Top 15 Trends and Ideas which WILL change your hospitality business in the next 12 months!

There are always changes in the market and if you are in business you should keep abreast and adapt your business marketing strategy for a better, more profitable future.

1. Most business owners get a customer in order to make a sale. Smart business owners make a sale in order to get a customer!
   How can you apply this to your business today, right now?
2. The competition you don’t see. If you the news, especially technology and business news, there is a good chance you have seen the announcement on Kalahari and TakeTwo merging. There is Amazon (who closed down THOUSANDS of book stores). There is Alibaba, an online trading platform AND more. Online sales are billions of dollars. More and more people are buying online, directly from suppliers and distributors. Time to get into the ecommerce game before it is too late.
3. People are VERY informed. 100 years ago the average person read less than 50 books in their lifetime. Today we get bombarded with information the equivalent of 176 newspapers a day! Right now most people have the equivalent of 600 000 books stored on their computers. We have access to information at any time with mobile devices. We read news and get social updates. Use Google to search for what we need. We are more informed than ever before. We crave more information. Every day we want to know more. Discover more. Why are people using the internet? They are LOOKING for information. In your business help them find it.
4. Reviews will make OR break your business. With the speed of social media your business can boom or bust in days. Social media revolves around one word, “reviews”. How many people “like” a page. You find reviews on Google and product sites. Reviews on booking sites. Suddenly everyone is a critic. It is key to manage the critics of your business.
5. Speed makes the deal. In this fast paced world people are looking for instant satisfaction. The days where you wait are gone. You stop at the petrol station and get petrol in minutes. Instant coffee. Complete web forms online and wait for people to respond. Buy school stationary online (why struggle to find ALL the right pens and books when you can order a box with everything already pre-packed?). You need to work on the speed of marketing, sales, operations and administration in your business to make it smooth and efficient. “There are limitless opportunities. But every opportunity has limited time.”
6. One Web Site is not enough. Even Google does not have just “one” website; Google.com, Google.co.za … Google.co.uk … Makes you think? South Africa is close to 1 000 000 registered co.za domains. Last year 180 000 new domains was registered. About 80 000 domain names deleted. The growth per year is around 100 000 co.za domains. We have been using multiple website strategies for the past 8 years, and so have many of our clients with great success.
7. A website is not a ticking exercise. Many business owners still see (to their determent) a website as a ticking exercise. WAKE UP! The web is FULL of opportunity. Web sites are dead! You need a system to drive your business forward. Cloud computing. Online commerce. Video streaming. Online conferencing. These are signs of the times. If you do a site as a ticking exercise just to have one I strongly suggest to rethink where you stand on that one. An easy way to check is when last you updated your website? 2010? Big problem.
8. What is the #1 goal in ANY business? Grow the database. If your database is stale, not growing, you have trouble headed your way fast. We helped a client grow his database from 3000 to 9000 people in 12 months. 12 months ago he had about 50 transactions per month. Now he is doing around 150 transactions per month. Do you see how the business and database grew with exactly the same percentage? For him, every 3000 people on the database will be 50 more transactions per month. What should you do to grow your database on a daily basis?
9. What is the #2 goal in ANY business? Add value to your customers. Customers want value for money. Offer it to them. That is how you create a loyal base of customers. If clients get no value, are not appreciated they WILL take their patronage somewhere else. Business is 100% about relationships.
10. The 3rd most important goal in your business is communicate frequently. Use social media, blogs, newsletters, sms, email, meetings, phone calls, events, promotions, printed newsletters, gifts, … AND more! Break through the clutter. People, customers, are always asking what is new? They want to be entertained. Informed. Enlightened. Educated.
11. Systems in your business. Do the heavy lifting with systems. Systems can do the work of many. If you are sending SMS’es with your smart phone there is a good chance you might have to send 10 and wait. If you send emails with a basic email program you might also only send 10 at a time. Systems can do this in bulk even while you sleep! Why not use and implement systems to do this for you? You can do better things with your time. Make more sales. Improve customer service.
12. Documented processes and how work is done. Documented processes makes you go faster on all levels in a business. Training new staff becomes a lot easier. Less talking, more training, faster results. Clients understand how you work. Works gets done better with a lot less errors. Less rework. More time. Less stress. The top and bottom line in your business will be impacted positively by documenting streamlining processes.
13. You can’t improve what you don’t measure. I asked a client how many people were added to their database last month? They did not know. How many people asked for a quote? How many presentations? How many sales? What are your sales percentages? How many leads will you get next month? You can only improve a process when you measure the process. If you don’t it becomes a very expensive guessing game. Invest in your processes (can be very basic, no need for rocket science here) and measure your results.
14. Have a dedicated marketing focus. Put a dedicated structure in place for your sales and marketing. There is no more predictable way to grow your business. (We found the ideal structure and it is a lot easier than you think!). You need to have account executives. These are people closing deals. They should not prospect. Nope. You have a team (or person) who prospects (outbound). You also need rapid response. This person (or team) handles ALL incoming calls and requests. Yes, at a minimum it is a 3 person structure … and it works. You do not need to do everything at once. Start with the most critical and work from there.
15. Use multiple channels to market. Do not rely on just one method. Use different channels to reach your ideal customers. Results? Here are some results from our marketing with clients: One lead for one client resulted in around R50,000 per month in sales. Over 2300 leads in one year. Over 60 leads in October (high transaction value – over R180,000 per sale). Another client grew between 5% – 15% per month on a month-to-month comparison with last year. From 1 Dec 2013 to 28 Nov 2014, 656 leads for a client. These are only a few trends, ideas and tips.