The Omni Los Angeles Hotel is a conference hotel in Downtown Los Angeles that primarily serves business travelers.
In 2015, 80% of revenue was from business travelers, in comparison to only 60% at sister properties. However, 11 new hotel properties opened in Downtown Los Angeles between 2015 and 2019. How could our Express, Group, and Trial Sales teams compete with new inventory?
Interviews
Recognizing the issue, I conducted interviews with every member of the Sales team. I asked each of them to delve into the process of how they generated business and closed sales. I also asked them what they needed and what concerns they had with existing materials.
In the process, I identified concerns with the current Sales kits. Only available in a folder display, the Sales Kits could not be sent via email and used outdated photography from 2006. were circa 2006.
The main insights I discovered throughout the interview process was that our Sales Managers desired materials that were:
- Fluid – the ability to easily customize and update materials
- Sharable – the ability to be sent via email and printed
- Buildable – the ability to give clients as little or as much as they needed
Competitor Research
With these needs in mind, I conducted a throughout assessment of our competitor sales kits. I sourced sales kits from throughout Downtown Los Angeles and the greater Southern California area. I identified the general trends and areas for improvement. For instance, many left off any mention of neighboring food and restaurants (very important for business travelers!).
Design
I then worked with Omni’s Corporate headquarters to design a standardized Sales and Wedding brochure that incorporated the best practices I had identified during competitor research. For the first time, our Sales Team was empowered with beautiful and easily emailed sales kits.
If you click on the image below, you can view both of the finished brochures.
Building the Kit
After building out the brochure with the Corporate Team, I decided to take it one step further to deliver a genuinely useful tool for the Sales Team.
For each Sales Manager, I built them an easily customizable one-sheet on Microsoft Word. The one-sheet would proceed with the brochure if printed out for in-person meetings or could be attached to an email. It was specific to the needs of their target customer. For instance, our Trial Managers had information about the in-hotel war rooms and nearby courthouses.
I also made additional one-sheets detailing nearby attractions and restaurants, hotel food & beverage offerings, and our amenities (spa, etc.). This fulfilled their desire to give clients as little or as much as possible.
With the sales kits now available as pdfs, I uploaded all of the documents along with photography to iPads. This allowed our Sales Managers to easily walk through all of our different offerings with clients on sales visits, without carrying around endless brochures.
Result
Despite increased competition, the Sales Kits generated an 11% increase in the number of inquiries on our site. The Los Angeles Sales team continued to meet revenue goals for the following two years.
