a cold water bottle on a hot day and to instead “read the guest.”
Compassion. Many of those who are attracted to the hospitality industry have very high emotional intelligence to begin with, leaving us with empathy fatigue. Yet compassion, which refers to putting empathy into action, can be the most rewarding part of our work.
Conquering Complaints, CONFIDENTLY
Friday, June 20 (Noon EDT)
REGISTER HERE
Join in as Doug Kennedy provides highlights from KTN’s brand new training workshop. We all know that it is ideal if the person who first receives a guest’s complaint can receive and resolve it. Forcing them to wait for a supervisor or manager often causes their frustration to grow, along with their expectations of compensation from someone higher up the org-chart. Yet without proper training, frontline staff may feel ill-prepared and unqualified, even if management has said they are “empowered” to do so.
Participants in this webcast will learn the root causes of guest complaints are situationally and emotionally based, and certainly not intended as a personal attack. Armed with a better understanding of their important role, easy-to-remember service recovery techniques, plus a few helpful hints borrowed from the field of psychology, your staff will gain the confidence needed for their important role.
This webcast covers:
Why we should welcome guest complaints and recognize that they offer us a second chance.
No, it’s not true that guests are getting more difficult. Rather, the automation of routine guest conversations has increased the likelihood that those who reach out to us humans are experiencing a problem or have a complaint.
This incorrect perception is also caused by what psychologists call “Rosy Retrospection.”
How to avoid commonly used “trigger words” and phrases that can cause guests to have a mental “spiral.”
KTN’s Carrot Model for understanding the root cause of guest complaints, which reminds us of the often-missing part of traditional “service recovery” training.
Yes, there are definitely some “guest bullies” out there, so this webcast also presents copying techniques such as using your “power of release” over negative guest encounters.
For additional details, contact KTN at [email protected] or by phone (01) 954.533.9130 www.kennedytrainingnetwork.com
About Kennedy Training Network Inc.
KTN is the lodging and hospitality industry’s best source for hotel training programs and supportive services in topic areas of hotel sales, catering/event sales, hotel reservations sales, and hospitality & guest service excellence. KTN President Doug Kennedy has been a fixture on the lodging and tourism conference speaking circuit for decades. Hoteliers worldwide read his monthly hotel, tourism and hospitality industry sales training articles in this publication and elsewhere. Visit www.kennedytrainingnetwork.com or call (01) 954-533-9130.
Doug KennedyKennedy Training Network (KTN)
