Deploying a Proactive Sales Strategy Requires the Right Solutions

The Challenge

Palm Springs area hotels and resorts seek to attract year-round group meetings by filling low-season, (the very hot weather July and August months) with budget-conscious groups, typically faith-based groups, bands, and other social, military, education, religious and fraternal (SMERF) groups. Ron Palmtag, National Sales Manager, Public and Social Events at the Palm Springs Convention Center has over two decades of hospitality experience, having spent 12 years with the Hyatt Hotels Corporation. Ron has been at the Palm Springs Convention Center since 2012 and recently sought to gain visibility to these groups (as well as others). While he was already bought into the proactive prospecting approach to selling group, he knew there had to be a better way to do it rather than the time-consuming, inefficient and often ineffective cold-calling made off unqualified paper-based lead lists. He needed a solution that would rationalize event data in a way that could enable greater returns from his proactive prospecting.

The Solution

Realizing the only solution focused on group in the market today with the breadth and depth of event data, as well as the powerful search capabilities he was seeking, the Palm Springs Convention Center deployed the Knowland solution. Using the solution, each sales manager was able to build a different comp set, taking into account both geographic and business segment factors. They worked collaboratively to identify viable group opportunities for each other in the course of their Knowland research.

With Knowland right at their fingertips, Ron and his colleagues can not only research which groups are a strong fit for the 410 guest rooms Renaissance Palm Springs, which is affiliated with the Convention Center, but also prospect larger events within Knowland for the broader Palm Springs market. “With the click of a mouse, valuable information such as how many prior meetings groups have had, which markets they met in, estimated number of attendees, and meeting space utilized, is obtained and I can share this information with hotels in the network. To do this level of work on our own was impossible and it was holding us back from achieving our performance potential,” stated Palmtag.

Our team has completely gone away from inefficient cold-calling. We proactively call prospects to win, because the Knowland platform gives us the relevant Account behavior and confidence prior to every call.

– RON PALMTAG, NATIONAL SALES MANAGER, PUBLIC & SOCIAL EVENTS

The Results

One of Ron’s colleagues identified a Midwest group through their Knowland searches that had a pattern for summer-time events. Using Knowland-verified intelligence, she was able to personalize and customize her proposal focusing on buying patterns and triggers informed by the Knowland data. The resulting proposal was just what the planner was looking for and it accelerated the conversation and ultimately the conversion.

This is just one of the examples of how using a data-driven Proactive Group Sales Strategy is more productive and profitable. At the Palm Springs Convention Center cold calling to unqualified lead lists are completely a thing of the past. Today, thanks to Knowland, they have operationalized a data-driven approach to their Proactive Group Sales Strategy and their investment in Knowland had been returned many times over. The team can focus on business they are likely to win, but also on business that is optimized for their market putting them back on track to outperform on their goals. Now, that’s the Knowland Advantage!