Todays tough business climate makes it even more important to be able to sell. Most industrys have seen an increase in competition, where the globalization has affected companies of all sizes and tourism is no exception. Thousands of articles has been written about how to “behave” for being successful in selling. Not this one.
From my experience, the human nature isn´t easily captured in simple role models. We´re more complex than that. Which is good news. Natural selling does not mean “born with”. It´s not that you can or can not do it. As I see it, it´s more of a natural and serious attitude to selling, more based on emotions and personality rather than analytical facts. Your ability to be a natural seller can be trained if you´ve got the will to do it. However, it does require you to challenge your own style, be interested in other people as well as your personal development.
1. Be your self
Don´t play roles. There are numerous courses in ”successful sales behaviour”. I guess many of us have a common picture of a “vacuum cleaner salesman”, convincing his clients to buy something they don´t really need. Honestly, how many times have you bought something from such a person? Contrary, you don´t even notice a professional seller. You´ve probably felt that you´ve made your own decision to buy whatever they sold to you, because they knew what they were talking about, were nice & friendly and they solved your problem.
2. Realize that nobody loves everyone
When it comes to selling, it´s more important how you´re perceived by the client than having an in-depth knowledge about your product. Confusing? If your client likes you, you can solve anything together. Then it becomes equally important to know what you are talking about. But if they don´t like you, it doesn´t matter how much product know-how you´ve got. If the chemistry just isn´t there, don´t be an actor pretending to be someone you´re not. Let it go and scout out a new prospect. It will spare you a lot of time. And money.
3. Work methodical
Selling is often pure matemathics: “to get X orders I´ll have to give 4X proposals. To give 4X proposals, I´ll have to meet 10X potential clients. To meet 10X potential clients I´ll have to make about 40X phonecalls”. Every day.
4. Ask. Ask. Ask.
Statements doesn´t sell. Questions do. You´ll have to find out your clients problem (=their need) before you present a solution to it. Ask them. Then ask follow-up questions. Summarize to show you have understood everything correctly, as a confirmation to your client.
5. Use the words “because” and “means”
It´s useless to babble about all the features your product might “have” or “is”. Nobody is interested. As a client, I want to know what these features means to me. Often in terms of time or money. Sample: “We use chartered planes on some routes. This means you get more time to experience the local culture and visit three countries instead of one, because driving would take days and regular flights are just twice a week”.
6. Find out who´s in charge
There´s often more than one person involved in a buying decision, especially if we´re talking about higher amounts. Find out who they are, simply by asking. Try to meet them all, preferably all together so you hear the discussions and, consequently, can give proper information, argue for your offer and meet objections when/if something is questioned.
7. Find an easy way in
Find someone who likes you at the client company. Could be the receptionist. This person is not necessarily one of those allowed to make a buying decision, but he/she might very well know where there is a need for your services. Ask your way forward to the person who´s got the problem your product solves. Within tourism, it might be a distributors need for a better commisionable program or a company clients need for a corporate conference, study tour, board meeting hideaway or whatever. If you´re doing your job well with this person, he will lead you to the decision-maker.
8. Have a goal
Define a goal for your selling work. You have to know where you´re heading, otherwise you´ll probably end up somewhere else. “Build better client relationships” doesn´t work as a goal. “Make 30 phonecalls a day”, “find out who´s making the buying decision at company X” is better. Sale targets should be specific and lead you forward to closing the deal.
9. No = maybe
A “No” is often a wish for more information. Unless you aren´t way out of your target group. As long as your product reasonably corresponds to your clients needs, there´s a basis for buying decisions. These can be influented by facts, such as price and performance, but also by your commitment and relations. Don´t take no for an answer. Ask questions.
10. The 2nd sentence is most important.
In your first sales call to someone, they should hear you smiling. Stand up while talking, take a look in the mirror and sing a song before you call. Belive me, it´ll do wonders for your voice. Everyone will listen to your first line: “Hi, this is Mark Anderson at XY Company”. But then? The 2nd sentence will make or break it. You need a hook, something different and unusual, but true. Something that makes it worth listening to your offer. Spend some time to find out some alternative introductions for different target groups and try them.
The punch-line: Ask a lagom tricky question. A one your client have no sufficient answer to, but you have the solution.
You´re a friendly, natural talent. You´re in.
Tags: behaviour, Curt Landin, natural, sales training, selling tips, successful selling, sweden, tour operator, Tourism
So it´s not really business as usual nowadays? You´ve got some cancellations? Media are flooding us with bad economy news at the moment. Even though not much has yet actually happened that affect peoples life in reality, there´s a sense of urgency in the air. Keep smilin´ and be pro-active! There´s a lot you can do to manage the situation.
Even in a recession, there are a number of options to maintain or even increase your market share. Take a look at your marketing and check the balance between price and perceived quality. Of course, you can do nada. If your customers are loyal and you accept to loose some of the poorer ones, you´ll most probably survive to a smaller market share and lower profitability. Doing nothing but raising the price will maintain your level of profit but probably leave you with a reduced stock of customers. What to do?
Maybe you´re one of those many that, more or less by routine, are passing on unexpected price rises for fuel costs, airport taxes or whatever, to your customers just because it´s allowed in the small print ? No wonder they´re cancelling. Everybody´s on pins and needles and you raise the price…
It´s cheaper to maintain the price and raise the customers perceived value. Your suppliers will surely help if you just initiate the discussion. Local destination management companies has a range of possibilities to balance costs or raise the guests experiences by small means. Ask them. They can often negotiate better rates for lodging, change to cheaper hotels with a similar service level, add an experience or even change the route if communicated properly. In the best of worlds, this might even allow you to cut prices and get a better market share. Of course, it depends on what kind of tours you are operating and how these are described in your programme. Remember, your customers want to go on your tour. Your local DMC and their suppliers want them to come.
In a recession, I´d suggest that you exhaust your low-visibility price moves first: eliminate cash & group discounts. Curtail your low-margain services. Charge for valuable services that until now has been offered as free. Try to absorb one or two cancellations, it will benefit you in the long-term.
A successful price increase can certainly have a strong effect on profits. If your margain is 3% of sales, a minor 1% price increase will get you a 33% profit increase if sales volume is unaffected. So, if you choose to raise the price there must be a sense of fairness surrounding increase to avoid cancellations. Prepare people. Give time to adjust to the new circumstances. Explain in simple and understandable terms what actions you are taking to avoid further price increases, what options they have and why prices are going to change.
Communicating with customers means dialogue, a two-way street. Sending a newsletter is not. A bulletin at your website is even worse. You need interaction that engage people. Ask questions. Invite customers to an exciting and informational event. Inform about your preparations and actions.
How about your re-sellers? You have them for profit- & effectiveness. Likewise, they sell your stuff for the very same reasons. Dump distributors that don´t give high priority to your products. Activate, engage and evaluate the others. Visit them. Arrange a seminar. Initiate a sales contest. An award for “Top seller of the month”. Launch a sales campaign together.
Then of course there´s also an option to reduce the perceived quality. You cut marketing expenses to combat rising costs. Even here there´s a road to success. Next time I´ll let you in on one of the best marketing tools I´ve ever seen. Does it work? You bet.
Tags: destination management, increase market share, percieved value, price increase, recession, tour operator, Tour Planning, Tourism, Tourism marketing | Tagged: Curt Landin
Travel trade commission structure
Are you one of the lucky guys that are running a tourism business with more demand than what you´re able to supply? I thought not… they´re a rare species. Have faith, there´s help to get if you activate a network of distributors. One of the most effective tools to get others to provide you with lot´s of customers is your pricing strategy.
A packaged tourism product generally contain three core elements: Transportation, accommodation and activities. It´s as simple as that. Or is it? A closer look reveals that these elements might contain a number of components, such as arrival services, transfers & in-country transport, accommodation, food, guiding, activities, experiences, lectures, entrance fees, rental equipment, tipping, baggage handling, service charges, taxes, commissions and administration costs.
It may seem appealing to be able to sell your product exclusively to clients that book direct with you, thus saving on commission, but it can be quite stressful with todays client trend to book later and later. It also leaves you with all the marketing and sales stuff. If you´re cooperating with the travel trade they do it for you, handle all the pre-tour enquiries, administration and provide you with the resulting business, planned and prepared.
When you´re developing a pricing structure for your products it´s s important to understand that there could, and in most cases should, be one or more other entities involved. If you allow them to make a reasonable profit on your tours, they´ll open their customer databases and give you access to an audience you would never have reached by yourself.
Overseas tour operators and clients booking direct often want service providers to provide a range of services rather than having to book and pay 3 or 4 directly service providers in the region they are visiting. If there´s no incoming tour operator or destination management company available, one of the service providers has to be the product owner. This means taking responsibility for finding, booking and paying for all the services the tour operator or client needs and, consequently, taking this into account when making the quotations and pricing.
One of the most common mistakes tourism entrepreneurs make is to sell their services cheaper to direct sales customers than if they´d booked through an agency or tour operator. Big mistake. You´re out of your distributors´ programmes in the wink of an eye. Instead, your rack price should be the same no matter where the end client makes his reservation.
Commission should always be viewed as a marketing cost and budget for as such. The image above presents briefly the travel trade commission structure and the effect it has on the end price for services booked prior to client travel to the destination. There are of course a number of other requirements to meet if you´d like to be taken seriously by the travel trade. More on that next time.
Tags: commission structure, Curt Landin, Destination development, growth industries, pricing, pricing strategy, sweden, tour operator, Tour Planning, Tourism, Tourism marketing | Tagged: commission, travel trade |
