New Book On “Steps To Win” When Pitching Conference Meeting Planners

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This book teaches hotel and venue sales teams how to think like their client. How to build the right tools that decision-makers use every day to help them make a decision. This book is just one part of how I create those transformations.


Ciara Feely, widely respected hospitality industry mentor on how to WIN and creator of The Conference Converter System™, announced today the publication of her new book, “Steps to WIN In the Meetings Market.”


In “Steps to WIN”, Feely provides guidance to hotel teams responsible for group sales, meeting space and revenue enhancement, based on her substantial experience as a Planner and an industry sales director. Her main message is to Stop Selling; Build Trust and WIN! “Stop Selling” may sound alarming to many sales professionals, but Feely assures us it is the relationship that the Planner wants. Planners have changed the way they buy, so hotels and venues must change the way they sell!


A lot is at stake. For modern full-service hotels, conference space represents a large capital and operational investment and an important potential source of revenue. At the same time, for those organizing a conference or convention, the prospective meeting environment is crucial to sustaining that organization’s “brand” and the overall success of a conference.


The reality is that the average conversion rate for hospitality sales teams is about 20 percent, which means that 80 percent of sales efforts are unproductive. This lost revenue — for the meeting space, any guest rooms occupied by conference attendees, and spending on food and beverage and other guest services — can never be made up.


A better way. In “Steps to WIN”, Feely shares her client-centered approach, explaining in a comprehensive, yet engaging and easy-to-follow manner the first three (of seven) steps of her Conference Converter System™:


How to Stand Out and Sound Different to the Meeting Planner;How to Build a Power Sales Tool Kit; and How to Write Proposals that WIN!


At the heart of “Steps to WIN” is learning how best to win a client’s trust and envision any potential meeting or conference from the vantage point of the Meetings Planner or Agent.


“It isn’t about the sharp looking facilities, location or quality of guest services, no matter how proud the hotel is of their venue; meeting planners care most about their challenges and the results they want to achieve through a given event,” Feely explains in the book.


“As a result, it’s the right relationships that drive revenue and help the hotel to win more juicy, profitable conference, meetings and event business from their competitors. You gain a very different perspective once you start to think like your clients.”


Aided by contributions from some of the leading professional consultants to the hospitality and business sector, Feely also provides guidance on such “insider” topics as the impact of space design and floor plans on networking effectiveness and how space communicates a message. She explains how to build the Powerful Proof essential for a successful sales kit; the value of testimonials and how to acquire the best ones; the impact of print, video and web site design, including how to use the latest presentation and social media technologies to WIN more group business. Feely details the art of profiling clients and offers a very interesting take on the evolving role of sales specialists in this industry.


Ciara Feely has more than two decades of experience in hotel conference sales, meetings planning, business development and sales training. In addition to authoring “Steps to WIN” and developing the Client Converter System™, as a trusted mentor to the hospitality industry, Feely teaches her sales and relationship-building principles through her online training website, live Q&A webinars and workshops at top industry events, as well as through on-property interactive workshops to hotel and venue sales professionals worldwide. She has partnered with Meetings Professionals International (MPI) to deliver its new online Academy Venue Sales Certificate Program and her Conference Converter System™ is MPI-approved for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points.


Her prior experience includes 10 years of being the client as a Meetings Planner and 10 years of hotel sales for large InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG), Omni Hotels and boutique properties in Ireland and the UK.


Steps to WIN (ISBN 978-1-910406-45-8) is published under the Fisher King Publishing Ltd (UK) imprint and will be available October 17, 2016 both on Amazon and also at www.StepsToWinBook.com .


Release ID: 137690