Sales Manager - Wedding + Social

Transforming Hospitality, Together.

We enable every associate to create remarkable moments for each guest. The foundation of our unique service model includes thoughtfulness, sincerity, intuitiveness, knowledge, and above all, graciousness. Our proven approach increases efficiency and dramatically improves our guest’s experience. We meticulously train staff at every level in the art of anticipatory service—we encourage genuine, unscripted interactions with guests and an acute sense of ownership in the success of the company.

At Aparium, we are always in search of individuals with hospitality in their DNA.

We then train our team to be anticipatory, thorough, and thoughtful and have input in their role and the hotel as a whole.

The result: Aparium has crafted something rare and quite special, a place where associates are deeply involved in their work.

Our belief in the power of people, place and character extends to everything we do and we invite those with the following characteristics in our journey to build the best independent hotel company in the world.

BE PASSIONATE
Passion is what drives individuals to invest their time, energy, and dedication wholeheartedly and it fuels a relentless pursuit of excellence, pushing one to continuously learn, grow, and overcome challenges.

BE PROUD OF YOUR CITY
To have pride in one’s city is to hold a deep sense of attachment, loyalty, and admiration for the place you call home.

CELEBRATE UNIQUENESS
We recognize that every individual possesses their own distinct set of talents, perspectives, and experiences, which contribute to the rich tapestry of humanity, and of our team.

We encourage every Aparium Associate to work with an entrepreneurial spirit, actively engaging in their discipline to identify ways to help us move forward and deliver experiences that matter.

Why You Belong At Aparium

DIVERSITY
Diversity is an appreciation and respect for what makes an individual unique in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, education and national origin. We see each employee as unique as each of our hotels with differing roots, history, perspectives and talent. All deserve to be part of an organization in which our differences matter and are valued.

EQUITY
Equity is in our practices and processes to ensure that every person has the same opportunities. It provides people who have marginalized identities to contribute and develop to their own potential. Equity promotes impartiality and fairness within our company procedures, processes and decision making to eliminate practices that may create disparities within our company.

INCLUSION
Inclusion is our ability to ensure people of all backgrounds feel welcomed, are treated equally and are respected. We were founded on purposeful collaboration, encouraging everyone to share their experiences and at times, differing perspectives. Our foundational practice of Inclusion creates a sense of belonging for all associates and stakeholders alike.

Position: Sales Manager - Wedding + Social

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Job Id: 680

# of Openings: 1

SALES MANAGER (Wedding + Social)
Reports to: Director of Sales, position is exempt

THE ROLE

This role requires the tenacity to create memorable experiences and unique events within our event spaces. If you are known to have the grit that is associated with an entrepreneurial spirit, then we invite you to your next career opportunity. Overseeing group and banquet/catering functions at the hotel you will lead, communicate and develop weddings, social gatherings and special events for room blocks and event spaces. If the demand is not there, you will use your creative mind to generate your own demand and help fill our space(s).

WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Uphold and role model the company’s principles of People, Place and Character; and ensure your team and peers are also modeling the way of our values that drive collaboration, intuition and translocal hospitality.
• Generate new group and/or catering and special events business in the local market by focusing on local SMERF segments, weddings, and social events to meet group rooms and banquets/catering sales goals.
• Problem solves with other departments as needed to book business into the hotel, e.g. salvaging of accounts, groups that have outgrown confirmed space by identifying other options the hotel has to offer.
• Dive deep into client needs to discover unstated needs, hidden objections, or concerns; spend time developing the relationship with the client that goes beyond rapport to genuinely understand their individual needs.
• Build and maintain a trusting and transparent relationship with your clients to create memorable experiences that meet and exceed their stated or unstated needs, know any request is never too small or too big of a request.
• Effectively communicate and follow up in a timely manner to all clients to ensure the client feels they are your only guest, and you are just as excited about their event as they are.
• Respectfully negotiate with clients to achieve the maximum revenue and profitability of a group booking and/or event and ensure your service exceeds the expectations of the client.
• Always be selling by performing tasks and projects that support client schedules and sales revenue achievement such as assisting with telephone volume, walk-in site inspections, and attending evening and weekend appointments or events.
• Assist, when needed, to prepare group résumés in fine detail to ensure all communicated needs are accounted for; and lead the scheduled résumé review meetings to ensure BEOs and impacted departments understand their role and responsibilities with the incoming group(s); also communicate changes immediately and ensure all affected departments are aware of résumé or BEO changes.
• Enhance the hotel’s community image by actively participating in associations, events, clubs and boards that represent the city, specifically convention and sales associations to ensure you have the pulse of city-wide events.
• Regularly visit the competition to experience and gain knowledge of their concepts, services and amenities to ensure the hotel is competitive in similar efforts; and regularly recommend opportunities to innovate key service and product differentiators on an ongoing basis.
• Excellent product knowledge of hotel facilities, capacities and room dimensions as well as to have same knowledge of competitive hotels.
• Assume active ownership of assigned sales territory and respond to specific market needs, initiates needed action and suggest to sales leadership any necessary actions.

HOW YOU WILL LEAD

• Highly analytical in thought and recommendations; although will never act like the smartest person in the room; and continually seek out the facts; can express a point of view without it be driven by an ego.
• Engages others in general conversation tactics to build rapport quickly; and can lead and adapt communication and presentation tactics to engage audience; displays adaptable interpersonal skills for a wide range of audiences and stakeholders.
• Approaches fact finding and discovery missions in a collaborative effort; values input and experiences of others that creates additional insight to uncover deeper issues that need to be addressed or removed as a barrier to implementation.
• Values the importance of making decisions with integrity, maintaining confidentiality across internal work groups and knows how to use discretion when appropriate; understands the difference between transparency and confidentiality.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

• Minimum of three (3) years as a Catering or Sales Manager within upscale hotel or restaurant company.
• Flexible in being present during events and/or site inspections that occur in the evening or during weekends.
• Bachelor’s degree in sales, marketing, communications or hospitality.
• Demonstrated experience in forming local connections, developing business and achieving sales targets.
• Professional proficiency of the English language in reading, writing and verbal communication.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, Aparium Hospitality Services celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an equitable and inclusive environment, and sense of belonging for all employees. We do not discriminate and believe every individual should be proud of who they are, where they come from and take pride in who we serve.