Guest Post by FUSED Topline Solutions
Have you ever bitten into a peanut butter cup and thought, “genius!” Believe it or not, before the 1920s, peanut butter and chocolate had never been integrated together to create one of the most popular and tasty treats on the planet. Much like how H.B. Reese fused these two delicious elements to create Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, today’s hotel business holds a similar opportunity. Revenue Management and Remote Sales Management companies have emerged as valuable tools for hotel owners and property management teams. However, these entities often operate in isolation, failing to collaborate effectively to execute the most efficient topline strategies, with Topline referring to the revenues generated by a collaboration of varying departments, teams, and companies. What the hotel industry needs is a complete Topline Management (TLM) solution, akin to the peanut butter cup, which optimizes profitable revenue generation for hotels, by effectively integrating revenue management and sales.
Optimal topline strategies involve a coordinated and connected group of individuals and smaller teams working as one to outperform expectations. It is therefore critical that all parties of a hotel’s revenue generation strategy team are hyper-connected. The property leadership, brand or affiliated partners, revenue management, and sales management can disagree for a time on micro-strategies but must be aligned in purpose and execution once revenue generation decisions are made.
The Challenge Today:
The recent past and current options for these solutions are no longer adequate. Brands have lessened their ability to provide revenue management services through and since Covid, and existing third-party providers do little to embrace their sales management counter parts to affect positive outcomes. Similarly, remote sales management companies do little to involve themselves with revenue strategy meetings, favoring the allocation of time for sales activities that likely hinge or are influenced by the discussion and decisions in these strategy sessions. This severed connection on a hotel’s revenue generation team of teams leaves profitable money on the table for the hotel client.
The hotel business is at an all-time competitive high. Supply growth and prolific micro-classifying brand distinctions have created some of the thinnest margins and increased expectations for performance in our industry’s future. Thankfully over the past three decades our industry has evolved and adopted stronger attention and broader use of dynamic pricing and data analytics to drive revenue generation decision making. At the same time, the industry has been slow to evolve with technology and cross-platform cooperation. Due to the increasing demands of performance expectations, thinner margins, and opportunities to engage with emerging technology, the time for innovation and new mindsets is now.
The Solution:
FUSED Topline Solutions is an answer to these challenges and opportunities. Our business model is an optimal integration of profit driven revenue management and quick response remote sales management. We believe hotels in today’s environments can’t achieve their high expectations without a strong integration between these two critical disciplines. The hotel industry has numerous options for remote brand or third-party revenue management as well as numerous remote sales management companies. However, as previously described, effective integration is weak at best. We know this from experience because we hear it loud and clear from our clients that are leaving these “solutions of yesterday” for the industry’s only truly integrated TLM solution by FUSED.
The Benefits of the FUSED TLM model
- Our team of specialists and leaders are cross trained in both revenue management and sales disciplines. Our specialists provide the industry’s most dynamic scope of service options compared to our third-party counterparts in both disciplines. Having one third-party provider that is trained and certified in all major brands to provide one or both services in an integrated way is efficient, effective, and ensures all communication is fluid and highly productive.
- Our solutions are designed to make a hotel profitable. Our specialists are trained to think like a hotel owner and act as an advocate for what a hotel owner needs most, profit. Additionally, simply having the efficiency of one company utilizing a layered team approach for both disciplines provides value to the bottom line which is already improved by our results.
- Our solutions are designed to grow with you. Because our specialists are well versed in both disciplines, we can be deployed in task force roles for turnover, acquisition, and other irregular disruptors to a hotel team and business. Many of our past task force assignments have turned into ongoing support once clients see the results of our TLM solutions. Lastly, don’t be tricked into believing that revenue people aren’t salespeople and salespeople can’t do revenue management. The notion that one is or can’t be good at the other is a significant reason why FUSED was created. We know that is not the case and the revenue generation experts of today and tomorrow will be well trained in both disciplines.
Taking That First Bite…
Amazingly, the world was ignorant of how special the peanut butter cup was until someone took the first bite. Similarly and thankfully, FUSED has had numerous clients take the first bite of our “peanut butter cup” as we have grown by more than 50% each six-month period for the past two years.
One such client knew they were missing sales and not keeping up with inquiries and leads. They were a smaller select service hotel in a university market and were already a top performer in the market, being #1 in RevPAR index consistently and they did not want to lose this achievement. Supply had more than doubled in the market over a 6-year period pre-Covid and competition was fierce. They were debating hiring a full-time salaried sales manager to help, but their numbers did not support this hire and they knew they needed someone. At the same time, the brand revenue management support they were using had provided them with four different managers in a 20-month period.
The effectiveness of their approach was about 50/50 as they struggled to understand the nature of the market. FUSED was there to provide them with the solution they needed. Immediately we put a two-person team on the case and provided them with a better-trained revenue management solution for the brand than the brand itself was able to provide. Additionally, we deployed our sales strategies to cover fundamental and advanced sales needs such as our inquiry response guarantee of less than two hours. What happened? Their RevPAR Index percent change actually grew. They were afraid of losing ground, and instead we helped them take more ground. Furthermore, we achieved a 96% inquiry to booking rate within 24 hours of fielding all inquiries. Group and base business are up and for the first time the management and ownership are confident no sales are slipping through the proverbial cracks. These same solutions and strategies work for limited service and full-service hotels as well as branded and independent assets. We know because our client base is made up of all types of hotels.
Who does a TLM Solution Work For?
A TLM solution by FUSED is suitable for any hotel. The first step to determining how to deploy us in your revenue generation team of teams is to set up a demonstration of our services. In our 45-minute demonstration we will reveal our best-in-class technology solutions of business intelligence (BI) reporting. Additionally, we will reveal our customer relationship management (CRM) software from Event Temple. Additionally, we will help you assess your current strategy and identify gaps. You may already be feeling pain in this area, as many of our clients were before deploying Fused. From there, our development and client experience teams will lead you through a succinct onboarding process that allows for a seamless transition from your current outdated approach to the future with a TLM solution by FUSED.
How Do I Get Started?
Once onboarded, it is important to understand who you will have working for you and how. Rest assured our specialists all have operations backgrounds and well versed in sales and revenue conversations with operational sensitivity and filters. Our team members have served every role in a hotel from line level to General Manager.
After signing an agreement for a TLM solution by FUSED, in a matter of days our specialists can gain access to your systems, activate you on our platforms, install needed tools and resources at the property level and begin booking business and yielding more profitable outcomes for your hotel. Our BI reporting, Fusion BI, is cutting edge, versatile, and a valuable resource for both revenue management and remote sales management. It also provides corporate dashboards and roll ups of multiple properties across brands. No more getting out of one branded system into another, wasting valuable time for your corporate and executive teams. Similarly, our CRM platform by Event Temple is optimized for quick response, data security, and connectedness between the hotel lead sources and our team of remote specialists. It is the backbone of how we are achieving an average ROI of more than 420% for our clients. Because our team is heavily involved in the improvements and adoption of these tools, we ramp up faster than you can unwrap your second peanut butter cup.
What Are My Options?
Change is hard. Leaving money on the table is hard. You get to choose your version of “hard”. With a TLM solution from FUSED you can comfortably embrace this new way of doing business. We are former hotel owners advocates, executives, managers, professors, corporate trainers, and more. Due to our team’s ambitious and driven nature we are certified and optimally trained in all major brands for sales and revenue management. Our contract terms are favorable and flexible to meet your needs. You can rest assured you are in capable hands and have the flexibility to adjust and change scope within reasonably short timeframes.
A TLM solution by FUSED is tomorrow’s solution for profitable revenue generation and is available to you today. Clients adopting our strategies and deploying our solutions will be the market leaders consistently. As technology advances and data science continues to take a more prominent place in how a hotel does business, a TLM solution by FUSED provides proven and adaptable solutions designed by hotel operators for hotel operators. The very nature of our efficiencies as well as our trained specialists are focused on delivering profitable revenue generation to you, not just traditional topline KPIs.
Are You Hungry?
The truths and realities revealed in this article will continue to challenge hotels to adapt, adopt, and collaborate with outside experts. FUSED Topline Solutions will continue to lead, grow, and evolve ahead of these trends to ensure our clients receive the best.
Are you hungry? Perhaps for a peanut butter cup and more profitable revenue support for your hotel?
A TLM solution by FUSED will be your peanut butter cup and provides you with the team-within-your-teams to achieve profitable results in the most competitive time in our industry’s history. Schedule a no-obligation demonstration of services today by following the link below. Our team stands ready to listen, engage, inform, and deliver for you.
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