3.05 Employ sales processes and techniques to enhance customer relationships and to increase the likelihood of making sales. Cultivate group sales

TOPICS a.Discuss techniques that can be used to cultivate group sales. b.Identify incentives that can be used to cultivate group sales. c.Explain the use of technology in cultivating group sales. d.Demonstrate procedures for cultivating group sales.

9 Practical Steps to Increase Your Group Sales #1. Find hot prospects. There are group prospects “right in your own backyard”. Existing clients who are members of organizations, clubs or associations may be taking part in group trips that have been arranged through another agency.

#2. Do your homework. Before approaching a prospect, find out whether the organization has done a group trip before and whether it was a success. If they have never tried a group trip, find out why.

#3. Supersize your group business. Focusing on groups business is efficient only when agents sell to multiple people at the same time. One way to do that is by scheduling your own webinars.

#4. Manage groups wisely. You can’t sell or manage groups the same way you manage individual travelers.

# 5. Work with pre-existing groups. Don’t bother creating your own groups. Taking group space and filling it with individuals is a losing proposition. Find that organization, pick one date, one product, one rate and sell it out.

#6. Watch your bottom line. One huge area that most agents never consider are profits and losses. Agents can create a really simple P&L, so they know how to price out a group intelligently. Best of all, when the group is completed, they know precisely how much money they’ve made.

#7. Ask for the business. Develop the habit of asking for repeat business and referrals. Whenever you touch that client by , in person or when you send a thank you note, ask for referrals.

#8. Never close a sale. Don’t rejoice in closing a sale, rejoice in opening it. It’s only the beginning of the relationship

#9. Reap the rewards. When group clients love their travel agency, they are likely to start booking all their trips through the agency, even if they already have a personal travel agent elsewhere. Groups can deliver serious, exponential growth for an agency.

Advice One incentive to offer groups is discounts based on the size of the group.

3.05 Activity 1 Look on at least 2 websites of college and/or professional teams and make a list of group sales activities they are implementing. Be sure to cite your source.