Sales Specialist

JOB SUMMARY

Provides sales support to the Sales organization, as well as individual hotels. Serves a bench function to account for staffing changes resulting from turnover, leaves of absence, or extended vacation leave for property and sales executives. Supports sales for new hotel openings, renovation and repositioning and sales support for priority hotels identified by the regional team. Drives customer loyalty by delivering service excellence throughout each customer experience.

CANDIDATE PROFILE 

Education and Experience

Required:

• High school diploma or GED; 4 years experience in the sales and marketing, guest services, front desk, or related professional area.

OR

• 2-year degree from an accredited university in Business Administration, Marketing, Hotel and Restaurant Management, or related major; 2 years experience in the sales and marketing or related professional area.

Preferred:

• University degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Hotel and Restaurant Management.

• Lodging sales experience.

• Account management experience.

• Multi-brand experience

• Marriott sales systems experience (e.g. SFAWeb|CI , MRDW, MarRFP)
 

CORE WORK ACTIVITIES

Managing Sales Activities

• Performs all duties of the Senior Sales Executive or Destination Sales Executive based on assignment due to absence/vacancy at the property.

• Provides sales support to the Sales organization, as well as individual hotels.

• Serves a bench function to account for staffing changes resulting from turnover, leaves of absence, or extended vacation leave for property and sales executives.

• Achieves group revenue goals by responding to incoming group opportunities for the property that are over sales office peak room parameters.

• Understands the overall market (e.g., competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, economic trends, supply and demand etc.) and knows how to sell against them.

• Closes the best opportunities for the property based on market conditions and property needs.

• Uses negotiating skills and creative selling abilities to close on business and negotiate contracts.

• Partners with Sales to identify new group/catering business and achieve personal and property revenue goals.

• Assists with selling, implementation and follow-through of group sales promotions.

• Attends pre- and post-convention meetings to understand group needs, obtain feedback on quality of product (e.g., rooms, meeting facilities and equipment, food and beverage), service levels and overall satisfaction.

• Coordinates and executes all site inspections/visits on property for Account Executives, Group Sales Managers, and Remotes.

• Provides coordination support for site inspections executed by on-property sales associates.

• Partners with account/selling manager to develop creative aspects of site visit.

• Gathers all important customer data from account/selling manager in order to plan appropriately (e.g. customers goals, specific needs, key account info, etc.)

• Prepares all sales and operational staff for upcoming site inspections.

• Understands competitor’s strengths and weaknesses in order to differentiate Marriott from the competition during the site visit.

• Provides expert knowledge on local destination (e.g., local attractions, events, etc.)

• Provides sales support for individual properties during pre-opening and renovation timelines.

• Coordinates with all sales channels to educate selling engines on property attributes and business needs.

• Verifies echannels and websites are updated with accurate detail about the property.

• Provides other sales support as needed, upon direction from General Manager (GM) or sales leadership, within the overall sales strategy

• Under direction of sales leadership, drives sales to identified property.

• Partners with Business Development and Sales team to pull-through local business from neighborhood targets and small business accounts.

• Coordinates with account executives to pull-through business from out-of-market accounts to identified property.

• Understands competitive market and identifies share shift opportunities.

• Provides temporary support for account executives and senior account executives based on assignment due to absence/vacancy on the team.

• Understands segment strategy and customer accounts to be covered.

• Executes strategy for assigned accounts to achieve goals of stakeholder hotels while growing revenues for Marriott outside the market.

• Retains, expands and grows account revenue of existing accounts through total account penetration, margin management, and implementation of sales and marketing initiatives. Penetrates assigned accounts for group, transient, extended stay and catering sales business.

• Maintains current business relationships for new business within accounts.

• Leverages appropriate corporate (e.g., Sales & Marketing Planning and Support) and market resources (e.g., area leadership, group sales within the sales office, property leadership) to monitor account saturation, pull-through of account strategies and selling solutions at the local property level.

• Partners with Sales Team stakeholders, as required, to identify sales strategies for potential new accounts.

• Maintains accurate and up-to-date customer, account and opportunity data in FSA system.

• Performs other duties, as assigned, to meet business needs.

Building Successful Relationships

• Works collaboratively with off-property sales channels (e.g., Group Sales within the Sales Office, ,) to verify the property needs are being achieved and the sales efforts are complementary, not duplicative.

• Partners with Event Management and/or Operations in providing a customer experience that exceeds the customer’s expectations.

• Serves the customer by understanding their needs and recommending the appropriate features and services that best meet their needs and exceed their expectations, while building a relationship and loyalty to Marriott.

• Gains understanding of the property’s primary target customer and service expectations; serves the customer by understanding their business, business issues and concerns, to offer better business solutions both prior to, and during the program/event.

• Drives customer loyalty by delivering service excellence throughout each customer experience.

• Develops a close working relationship with operations to execute strategies at the property level.