0:01

In this podcast, I've shown you

0:03

all kinds of personalities that have

0:05

been very, very successful at sales.

0:08

I think what we can take

0:10

from this is that style is

0:13

a personal thing. We all

0:15

have our own style, and we

0:18

should work on our style

0:20

to become better, more

0:22

acceptable, more engaging with

0:25

our marketplace. One

0:28

of these characteristics is likability.

0:32

Likeability is

0:34

kind of the old school view of

0:36

how we looked at sales. That, oh,

0:39

that person's very likable. It's a people

0:41

person. But

0:43

I think there's more power to it than

0:45

that, meaning that it's

0:48

not enough to rely solely

0:50

on that. Certainly

0:52

in the last few years, a lot

0:54

of people have put down that

0:57

part of the selling

0:59

process. It really should

1:02

be based solely on value and

1:04

compelling reasons. But

1:07

we still need to talk to people. A

1:10

lot of the things that we sell are

1:13

easily viewed as commodities. Here's

1:17

the secret. Everyone wants

1:19

to view everything as a

1:21

commodity. Otherwise, they don't

1:23

get any power. This is

1:25

the topic we're going to be talking about today. You

1:29

may say to yourself, well, that's

1:31

not my style, but

1:33

we all have a quotient

1:36

of likability. Some of us are

1:39

less likable than others. If

1:43

we were more likable, wouldn't

1:45

we be more successful, make

1:47

more money, have more

1:49

people want to talk with us instead

1:51

of just having to talk

1:53

with us? Because

1:56

logically, we view sales as a

1:58

transaction. But when

2:00

you have to work with somebody over

2:02

a reasonably long period of time, get

2:05

to know them, ask

2:07

them for help, trust them, likability

2:11

becomes important.

2:14

And I don't think we should focus solely

2:16

on it, of course, but

2:18

I don't think we should ignore it either. Let's

2:21

get into this interview. And before

2:23

I do, I want to make sure you

2:26

understand the 10,000 hour rule. Now

2:29

in sales, it might be

2:31

the 20,000 hour rule. This

2:36

rule was made popular in

2:38

Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, which

2:40

is a fantastic book. I

2:42

highly recommend it. You may

2:45

not agree with everything, but it's very

2:47

well written and entertaining. But

2:49

the premise is that anyone

2:53

can become reasonably good at

2:55

something after 10,000 hours

2:58

of dedicated practice. Now

3:02

people misunderstand, or

3:04

they don't want to hear the word dedicated,

3:06

so they don't hear it. You

3:09

need to hear it because it's not

3:11

just doing something for 10,000 hours. So

3:14

that's essentially five years at

3:17

40 hours a week, which

3:21

is a reasonable expectation. Most

3:24

of the time, hiring managers, including

3:27

me, looked for five years of

3:29

experience for

3:31

obvious reasons. Now how

3:34

do we get those hours but the

3:36

dedicated practice? That's the hard part. That's

3:39

why a lot of people never get

3:41

10,000 hours. They

3:45

get two or three

3:47

thousand hours repeated over and over again

3:49

with no dedication to becoming

3:52

better at it. The dedication part

3:55

is planning for it,

3:59

doing it. reviewing it,

4:02

understanding where

4:04

you were good and where you need room

4:06

for improvement. Now, okay,

4:09

you can do that on your own if

4:11

you are, you know,

4:14

reasonably dedicated

4:16

and disciplined with it. But

4:20

today, you can do

4:22

it with brevitypitch.com. Now,

4:25

it's not just for cold calling. And

4:28

it's really for any time you're

4:30

interacting with another human

4:33

being. Now, we haven't

4:35

done this in the past because

4:37

the only interactions were revenue, very

4:40

expensive way of doing it on

4:43

the income loss category.

4:46

But today, we can do it

4:48

with AI. But it

4:51

feels, sounds, and acts like

4:54

a human because it's based off

4:56

of real humans. It's

4:59

amazing. What you want to

5:01

do is grab your manager and sign up

5:03

and get a demo. It's not expensive. And

5:06

it's well worth it. Pays for itself within a week

5:08

or two. Because you get

5:11

yourself talking the

5:14

dedicated part of the practice in

5:18

your head. It's nice. I get

5:20

it. I do it all the time. But then you open your mouth and you

5:23

realize, well, maybe I should have practiced verbally.

5:25

Because it's just a different part of

5:29

the brain. And the

5:32

moments, the precious moments that

5:34

we get with a client, if we're

5:36

not ready, we're not rehearsed,

5:39

we're not practiced,

5:43

you're essentially practicing with your income,

5:45

right then and there. And

5:48

if it goes well, you get paid. But

5:50

if it doesn't, you

5:54

know what happens. Let's get into the interview.

5:56

I'll sum it up at the end. Here we go. Hey,

6:05

Audrey, thanks for joining us today. It's a way of getting started.

6:07

Give us a little background on yourself. Oh,

6:09

goodness. Okay. So I actually

6:12

do not come from a sales

6:14

background. I have worked

6:16

in the hospitality and travel industry for

6:18

the last 20 years, 20

6:20

plus years. I

6:22

was a corporate travel agent. I worked for an airline.

6:26

And then I took my time pretending I wanted to

6:28

be a stay-at-home mom for a little bit, realized

6:30

that was not actually for me. I love my

6:32

children, but I also love to work. So

6:36

I found this little startup

6:38

company on Craigslist 12, almost

6:41

13 years ago that was

6:43

just getting started. It was looking for someone

6:45

to do customer service for a hotel rewards

6:47

program. And I was like, I could do

6:49

that. So

6:51

I joined Stash Hotel Rewards, which is

6:54

the company that I work for. Joined

6:57

them 12 and a half years ago

6:59

and did a lot of the customer

7:02

service side. So it kind of built

7:04

up the member support team over those

7:06

years and the operation side. And then

7:08

in COVID, I started

7:10

kind of helping in the sales

7:12

team because we had kind of

7:14

downsized as everyone did,

7:17

right, in the industry. And

7:20

I just had a weird

7:22

way of like, our CEO saw something in

7:24

me that he was like, you could do

7:26

this. And I was like, I do not

7:28

do sales. I am not a salesperson. I

7:31

don't like salespeople. Like,

7:33

I can't do this. But

7:36

he goes, no, it's not about selling, right? It's

7:38

about personality. It's about being able to talk to

7:40

people. And I never understood that. And

7:42

so I said, I humored him. I was like, yeah,

7:44

sure. Okay, I'll send some emails. I'll prospect a

7:46

little. I'll do, you know. And here I

7:48

am. Four years later, head

7:51

of our entire sales department here at Stash.

7:54

The accidental salesperson. The accident.

7:57

Honestly, it's so funny because he'll...

8:00

I'll see you, Jeff, we'll tell you if you saw it

8:02

all along. But I will tell you there are still

8:04

days to come like, how is this my job? How

8:06

do I do? I don't know. I went from

8:09

kind of behind the scenes to in

8:11

front of the camera, but it's been a

8:13

wild ride. It's been really, really fun. So

8:15

I'm definitely not the person that said

8:18

I want to be a salesperson and got a

8:20

business degree and went right into it. I followed

8:22

a very different path that got me here. What

8:25

was your perception of what selling was

8:27

about before you did it? I

8:32

think if you're not, well, even if you are in sales,

8:35

I think you have this perception of like, sales

8:37

people are kind of slimy, right? Like they're looking

8:39

for these different, I mean, honestly, like I, every

8:41

time I think of salespeople, I'm like, oh, it's

8:44

like a car salesman, right? You're like, or we

8:46

all get emails where

8:49

you can tell it's like a bot, right? I

8:52

am the polar opposite of that. In fact,

8:54

like I have never sent a

8:56

template of email even. I am, I

8:58

custom everything. I did that in customer

9:00

service too, because I just feel like

9:02

salespeople get this raffle like, I

9:04

gotta hit a quota. I've got to get this many

9:06

things out. I've got to sell this many cars. I've

9:09

got to, whatever it is. And

9:11

that they lose a personal part of it. And

9:14

so my approach was the opposite, right? Which was,

9:16

well, I want them to know I'm a real

9:18

person. So my opinion of them was

9:21

like, well, I just want

9:23

to be the opposite of the experiences that I've

9:25

had. But then

9:27

I also, once I got into

9:29

sales, realized there's a lot of

9:31

amazing salespeople that really aren't selling.

9:34

They are promoting, they are engaging

9:37

with people and getting them to understand their

9:39

product or their company or whatever that is.

9:42

And so I kind of learned from that as I was

9:44

going along too, but yeah, I

9:47

don't know. I had a very tainted view of it only

9:49

because I had never done it. I had done like, I

9:52

had sold like Tupperware one time. In my

9:54

twenties, I did Mary Kay. But

9:56

those types of companies were definitely, I was like,

9:58

oh, I'm not good at this. I can't do

10:00

this, you know, not the same. Not at

10:02

all. Well, I think a

10:04

lot of people even have that perception more

10:06

on the customer side than the sales side.

10:09

True. But, you know, I've

10:12

been in this my whole life

10:15

and those people don't

10:17

succeed. Not in business to business. Right.

10:20

B2C, you can get

10:22

away with it because it's a short transaction.

10:25

Right. People come to you,

10:27

they're looking for something and

10:30

the person knows that if you don't sell it

10:32

right then and now, it's over.

10:34

You're losing. Yeah. Yeah.

10:37

Yeah. It is interesting. In

10:41

the B2B space, it's you're creating a

10:43

relationship. That's how I look at it.

10:45

Right. So if you look at

10:47

sales, especially in what we do, right, we

10:49

are, Stash is a network of independent hotels.

10:52

So we only work with highly rated,

10:54

fully independent hotels. We are

10:57

their rewards program. So essentially, like

10:59

the Marriott Bonvoy, but for highly rated

11:01

independent hotels. And so for us, we

11:04

are creating a network. We have 310

11:06

partner hotels throughout North America that come

11:08

to us. They join our program for

11:10

different reasons. Some are looking for, you

11:12

know, helping shift away from OTAs. Some

11:15

are looking for, you know, more direct

11:17

bookings, exposure, marketing, whatever it might be.

11:19

But every one of them is kind

11:21

of looking for a network. And there

11:23

are other products out there that you

11:25

can join that do similar things, but

11:28

they don't really promote themselves as like

11:30

a family. We truly promote ourselves as

11:32

yes, we have over 300 hotels, but

11:34

you're going to get one of us every time you

11:36

need somebody. You're going, you're not going to get a,

11:38

you know, a chat bot or a call center. I

11:41

stay very close to all of my hotels

11:44

that I reach out to that I meet

11:46

with that I bring into the program. Yes,

11:48

I pass them off to our amazing like

11:50

partner advocates, our account managers, but I'm always

11:52

there too. And so it's, we create sort

11:54

of a family, like an ecosystem where you're

11:57

not just another customer for us, even if even

11:59

as we continue to grow. And I think that

12:01

makes a huge difference too. And

12:04

what parts of the service and

12:06

support experience helped and

12:08

what parts hurt? Okay,

12:11

so I laugh a lot because I,

12:14

I, I

12:16

mean, I worked for an airline like frontline in

12:19

my early twenties, like

12:21

18 to 23. I

12:24

worked frontline customer service

12:26

gate agent, right? Like nice people. Oh

12:29

my gosh. The stories I could tell you, I had

12:31

a frozen turkey thrown at me one time. A woman,

12:33

that was me. That was right. Yeah,

12:36

this woman tried to bring her turkey. She said it

12:39

was for support animal and she wanted

12:41

it to have its feet. And when I would not

12:43

let her, she threw it at me. I could

12:46

tell you, but that's the thing is it's almost like

12:48

it gave me the thick skin. And then when I

12:50

came into, you know, for it was,

12:52

everything is obviously like we're remote, right? Our,

12:54

we have, we have phone lines, but most

12:56

of it, our customer service is behind

12:58

a computer. And I was like, gosh, this

13:01

is nothing compared to being in front of a customer. It's

13:03

not at you. Right. And so

13:05

what we did with stash was like, we made

13:08

it so you always get a response within 24

13:10

hours. It is always a real person. It is,

13:12

you know, you need something, you're going to get

13:14

probably the same person when you call back or

13:16

write back. And so I always

13:18

told our team and what I've always done

13:20

is no, no cut

13:23

and paste, like make it personal. And so

13:25

that helps me because then when

13:27

I came into the sales side and I

13:29

realized that it's not about just

13:31

generating because the first thing I said was

13:33

I don't want to turn into like a

13:35

sales bot. I don't want to

13:37

take this list and plug it into a,

13:40

into a tool and shoot out the same

13:42

email that just, you know, had

13:44

the name, the name of it.

13:46

Right. Yeah. And how many of

13:49

those do you get where they

13:51

forget to do it? And it

13:53

says, it doesn't matter. It's capitalized

13:55

or yeah. And it's so easy

13:57

to spot. And my biggest thing is like I do have

13:59

ever. anyone to think that they got a bot

14:01

email. And so what it, you know, that basically

14:04

gave me the tools to say, okay, this

14:07

can be done without having to

14:09

do templates and bots and

14:12

canned responses, right? It needs to be

14:14

authentic because in customer service, if you're

14:16

not authentic, people read right through that,

14:18

right? They know when they're getting canned

14:20

response. But it's the same thing in

14:22

sales. Like I, we have a company

14:24

that we work with that manages a

14:26

bunch of boutique hotels in Utah and

14:28

Southwestern Utah. And he told the

14:31

CEO of that company, I had reached out to him

14:33

about a year and a half ago. I started

14:36

seeing their name pop up and I was

14:38

like, gosh, all these really cool properties I

14:40

never heard of. And he told me that

14:42

like, he actually copied our CEO and said,

14:44

you know, I get a ton of emails

14:46

every day of sales emails of companies reaching

14:48

out to me. And he goes, I rarely

14:50

ever respond. But when Audrey came through, it

14:52

was, she had like, she knew who we

14:54

were. She knew the people on my team.

14:57

She was very authentic in

14:59

her email as far as like, things

15:01

about our company. She done

15:03

her research. And so I realized she was

15:05

a real person and we have had a partnership with

15:07

them for the last year and a half. They have

15:09

like 10 properties in our program.

15:11

So it's that kind of a

15:13

relationship that you, I mean, I have some

15:15

hoteliers that text me and we chat. Like

15:17

I know their kid's birthday. So it's just

15:19

really important to create a relationship before you

15:21

even try to sell to

15:23

them. So it sounds

15:25

like the support. I was going to say

15:27

that it does it itself, right? It just works itself out.

15:30

Yeah. That you care. Yeah.

15:33

And that builds trust. You care about

15:35

what they want to accomplish. Right.

15:38

Yep. Absolutely. And

15:40

I think it helps too, having, you know, coming

15:42

into them and saying, I've been with

15:45

this company since it was a

15:47

tiny little office in downtown Seattle that we

15:49

were all working crazy hours and trying to

15:51

figure out next steps. And we had big

15:53

ebbs and flows over the last 14 years.

15:56

And so it helps when they know, like,

15:59

you know, I. been here 13 of

16:02

those 14 years. I've seen, you know, so

16:04

that kind of gets their trust also that

16:06

like I'm not just somebody who was hired

16:08

six months ago to come

16:10

in and try to get your hotel to

16:12

join our program. I actually know the ins

16:15

and outs of it and I know it works

16:17

and I've been here a long time which makes

16:19

you realize that that is a good place to be.

16:21

And how much

16:23

do you get inbound versus outbound? We

16:27

are primarily, I mean

16:29

it's probably, it's definitely less than a third. We

16:32

do get a lot of inbounds but the difference

16:34

is is that we only work with really

16:36

highly rated fully

16:38

independent. Everyone's all will get

16:40

hotels that come in that are not fully

16:42

independent, they might be franchised. Also they

16:45

might be just not up

16:47

to our company standards and so we

16:49

get a bunch of those but they don't

16:51

really pan out. But I

16:54

would say more than two-thirds of our business

16:56

is outbound. So there is a lot of researching,

16:59

prospecting, knowing your territories, knowing every,

17:02

we call it Hotel Jeopardy where,

17:04

you know, if you

17:07

tell me a city, yeah, if you tell me a city

17:09

I need to know like I should

17:12

know everyone there. If you find a hotel I don't

17:14

know then you'll, I owe you five dollars. Like that's

17:16

what we do. So it's just important to know the

17:18

market. You got to know what works, what doesn't, and

17:21

you know what hotels would

17:24

be good for us, what hotels have told us no thank

17:26

you. So we do

17:28

a lot, a lot of it is outbound for sure

17:30

which is really different for some people because

17:32

we've had sales, you know, sales

17:34

team members over the years that have

17:37

primarily done inbound sales selling

17:39

and it's a hard, I

17:41

mean again I don't, I never did any of

17:43

it. So to me outbound sales makes sense but

17:47

to some that's a harder thing to wrap your head around

17:49

because it takes a lot more work. And

17:52

who do you want to talk to at

17:54

the hotel? We

17:57

are primarily looking for decision-makers so Oftentimes

18:00

we'll start- Unusual. Right?

18:03

I mean, sometimes though it's funny because we kind

18:05

of have to, we try to, there's

18:08

a lot of hotels that are owned by, either

18:10

owned or managed by big companies, right? And getting

18:12

to the big companies is difficult. So

18:14

you want to start kind of at the hotel level,

18:17

get hotel buy in where they can then go to

18:19

the big guys and say, hey, we

18:21

think this makes a lot of sense for our property.

18:23

And sometimes it makes sense for one property and portfolio

18:26

and not for another, which is fine, right?

18:28

That's just how it goes. We

18:30

are looking for, a lot of times we're looking

18:33

for general managers, but honestly, some of the biggest

18:35

key decision makers are director of sales and marketing

18:37

because they are promoting the hotel and we're

18:39

going to promote your hotel. So it's important to have

18:41

their buy in. And then revenue, revenue managers

18:43

is another big one because they are the ones

18:46

looking at pricing and OTA share and all

18:48

of those different things that we come in

18:50

and can help with. You

18:52

know, SASH members tend to book higher

18:54

ADR than even your other direct guests.

18:56

And so it's important to get the

18:58

buy in of those, making those revenue

19:00

decisions. And how many

19:02

already have a program or belong to another

19:04

program? So you

19:06

can have a lot of hotels, especially

19:08

independence will try to do their own

19:10

loyalty program. And sometimes it's not

19:12

usually a points thing. It's usually

19:16

like, if you book direct, you get

19:18

free parking or you get extra benefits

19:20

on property. Right. And so

19:22

we come in and play perfectly with

19:24

that because we are just the point side.

19:27

Right. A lot of our

19:29

hotels will try something and then they'll come to us because

19:31

we have a larger network

19:33

of hotels. And so

19:35

it's, you know, when you're offering points at just

19:37

your hotel, that people can only use those points at your

19:40

hotel. It's not quite as it doesn't

19:43

grab a traveler's interest as much.

19:45

So a lot of times we

19:47

can play with their own type

19:49

of amenity program. But otherwise, it's

19:51

usually they're starting from scratch and they're like,

19:53

we want something but we don't know what

19:55

and it's hard to create it. We've tried

19:57

hand us your network. So that's been kind of the

19:59

business. at the time that they come to us. Where they find

20:01

other things, and it hasn't worked, and then they come. How

20:04

do you make money? Is it an upfront payment? Is

20:06

it a rev share? We

20:09

are paid by the points

20:11

that our hotels award members.

20:13

So when you, if you're a stash member

20:15

and you stay at a stash partner hotel, you

20:18

get five points per dollar on your room revenue

20:20

if you book direct. So okay, bookings, you never

20:22

get points. If you

20:25

book direct, you get those five points per dollar at

20:27

the end of the month. We invoice our partner hotels

20:29

for whatever points they awarded

20:31

stash members that month. So

20:34

that's where we get paid. And it's so funny, because

20:36

oftentimes I'll go through an entire sales presentation, and someone

20:38

will go, I still don't understand how you guys get

20:40

paid. And I'm like, oh, all right. Because it's,

20:43

because we don't charge. You're like, we don't

20:45

do upfront fees. We don't have integration costs.

20:47

We integrate with 40, 50

20:50

different PMS and CRS systems, and we don't

20:52

charge integration fees. So people often

20:54

get lost, and they're like, wait a minute.

20:56

So it's the point cost. And there's

20:58

like a points minimum per month, but

21:01

that's essentially just the points that they're awarding.

21:04

So that makes it a lot easier to get in. Right,

21:07

it's very simple. We also don't have like,

21:09

we don't do crazy contracts. We've got

21:11

three year agreements. COVID taught us a

21:13

lot about the industry. I think that's

21:15

just overall with anything, but people

21:19

don't want long contracts. None of us do

21:21

as a consumer or as a business. Nobody

21:23

wants to be locked into a 20 year

21:26

contest agreement. Right, or

21:28

whatever your cell phone agreement. So

21:31

we got rid of those. So we asked

21:33

our partners to give us a year because

21:35

it's hospitality, it adds and flows. But then

21:37

we just had a rolling agreement after that.

21:39

We never, again, we never want people to

21:41

feel locked in, which is another thing in

21:43

sales that I've noticed is there

21:45

is a lot of apprehension to that. And it

21:47

didn't used to be as much, but in the

21:49

last 18 months or so, you see

21:51

a lot of hotels going, we're a little, first

21:54

of all, tell us what your terms are. Like

21:56

upfront, they want to know, like tell me I'm

21:58

not locked into 10 years. Cause more. programs like

22:00

if you go and you brand to a Marriott or Hilton,

22:03

those are like 20, 30 year agreements.

22:06

We're like, no, no, no, no, no, we

22:08

won't do that to you. We always want to make

22:10

sure it's working. That's the other thing. I don't want

22:12

to sell you a product and

22:14

then have it not work. And that's, you know,

22:16

the other reason we got rid of upfront fees

22:18

is who wants to pay something before they know

22:20

if it's going to work for them? So

22:23

we, yeah, again, we learned a lot in COVID, which

22:25

was just, that's not really the way we want to

22:27

do it. We don't want to nickel and dime and

22:29

we want people to trust that it's going

22:31

to work and that we stand behind that. And

22:34

can those individual hotels make that

22:36

commitment without getting approval from home

22:38

office? Sometimes. So

22:40

we actually work with a lot of owner

22:43

operator hotels, which is like standalone independence that

22:45

are owned by the person who's running them

22:47

or by the family that, you know, those

22:49

are our bread and better. The people who

22:52

can make the decisions at the hotel level,

22:54

I would say 65% of

22:57

our network is like that. Of our

22:59

other hotels that are branded or not branded,

23:01

sorry, but managed by a larger company, it

23:04

depends. So some of them can make

23:06

their own decisions at the property level.

23:08

And that is definitely what we are

23:10

after because they are the ones that

23:13

understand what the hotel needs oftentimes. Sometimes

23:16

it has to go to the, to the

23:18

corporate level. But often

23:20

we have a lot of hotels that are part of

23:22

corporate management companies that have joined. And

23:25

where does the sale stall? I'm sure the

23:27

first call goes pretty well. Yeah,

23:30

it does. So I will say the

23:32

hardest part is getting, sometimes it's getting

23:34

them to talk to you, right? And

23:37

making sure they know you're a real person and

23:40

sorry, you know, and I, everybody jokes

23:42

at, you know, in our company because

23:44

my emails are so dorky. I honestly,

23:48

I mean, half the time, like our CEO the other day was

23:50

like, telling everybody, he goes, I was

23:52

copying on an email from Audrey and she was

23:55

talking about the weather with this,

23:57

this hotel you're in San Francisco. And we

23:59

had just had this. massive rain up here.

24:01

Like my back there was flooding. It's Seattle

24:03

so that's not weird that it rained but

24:05

it forked like three days. And San Francisco,

24:07

California just had all that rain. So we're

24:09

going back and forth about our row boats

24:12

down the road because our lawns are flooding

24:14

and he's like I don't know how she

24:16

does this but somehow it's not annoying. Like

24:18

somehow it's like engaging to them and these

24:20

people did this big hotel here they're going

24:22

back and forth about their row boats down

24:24

the street in the rain you know and then they

24:26

ended up joining the program and so where

24:29

I think it falls the most is getting

24:31

their attention making sure they know I'm real.

24:33

And then when we do our presentations we

24:35

sometimes we cram a lot of information in

24:37

where we're getting better at that but I

24:39

also think if you don't send really

24:42

concise follow-up meaning here's the slide deck we talked

24:44

about but here is broken down like here is

24:47

what you get here is what we offer here

24:49

is what our network is if you don't bullet

24:51

that out I have a template that I even

24:53

use it's like the only thing I do a

24:55

template with is making sure that I at least

24:57

hit those points when I follow up because if

25:00

you don't have all that information when you listen

25:02

to me talk for an hour and I talk

25:04

fast as you can help and

25:06

I'm passionate about it too so I'm always you know

25:08

there's a lot going on in that hour you're not

25:10

gonna absorb at all so if I present to you

25:13

and then just send you a quick thanks so much

25:15

here's the deck let me know if you have questions

25:18

it gets lost so you have

25:20

to give those points of like what are your

25:22

questions let me try to hit them up and

25:24

I also like to write notes as I'm talking

25:26

when they people get stuck on certain parts I

25:29

make myself notes to like put

25:31

that in my follow-up like really dive into

25:33

that part so that they aren't lost I'm

25:36

like well I'll get back to this because

25:38

I didn't really understand it that's

25:40

what I don't want and but

25:44

how do you create urgency because you

25:46

they don't have it or it's new

25:48

it's change Because

26:00

I don't, like I tell my team, I'm like, we

26:03

don't want to be the people that are like, well, if you

26:05

sign by the end of this month, we'll do this for free.

26:07

You know, I can't stand that type of selling. But

26:10

that is how you create urgency, right? It's

26:12

like online. Yeah, when you're online shopping and

26:14

a thing pops up that says, check

26:17

out now and save 10%, you're like, well, I

26:20

better check it out now. So some saved

26:22

10% 10 whole percent. So we

26:24

go back and forth a lot on what

26:26

can we offer to certain properties that, you

26:29

know, that we know

26:31

would be perfect, that we know we're interested, but it's going

26:33

to take a little bit more to get them fully on

26:35

board, or it's going to take a little more time. We

26:37

do a lot of incentives on, you know, if you if

26:39

you join with us by this certain time, we give you

26:41

free points up front so that you can go win a

26:44

group or meeting with those points. Sometimes

26:46

there are incentives along the way in the onboarding

26:48

process. So that and it's actually funny, but where

26:51

we sometimes get solved the most is the hotel

26:53

has already come on board and then they're in

26:55

the onboarding process. Our onboarding is

26:57

really simple. But hotels are

26:59

busy, like, sometimes they're running the hotel, right?

27:01

So do they attend always do it? So

27:04

we do actually a lot more incentives in

27:06

the onboarding process than we do closing the

27:08

sale. There are times we throw

27:10

things in. But again, I'm

27:12

always weary of being the one that's like, hi,

27:15

it's me again. If you sign this month,

27:17

I will do you know, because that just feels like

27:19

I really need your business versus I

27:21

want your business. Your

27:24

main competitors like what hotels.com

27:27

the online aggregators? So

27:30

we while we have a booking engine

27:32

on our site, which

27:34

we actually our booking engine is

27:36

integrated into all of our partners systems. And

27:38

so we don't charge them anything on those. So we're

27:41

not an OTA because we don't charge anything. Our

27:43

biggest competitors, honestly, it's like Marriott,

27:45

Bond, Boyce and Hilton honors preferred,

27:48

which is another independent

27:50

luxury resort collection. Those

27:52

kinds of programs are where

27:54

we see our competition. And

27:58

is it a revenue generator for the board? them because

28:00

they get repeat business? Yeah,

28:02

so we have 1.2 million

28:04

members throughout primarily in North

28:07

America, primarily in the US.

28:09

They are, so Cornell actually

28:11

did a study on our member database.

28:13

They listed all of our member information

28:15

for over a 15-month period.

28:17

They were able to determine that when

28:19

a guest enrolled in SASH, they stayed

28:22

and spent almost 50% more. So that's

28:26

huge because again,

28:28

when you are a standalone hotel

28:30

without a loyalty program, yes,

28:32

people love your hotel because it's independent,

28:35

it's unique, but they're not getting anything

28:37

for their money and oftentimes, independents are

28:39

a little bit pricier sometimes depending on

28:41

the market. And so if you're

28:43

not offering them anything, you might

28:46

lose them, right? They're not totally loyal to

28:48

your hotel. So when you're not only the

28:50

best hotel on the block, but you also

28:53

give points, guests are going to

28:55

come back and that's what the Cornell study proved.

28:57

Also our members tend to skew a little bit

28:59

older, a little bit higher income earning and they're

29:01

less price-sensitive. Independent hotel lovers

29:05

are usually not concerned

29:08

as much about the cost as they

29:10

are about the experience. So you

29:12

know, we have 1.2 guests who

29:15

love independent hotels. So when a hotel joins

29:17

us, I'm like, hey, we will

29:19

shout you out to our network of people who

29:21

are looking exactly for your property. And so

29:23

that right there will generate revenue. And

29:26

I got to believe you could use

29:28

that revenue reason as a way to

29:31

create urgency. True. You know what, one

29:33

way we create urgency, and I actually just talked to

29:35

a hotel the other day about this, is a

29:37

lot of our hotels have, well all hotels

29:40

have shoulders, most have a busy and a

29:42

slow season, right? But we have a lot

29:44

that are seasonal. So they're gearing up

29:46

right now for summer. And

29:49

if you're in a destination like near a national

29:51

park or in a summer travel destination, we talked

29:53

to a hotel the other day in Ocean City,

29:55

Maryland. I'm like, okay, well you're busy time, you're

29:58

four months of busy is coming. So

30:00

if it takes us 30 to 45 days to onboard, if we

30:02

start now, you're onboard, you're in our

30:07

marketing emails by mid April,

30:10

and then you are exposed to all of

30:12

our members in that area right as they're

30:14

starting to book their summer trips from Memorial

30:16

to Labor Day. So sometimes hotels come

30:19

to us in like June,

30:21

and we're like, well, we can get you onboard

30:23

as fast as you want, but your busy season

30:25

right now is tomorrow. It's tomorrow,

30:27

right. And so that's another

30:29

reason why we ask for a review because I'm like,

30:31

listen, we'll get you onboard. But when your traffic

30:33

dies down in August or September, yes,

30:35

we can help with filling midweek and shoulder season

30:38

and things like that, because a lot of our

30:40

members will do drive market to redeem their points

30:42

in that time. But you just

30:44

missed our prime time. So give us a year

30:46

and next summer, you're going to see how all

30:49

those guests know about you, they've been hearing about

30:51

you for the last nine months and they come

30:53

back. But this is the sweet spot right

30:55

now. February, March is oftentimes when we talk

30:58

to hotels in leisure destinations

31:00

and we're like, okay, this is it. This is

31:02

the time. Don't stall. So that

31:04

actually is a really good one that I didn't even think

31:06

about that that that's what we do. Sometimes

31:08

it's looking at the seasonality. On

31:11

your prospecting as well, because you

31:14

can't prospect them in July and August

31:16

because they're booked. And they're too

31:18

busy. Like they we actually

31:20

our team, so we travel most

31:23

of the year, our team will sort of travel

31:25

around to different markets. We don't really travel in

31:27

the summer because going to a

31:30

hotel in San Diego in July, no

31:34

GM or dress for sales is going to want to sit down

31:36

for an hour with you, right? They are running around. They

31:39

are busy. Their team is full staff, right?

31:42

So it's going to them in

31:44

January and saying, hi, you have

31:46

time now? Yes. Okay,

31:48

great. So yeah, that's a big thing

31:51

on prospecting is also knowing another reason

31:53

why our whole thing is you've got

31:55

to know your markets, right? So we

31:57

all are, you know, our markets are

31:59

divided up to where. kind of where we live so

32:01

that we are a, able to get there easily

32:03

if we need to, but also we know the

32:05

seasonality. We know the trends of that market and

32:07

if you don't, you need to learn it so

32:09

that you know when you should be approaching

32:11

these hotels. Because if you go, if you're banging on the

32:14

doors in summer season and they're not talking to you and

32:16

you're like, I don't know why they're not talking to me.

32:19

Well, no, you will next year when

32:21

you've been here a while. What

32:25

surprised you about sales

32:27

that you really love?

32:29

I love it. I don't know even

32:31

know how it's, there's something about like hunting

32:35

hotels. It sounds so

32:38

cheesy but like there are times I just open

32:40

a Google map on my browser and I

32:42

pick a state in my territory

32:44

and I do hotels and

32:46

I just start clicking and most of them are not

32:48

ones we can work with. A lot of them are

32:50

brands but it's like every once in a while you

32:53

find one you've never heard of and it's like Christmas

32:55

morning. You're like, oh my gosh or

32:57

you know I find I have these different websites and

32:59

blogs I follow. I have Google

33:01

Alert set for boutique hotels and you

33:04

get these, grant these ones that you you

33:06

know just have never heard of and it's

33:09

honestly so exciting because then you get to

33:11

go down the rabbit hole of who owns

33:13

it, who manages it, who and it's just

33:15

this fun, it's just as high that I

33:17

love. It's something that completely surprised me because

33:19

I'm, if you would have asked me four

33:21

years ago I would have laughed in your face that this is what

33:23

I was doing. That surprised

33:26

me also just the fact, I

33:29

mean my kids have always told me I could talk to

33:31

a wall right like I am that mom, I

33:33

am that mom that in the line and it feels

33:36

like you're talking to a wall.

33:38

Right yeah probably yeah it does. I

33:40

have teenage girls come on. But

33:43

I'm the one who can make friends in the line at

33:45

you know the restaurant or a Disneyland

33:47

or in an airport or on an

33:49

airplane. My husband laughed

33:51

because we went on a trip a couple weeks

33:53

ago and there was this baby behind us cried

33:55

the whole time and I felt so bad for

33:57

the mom. She was, you could tell

33:59

first time, mom first-time airplane ride, it was just

34:01

absolutely terrible. So I bought her a drink and

34:03

said, I know this is weird, can I take

34:05

your baby from you for a minute? Took

34:08

her baby and walked with it. And

34:10

she was sweating and I was like, have

34:12

a drink? Take it away. I

34:14

can't run away with your baby, we're on an

34:16

airplane. I was like, and I walked up and down.

34:19

My husband was like, I mean, this is adorable, but

34:21

also this is totally you. You

34:23

would become friends with anybody. And so part

34:26

of the whole sales thing is just, I

34:29

didn't realize the relationship side of

34:31

it. I didn't realize how I

34:33

would be creating these long standing

34:36

relationships and friendships with people

34:39

in an industry that I have worked in

34:41

in a long time, but haven't excelled in

34:44

or had any sort of status in. So

34:47

that part has been really fun. And

34:49

has this always been your personality? Is it

34:51

something that you developed or? Oh

34:54

yeah, yeah, I'm allowed to talk to them, I talk

34:56

a lot. Yeah,

35:00

I. What people would think

35:02

is a salesperson out. Very

35:04

friendly, outgoing, precarious. Yeah,

35:06

and it was funny because I was behind the

35:09

scenes doing it for a long time. But I

35:11

also think that just my

35:13

life changes. I turned 40 this year

35:15

and I feel like who

35:18

I was at 20 and 30, also

35:20

raising little kids, I could have

35:22

never stepped out of my comfort zone

35:25

and done this type of job 10 years

35:27

ago. 20 years ago.

35:29

A lot of what I did built me up

35:31

to this point as far as talking to people

35:33

and solving problems and coming

35:35

up with solutions. And I never

35:38

saw it taking the path that it

35:40

has. But

35:42

it's just, I know I

35:44

can't imagine doing anything else. Hey,

35:47

I really appreciate your time today. Where can people go to connect

35:49

and follow you? So

35:51

connect with me on LinkedIn, it's Audrey Yates

35:54

with Stash Hotel Rewards. And

35:57

we have a LinkedIn page as well. Otherwise our

35:59

website is just. If you're a hotelier,

36:01

there's a whole hotelier's page as well. Now

36:08

support, I've always had mixed feelings

36:10

about being a great area for

36:13

developing salespeople because once

36:16

you have the service mindset, it's

36:18

hard to have the negotiation

36:21

skills, the asking

36:24

hard questions, but

36:26

some people have made that leap. I

36:30

think it's helpful because they have

36:32

that empathy of the person

36:34

who's trying to do it. They've

36:37

seen the fringe cases. See,

36:40

like sales enablement and marketing, they teach

36:42

us the kind of ideal

36:45

case, the

36:47

easy case, the inbound

36:49

case, the

36:53

people who get it case,

36:55

the repeat revenue situation.

36:58

Then those are all nice and

37:00

if you have them, congratulations, they're

37:02

a lot easier than the fringe

37:04

cases. But

37:06

if you're doing cold outbound, it's

37:09

mostly fringe cases, which

37:11

means you're kind of bridging

37:15

where the client is to where they

37:17

could be if they use the product.

37:21

But is there any

37:23

interest, pain, active pain to really

37:26

build off of? Hard

37:28

to tell. I

37:31

think you get a lot out of this

37:33

interview. Now if you want to become more

37:35

likable, here's what I did.

37:39

I always would greet people

37:41

with a big smile and

37:43

what I found was that

37:45

was, it's kind of like the defroster

37:47

in your car. As soon as you turn it

37:49

on, the windshield kind of clarifies

37:52

and you can see through

37:54

it. Because a smile,

37:57

it's innate essentially, meaning

37:59

when it's someone sees someone else

38:01

smile, it's contagious. They need to

38:03

smile. And when you do

38:05

smile, you're kind of igniting your

38:08

physiology to be in a happy

38:10

mood. And then I

38:12

studied likable people,

38:15

comedians, late-night

38:17

show hosts.

38:20

And I would see like, why

38:22

are they likable? How do I

38:25

integrate that? It's kind of a

38:27

playful personality

38:29

characteristic. It's

38:31

not comedian so much. It's not always

38:36

trying to make people laugh, but it's trying

38:39

to make light of

38:41

serious situations, to be a

38:44

little less serious about them,

38:47

but without making it cavalier. It's

38:51

important to be likable. A

38:53

lot of people say it isn't. Well,

38:56

you know, if you are

38:58

likable, you know how powerful it is. If you're

39:00

not likable, you're going to make up for it

39:02

in a lot of different ways. And you can.

39:04

There's all kinds of mixes of personalities

39:06

out there. But

39:09

at the end of the day, you

39:11

want people to want to talk

39:13

with you. Otherwise,

39:16

you have to create a situation of

39:18

them, situation where they have to talk

39:20

with you. You

39:23

want to do both if you can, but one's

39:25

a whole lot harder than the other. Now,

39:29

how's your pipeline looking? Do

39:32

you have enough meetings? Are you getting into

39:34

the accounts that you want to? I've

39:38

got this course that's insanely effective

39:40

called Start the Conversation, Get the

39:42

Meeting. So to get into

39:44

those hard to get into accounts,

39:46

start the conversation with those executives.

39:49

And it's not spam, sending

39:51

your pitch. It's not about a better

39:53

pitch because you could spend the

39:56

rest of your life coming up with a better

39:58

pitch and it's not going to be as a

40:00

effective as this. Because

40:02

for pitch to work, somebody has

40:04

to be open to

40:06

reading it, understanding it, and

40:09

applying it to them. That's

40:11

a lot to get done in an email, and

40:14

that's why it's not that effective. Especially

40:17

when they get 50 of them an

40:19

hour. Pretty much is

40:21

what executives are getting today. But

40:25

nobody's really talking about what I'm talking

40:27

about. Now are they? Why?

40:29

Because it's counterintuitive.

40:32

Because it requires experience.

40:35

Because it's not based off of logic. It's

40:38

based off of innate

40:40

emotions. There's not ours.

40:44

Ours are pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch,

40:46

pitch. Who's interested? It's not working. I

40:48

got to do more, more, more, more, more. The

40:51

days of making up for a lack of

40:53

skill and sales with volume are over.

40:57

We got the volume thing

40:59

down. Okay, we had email

41:02

automation. Now we've got AI on

41:04

top of it. And

41:07

now we've got mechanical things

41:09

to find out people's cell

41:12

phone numbers. We can text them and

41:15

really destroy the relationship before it's

41:17

even started. What

41:20

we've tried to do for the

41:22

last ever is

41:24

replace talent with technology. And

41:28

it works for a

41:30

tiny window until everyone starts

41:32

doing it. And the problem is

41:34

everyone's been doing it for 15

41:36

years. And

41:39

I've kind of predicted peak

41:41

email about seven years ago.

41:43

I was

41:45

probably a little too optimistic.

41:49

And you see today, because now

41:51

spam folders, anything that's

41:53

coming from the spam cannons is

41:55

naturally going into the spam folders.

41:59

And so you think you're emailing somebody, you're

42:01

emailing their spam folder. How do you

42:03

get away from that? We

42:05

gotta connect with people. That's why

42:07

we hired salespeople, not

42:10

sales AI. Anyone

42:12

can send spam. You know

42:14

how well it's working. If

42:17

it's working, stick with it. If it's

42:19

not, give this a shot. Because

42:22

connecting with another human being is

42:24

why we're in sales. And

42:26

that's how the magic happens. It

42:30

takes a little bit of talent. A little

42:32

bit, but the talent is learnable. If

42:36

you really wanna become great at sales, invest a

42:38

little bit of your time, a year maybe, and

42:42

get good at it. Dig

42:44

deep into it. It's not

42:46

a tip or trick. It's a talent. And

42:50

you have to develop it. Go

42:52

to b2brevenue.com, invest

42:54

in yourself, and

42:56

recapture some of that lost income.

43:00

Just think about how much you lost last quarter. 10,

43:03

20, 50, $100,000 in lost income, simply

43:09

because it wasn't

43:12

there. You can blame the

43:14

pipeline marketing, but you

43:17

go to the next company, you're gonna be the same thing.

43:21

It's still gonna be you. And the only

43:23

way for you to make more money is become

43:25

a better you. Go to

43:28

b2brevenue.com, sign up today. We'll see you

43:30

next time.