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Ardy You a Profit Center? You’re right. It’s a dumb title for a column this week. But, if you look closer, you’ll find it works. I had to mention ARDA, with the convention coming up this week. And, I want to talk a bit about my on-going "lower the costs of sales and marketing" topic. This week it’s about viewing each of ourselves as a "profit center". I appreciate "The Beat’s" recent disclaimer about the Beat’s columnists being independent writers. It’s true. There’s a lot I agree with coming out of this site, and some I don’t. Generally, the public dialogue is healthy, so I agreed to participate as there is so much that has gone unsaid over the years. Strength comes from working through difficulties and challenges. So I must be pretty strong by now. My personal challenge is keeping us productive and profitable. With ARDA this week, there is one thing I want to chime in on loud and strong. One of my friends, Marshall Upjohn, is up for the ARDY Gold Top Sales Producer for the third year in a row. He works with Gold Point Lodging in Breckenridge, Colorado. He’s been there with Mike and Rob Millisor for years and years, through the sellout of Gold Point, and now well into The Grand Timber Lodge. Please understand, their project is relatively pricey for a "typical timeshare", but nowhere near what the people at Hyatt, The St. James, Ritz or any of the other ski-in, ski-out projects in Colorado sell for. Overall, very little of their business comes from high-volume, mega-lauches, ala Intrawest, either. Marshall works the line, front to back. He’s had tremendous training over the years, and his own inimitable presentation and style. He’s unique, and very successful. He’s so successful, he and Margarite live the life to the hilt, travelling the world a good month or two every year. He wants everyone to buy, and gives all of them a good ride. With so many strong and influential companies putting up nominations, my fear is Marshall will become the Susan Lucchi of the ARDY’s. I don’t sit on the award’s committee, and with all of the votes already in, this little commentary won’t matter. But $2 million plus per year of line production, with modestly priced shares, has gotten Marshall the Silver for three years in a row. He’s been against stiff competition, and lost the last two Golds. He could be overlooked for the Gold again this year. Marshall is definitely doing his share to keep sales and marketing costs down, and volume up. Like Susan Lucchi’s Emmy, Marshall is going to get the ARDY Gold sooner or later. I think it’s time for him to get the Gold this year. Marshall is a Profit Center. So Marshall - Good luck and Break a leg. There’s a lot to being a Profit Center. The first is understanding that you either are one, or you’re not. If you are, you survive. If not, it’s "hasta la vista, baby". Welcome to the 21st century. If your company is a "profit center", they survive. If you are a "profit center" within your company, you survive. If you are a "profit center" and your company falters, you survive. You know the rest. Being a "profit center" is a set of skills and actions to make ourselves and our organizations function at top condition. Anyone who has sold this product, or booked a tour, knows the "feel" of success. It’s like winning at any sport. It takes conditioning, training, coaching, a game plan and strong execution. There are a lot of endorphins being released. The endorphins are the Glue. Like any team sport, there are many "hand-offs" and "baton-passes" that must work seamlessly and flawlessly, for the whole team to function at peak performance and release team endorphins. peak performance = Lower sales and marketing costs = profit centers = success and survival = lots of endorphins You can focus on surrounding yourself with stars, like Marshall, who outperform everyone around them. Recruiting stellar talent normally costs more than most vacation ownership companies prefer to spend. I know, as we opened as a "careeer opportunities newsletter and headhunting firm" back in the late 1980’s. "Grow your own" is a great philosophy, and many companies make it work well. Whether you grow your own, or recruit the best and brightest, recruiting smart and adaptable people is essential. Beyond recruiting, the fastest way to pick-up better conditioning and achieving peak performance is simply to work on the "hand-offs" and "baton-passes". There are at least 20-25 "hand-offs" in creating a prospect and a sale. Every single one of them is an opportunity for success or failure, an opportunity to pass-off smoothly or drop the ball, to increase guest satisfaction or confirm an unstated negative preconception. Every one of them has the opportunity to turn you and your company into a profit center, or point you toward the scrap heap. What do I mean by "hand-offs"? Hand-offs are the glue that connects all the individual actions that take place to book and sell a tour. You’ll want to follow along for the payoff to this one. It’s just a $1M to $3M annual payoff for a medium sized project: Picture this: Opc books tour (single action), promises premiums (single action), disclaims tour qualifications (single action), sets time (single action), and sends the guest to the resort’s sales center, to the reception desk (single action). There are four or more functional hand-offs just within the OPC job. The same goes for the Call Center, but there are more. The Call Center has everything from list processing, premium and legal coordination, to tour booking (with all of the OPC steps above). Add the confirmation process, letter generation, credit card processing, tour logging, advance check-in administration, welcome desk operations, etc. Multiply that times in-bound and the number of various promotions generating calls, out-bound cold call, out-bound lead chase and soon you get an idea of how many individual "hand-offs" there are. Each of these single actions is either "glued" to the process, or not. Each and every "hand-off" is an opportunity to successfully reinforce a customer’s attitude toward the company and the process, or lose their respect and their business. When the tour arrives, Tour receptionist check’s in the tour (single action), assigns salesperson (single action) and notifies the salesperson (single action). The salesperson picks the people up and performs a 10 or so step presentation where the guest needs to be passed from one step to the next…with agreement in between each step. Your job………. should you elect to take it….… is……. By now you are getting the idea. After the salesperson, it goes back to sales contract administration, owner services, etc., etc. And, you know the routine. Every step counts! Every hand-off counts! Time is money. Quality of contact is money. As goes the weakest link, so goes the team. Vacation Ownership is a "Contact Sport". We contact our suspects, prospects, and guests so many times and so many ways. It absolutely amazes me that most, although not all, companies have a relatively short-sighted view of our "production line", and the raw materials that go into the production. For raw materials, it’s all hospitality. It’s all customer contact. It’s customer contact, whether the customer is our prospect, or the next "profit center" down the line, within the company. Just imagine. If you can focus on the "hand-offs" between tasks, and between players, you can improve your performance, no matter how well you are doing now. There are about 20-25 or more basic steps between identifying a market, and having a customer go through contracts successfully to the point of referring friends. Find the Glue, and you find hidden treasure. This is where everyone can do just a little bit more to make themselves a Profit Center. The "P" word or challenge is that most "systems" have entropy or friction built in at the points of "hand-off". It’s an information thing. It’s a human nature thing. It’s a communications thing. It is totally natural for things to not work at their peak at points of "hand-off". There’s friction in the machine. Ever present. Always there 24/7 waiting to degrade your peak performance. The result is that as a "system", you’re probably losing .1%, .2%, .5% or more of your possible optimal production (sales volume) at each of these points - Just counted statistically. Not for fault. It’s a system. Systems have friction at points of connection. When you go to add it all up, your have 20 or 25 points of connection or more in your process. It’s costing you 2.5% to 12.5% of your sales volume every day. Add it up. What are those costs, each day, week, month and year? It’s astronomical. Doesn’t it make sense to try to recapture some of this? If you’re doing $20 million a year on a project, you’re losing between $500,000 on the low side, and as much as over $3,000,000 annually "slipping through the cracks" where there should be "glue". Got your attention, yet? You need to plug the cracks to create a higher performance team, and a better production line. Some of the cracks are small, and some are truck-sized. We can individually tackle some of the smaller ones that take training, coaching and supervision while companies need to look at the big ones that take a "systems" approach to plug the dike. You, the people around you, and the company you work for can be a profit center by working to make the guest experience more pleasant when we hand off to other tasks we do, and to others in our organizations. It’s time for the small to mid-sized companies to recognize that technology exists right now to eliminate much of this slack, and make the glue even stickier. It’s the latest information technology. It’s CRM - customer relationship management. It’s single entry of customer data. It’s ubiquitous access by all personnel to previous contact, and customer history information. It’s one system for face-to-face, email, fax in, web leads, call center, out-bound, in-bound, fulfillment, follow-up, etc. It’s contact managers and predictive dialers on steroids. They will help you to reduce the number of hand-offs required to do the job. They’ll take some of the friction out of the machine. They’re here, and they don’t cost that much. The results are internal processes that foster a one-call, one-person, one-solution philosophy when dealing with each customer contact, and action plan to implement it within an organization. It’s having more "glue" and "stickier glue" to hold your organization together. Your competitors either have it in place, or are researching it now. They will have the benefits on their bottom line. Will you? As individuals, we can look at how each step in our own process works. Can you get one out of ten more, or one of twenty more to go along with you to the next step? Can you find ways to reduce the number of hand-offs required to book and tour a guest? Of course you can. You need to. It’s not that big a commitment. It’s attitude and training. It’s not being satisfied with Okay. It’s wanting more…wanting it all. Like Marshall – give it a good ride. If you are a Profit Center for yourself and your company, you’ll want to update your skill set, and you will. There are verbal, rhetorical or linguistic skills that will OPEN more MINDS, and leave the customer and your coworkers in better condition and more receptive for the next step in booking or selling them. Learn these skills. Use them. There are information skills that you can learn to make the guest’s experience with you and your company more pleasant. Get to know them. They are your contact pool… your universe. Grow. Learn more. Study something. You’ll need it. You want it. As individuals we have to focus on the future, and our role in a 21st century organization. It’s customer contact. It’s information technology. It’s multiple contact sales and marketing. It’s follow up and follow through. It’s not as easy as just waiting for a 90 minute ride, but it’s more rewarding. It’s a philosophy of never letting a lead die. They cost too much to start with, and their value can be harvested over time, even if they be-back you today. It’s changing your head so you’re not waiting around for things to happen. It’s making them happen. It’s a skill set that takes commitment, learning and coaching to work. It’s your choice. You can be a "profit center" or not. It’s up to you. You’ll just need to learn to sell shoes or take up home economics if you’re just going to wait for the feet to walk in the door, or the phone to ring. Do you want to be floating when the rest of life is swimming? You could be floating upside down! If you need any help getting pointed in the right direction for the latest in CRM, or e-CRM, we’ve been doing a relatively exhaustive study of the companies and products available for a variety of sales and marketing organization sizes and situations. There are fantastic products to make your marketing operations much more efficient and profitable. We got a pretty good supply of marketing programs to get things kicked off and feed these systems, too. Our latest online promotions are killer. If you have any questions, drop me a line at msaxe@resortopportunities. By the way, we’ll be in Orlando for the annual festivities. I’ll be showing up on Tuesday between 1pm and 2pm
to the Town Square for Meet The Beat, in my simple role as a contributing writer. I’ll be listening and
watching, just like you. If you have any questions or comments, that’s the time for some face-to-face, so stop
by and say "hi". If you’re not going, or want to set up something, drop me a note at msaxe@resortopportunities.com.
See you there. |
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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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