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[E116]Economic Times E Paper

by Joel Mclaughlin, Joe

In these tough economic times the hospitality industry must look at new way to cut cost and attract new business. Hotel and catering sales professionals need to take a look at their sales materials and examine how they sell in the virtual world, virtually organizing your sales material and sales process will help you close more business, save your hotel thousands of dollars each month and give you a competitive edge in the industry.

In today's competitive hospitality sales environment, time is money. Distribution and presentation of your sales and advertising material instantly and professionally - while providing personal attention to the guest - can make the difference between the sale and lost business. In the age of computers and Internet, it's easy to lose touch with guests. Quick, easy and up-to-date information is no longer available. In order to find the information they are looking for, clients may have to go to a corporate web site or independent web site and access e-mails, attachments, word documents, links, web programs and PDF brochures or resort to faxes, phone calls and snail-mail. What happened to one-on-one personal attention to help a client decide on services? The Internet has taken away the personal edge that hospitality sales once had before web site development.

Today's full services and limited service hotel web sites have been built to reflect the web designer's technical goals and restrictions instead of the goals and needs of the hotel sales and catering sales professional. Traditional web sites do not provide the tools and knowledge your hotel sales and catering sales staff members need to close the sale with one phone call, while providing traditional sales 101 standards virtually?

In the age of computers and Internet, it's easy to lose touch with clients. Quick, easy and up-to-date information is no longer available. In order to find the information they are looking for, clients may have to go to a corporate web site or independent web site and access e-mails, attachments, word documents, links, web programs and PDF brochures or resort to faxes, phone calls and snail-mail. What happened to one-on-one personal attention to help a client decide on services? The Internet has taken away the personal edge that sales once had before web site development.

Web sites are good marketing tools but they do not provide hotel sales, catering sales and the event planning sales professional with the resources and education needed to streamline the sales process to each sales and inquiry call.

Consumers are still looking for personal attention and outstanding customer service in the hospitality sales process. Simply having a web site is not enough to bring attention to event planning services anymore.

Distribution and presentation of your sales material instantly and professionally - while providing personal attention to the client - can make the difference between the sale and lost business. Web sites should be a tangible sales tool, providing sales professionals all the necessary items needed to present and close the sale efficiently in one phone call.

If you're not already in the habit of saving money then start putting at least 10% of your monthly income into a high interest savings account. Then, if you are confronted with an unexpected expense or a sudden financial emergency, let these savings can come to your rescue, NOT a personal loan or credit card. If you can't find that 10% then look at ways of freeing up cash, such as those described below.

Budget. Take the time to sit down and accurately work out your monthly expenses, then take those figures and calculate your annual expenses. If they are close to matching or, worse, are actually exceeding your income then you need to come up with ways of reducing your outgoings. This means cutting down on the non-essentials. Now it may be that eating one or two fewer donuts or drinking three or four fewer beers each week is going to require some will power, but you will appreciate the savings further down the road. Anyway, when you examine your expenses and see how much money you actually spend on donuts and beer each year, the shock and horror will probably be enough to get you to change your habits.

If you must carry a credit card, use it for emergencies only. Avoid making any spur of the moment purchases on plastic: credit cards somehow make buying seem less "real" and it's easy to fall into the mindset of a frivolous buyer. The last thing you want to do be doing when money is tight is accumulating more debt.

Before you make a purchase, ask yourself if it's something you really need or just something you really want. If it's not essential then train yourself to say 'no' Then to get over the pain of denying yourself the latest cd, book or designer pair of jeans think about how all those savings are accumulating in your bank account and daydream about the holiday you're going to treat yourself to when things are less worrisome financially.

If you already owe money then make a concerted effort to eliminate your debts, by first studying the small print on all your loans and credit cards and then by paying off those creditors charging the highest interest. It's those that will hurt the most if the economy takes a further turn for the worst.

Article Source : online marketing strategist

About Author

Both Joel Mclaughlin & Louisa Mendez are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Joel Mclaughlin has sinced written about articles on various topics from Search Engine Marketing, How to Sell on Ebay and Keyboard Synthesizer. provides of common sense approach to. Joel Mclaughlin's top article generates over 110000 views. to your Favourites.

Louisa Mendez has sinced written about articles on various topics from Credit Cards, Marketing. Laura Mendez contributes to a number of financial websites in English and Spanish. She has written extensively on the subject of personal debt () and how to. Louisa Mendez's top article generates over 1600 views. to your Favourites.