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Hamburger or Filet? You sales people are going to like this story a lot. It’s really down your alley. It starts off being about one of your favorite closes: The alternate of choice close. But watch out. The underlying topic is more for the developers, investors and brass. They’re going to love it, but they’ll have to hang with me again, and not hate me too much for putting them through this little maze. To set the scene, we’ll start with a simple question, that on any particular day, a sales person, or waiter/waitress, somewhere might be heard asking a guest: "Would you like a coke float with your hamburger or the 98 Merryvale Cabernet with your filet mignon?" On the tables, I’m a one trick pony. But I really like the trick. It’s the subordinate question close tied to an alternate of choice. It’s one of those great closes we all learned back in the Dark Ages from books like Roth’s Secrets to Closing Sales, or from a top closer like Rich Gotterstaad. It works great… specially with the well-heeled clients we would see in Vail. I never liked to pick out what the guest was going to buy. I always liked to give them a choice. An alternate choice. And, I never wanted them to have to say "Yes, I’ll take the week". They could always say, "No" if I asked them straight out. I always wanted them to make the decision on a minor point – otherwise known as the "subordinate question".
Alternate Choice. Subordinate question. ABC. If they wanted the coke float, they could have that with the spring-fall Value week that has a bit of skiing, and trades great on the Flexchange, or on the Marriott Internal Exchange. You even get enough HGA points to do a bit of damage travelling the world every fourth or fifth year. Not like the ski weeks, but you like the coke float better. It’s up to you. You pick.
Alternate choice. Subordinate question. ABC. It’s a simple choice. The whole presentation leads up to it. During the discovery I found out that they like skiing a lot. But they can use some else’s condo for about a week a year. They have some money, and can handle the package, but their kids are getting to college age, and their stocks are down. But there’s nothing else to prevent them. They like to travel, but they love the mountains. They do a lot of weekends, too. And even though they can handle it, I don’t want to lose them putting them into too much. I can’t see trying to drop them into a Turquoise week (that’s a blue/green week). If they don’t get rojo or pale yellow, I missed them. They have money. Maybe I should forget my concerns, and show them the "private residence club" up the street, or the Hyatt resale in the Beav. The money for the two-week ski package isn’t really a problem. They could enjoy a month each year. They’ve been talking about getting a place for a while. All the places they like are going for $750,000 and up. They don’t want to step up that high. The $210,000 for the club might work. What if they bought CISCO or Lucent at the top? Maybe they can only handle Eagle Point up the street. They could get a repo two-week ski package for the price of the Value at Marriott? That could fit. Or how about one of the older RCI resorts that just went RCI Points? That could work, too. Or would it?
I really apologize for doing this to you again. You know. Sucking you in with something you thought was crystal clear, only to evolve into a mish mash of possible outcomes, all designed to take you away from taking action, and buying or selling something today. I lied. I don’t apologize. Where DID you come in? Oh yes… The Alternate choice. The subordinate question. Great close. Keep it simple. Give them a choice. Don’t make them decide "Yes or No". Let them pick which first day incentive they prefer. Subordinate question. Great close. And, from the above maddening dialogue… DON"T GIVE THEM TOO MANY OPTIONS, or they are going to have a hard time making up their minds. Enter Developers – stage right. (along with Haley Barber and the RNC). Lighten up. It’s the comic relief. You want to make more money, sell more, and spend less on marketing. Right? Come on down. I’ve got something you want to see. People love flexibility. They love options. The love benefits. They love them so much, you are somewhere between partially and totally confused about which products are going to work on the fantastic site you are developing. Do you go fixed or float? Do you go timeshare, or fractional club? Points? Weeks? Seasons? Sizes? Club? What? It’s enough to drive you nuts. By the time your project is up and running, it could easily drive your guests nuts. And, a big bowl of mixed nuts it is. Just put yourself in your buyer’s shoes for a moment. And your salespeople’s, too. We just got the market trained to understand fixed time. You went float. Great improvement. Simple to understand. Good product. Took time to learn to sell. No problem. Sell against the uncertainty of the future. Sell the flexibility. Fine. Strong sales. Oh, the high end wants certainty. White gloves, and absolute certainty. They want flexibility, too. But they want certainty. Club product. Great. Fixed week against some variation of points. Club rules. A bit confusing, but workable. Takes time to learn. Questionable built-in urgency. Low hanging fruit – fine. If you’re in a remote area, after awhile you’re hanging upside down or your inventory is creamed. Small fractions. Fixed plus club. Best of both. One’s like a home, the other like a club. Lots of flexibility. Different rules for each. You’ve got to cover enough on the front end so you don’t lose them during the paperwork. This is tough to juggle without skimping a bit on the disclosures. Pure club. Lots of flexibility for the buyer. But what happens in your sales room? Where’s the deed? Where’s the urgency. Need a top hat. Really sell the sizzle. Where’s the rabbit. Did you see where the urgency went? It’s a great product, if you don’t ask too many questions. See, the problem ("P" word) isn’t the products. They’re all great products. All have some advantages, some disadvantages. (And by the way, there goes the despised "P" word again. You can get my take on the "P" word in last week’s column, Elephant Eaters.) The "P" is that your guest has a hard time making up their mind during the course of a tour when they are presented with some variation of what they already know, or something totally new to them. They know fixed. They know float. They know clubs, lots of them. Seven-11 has a club. Everyone has a club. Something new is a twist. But, Clubs have rules. So they won’t blow out in paperwork, certain things have to be disclosed during a presentation. It can conflict with what they know, and cause great uncertainty. When does uncertainty overcome urgency? I’m not trying to stop you from making a great product, or a flexible product. I am asking you to consider how it is going to go down during a presentation while you choose the type of product you will offer. You will only succeed when it goes down in the presentation. And, it can get just as confusing as I showed in the little drama above. How are your guests going to react? You should be thinking about this during your planning process, while looking at the site, getting your permits, well before your registration process begins. I know you’re tied up in all kinds of important "development stuff", but you need to smell the latte. You don’t want to go through all of the effort, meetings, options, planning and time, only to end up with a product that confuses your guests at presentation time as much as it did you during the three months you spent figuring out what to offer. In fact, if you can’t boil your product down so your sales people can ask your guests a simple Alternate of Choice with a Subordinate Question to close the deal, then you have a "P". The flexibility for you and your owner may be your potential owner’s confusion. If you are a major brand, your credibility can and will overcome it. It might take time… a lot of time. If you are a non-major brand, your credibility could and might overcome it… and then again… how much time do you have? If you’re a new brand or single project developer, let the brands have it, and stick with a use plan your guests will obviously understand, creates urgency and your salespeople can close in a couple of hours. This is the best way to ensure that your sales and marketing costs are below the new industry average of 48.7% (according to The 2000 Financial Performance Study, by the ARDA International Foundation, and Pricewaterhouse Coopers). Your guests MUST understand it in a small portion of the 90-120 minutes you are spending your dollars to captivate their attention, interest, desire and action. If it takes you three months of meetings, and a book of rules the size of Doctor Zhivago to explain, would you plunk down your money in 90 minutes? Put yourself in your guest’s shoes. There are companies that have added tremendous flexibility to fixed and floating time using a variety of techniques. Your chief concern in designing the product is that it is a good product for your owners, and one that your team can sell and sell and sell and sell. If you have to have a Club, or Points based product, at least standardize what you offer so your sales team has the shortest possible learning curve. KISS. All you will have to add are some good incentives so your sales team has great Subordinate Questions. The simpler the products for the Alternate Choice, and the juicier the incentives for the Subordinate Questions, the more likely you will have a sales home run on your hands, and drive your costs of sale down below average or better. So I ask, "Would you prefer profits with your project?"…or, "Do you like the excruciating pain of spinning in the wind in front of your investors and lenders with a marvelous product your sales team takes interest-ticking time to learn to sell, and the market takes education to understand and buy, not just a good Subordinate Question?" Resort opportunities has provided advanced product planning services, from the sales and marketing perspective, for some of the top products released in recent years. Call us to help you work your way through the maze of product possibilities, to a product that will close with urgency and velocity. ABC
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More Saxe | Home Marc Saxe is the owner of Resort Opportunities, a sales and marketing services and consulting firm specializing in resort properties, vacation ownership, fractionals and club memberships. Marc has been in the industry since 1979 and has worked with Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Intrawest and more. Recently Resort Opportunities has provided marketing and sales consulting or services for the start-ups of The Manhattan Club, The Hyatt Mountain Lodge in Beaver Creek (for Integrated Marketing), Intrawest Resort Ownership in Palm Desert, California, The Grand Timber Lodge in Breckenridge, Colorado, and Cimarron Resort in Palm Springs, California. Email: msaxe@resortopportunities.com |
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