Director of Sales & Marketing

The Director of Sales & Marketing at the Luxury Collection Hotel will report to the General Manager with a dotted line to the Vice President of Sales and will be responsible for maximizing business to exceed budget expectations. The ideal candidate must be a highly communicative, meticulously organized team player who possesses a positive, luxury-oriented disposition and a passion for driving results.

Managing Sales Activities

• Creates and updates annual the strategic sales and marketing plan for the hotel.

• Manages the development of a strategic account plan for the demand generators in the market.

• Manages the property's reactive and proactive sales efforts.

• Determines and develops marketing communication activities, in conjunction with MCR corporate sales and Creative/PR teams.

• Provides customer intelligence in evaluating the market and economic trends that may lead to changes in sales strategy to meet or exceed customer expectations.

• Reviews the Strategic Alignment Review (STAR) report, competitive shopping reports and uses other resources to maintain an awareness of the hotel’s market position.

• Researches competitor’s sales team strategies to identify ways to grow RevPAR, improve profitability, and increase market share.

• Facilitates sales strategy meetings to provide input on weekly and overall sales strategy.

• Suggests innovative marketing ideas and develops deployment strategies to continue to grow market share.

• Serves as the sales contact for the General Manager, property leadership team, Marriott’s global account sales and luxury sales team, and MCR’s corporate sales leadership.

• Serves as the sales contact for customers; serves as the customer advocate.

• Serves as the hotel ambassador for Marriott’s global account team, activating above-property channels to build awareness of the hotel to target account and customer profiles.

• Serves as hotel authority on sales processes and sales contracts.

• Monitors sales manager and individual performance to ensure all inquiries are responded within the proper time frame.

• Serves as the property sales liaison with MCR corporate Sales, Group Sales, Revenue Management, Event Management, MCR Creative team, and other hotel departments as appropriate.

• Participates in sales calls with members of the Sales and Marketing team to acquire new business and/or close on business.

• Identifies public relations opportunities and coordinates activities to augment the overall marketing communication strategy.

• Supports the General Manager by coordinating crisis communications.

• Executes and supports MCR’s standards and hotel’s Brand Standards.

• Executes and supports the operational aspects of business booked (e.g., generating proposal, writing contract, customer correspondence).

• Adopts and Facilitates daily sales/service basics of The Luxury Collection brand.

• Implements a seamless turnover from sales to operations and back to sales while consistently delivering high level of service.

• Monitors the effective resolution of guest issues that arise as a result of the sales process by creating mechanisms to channel issues to property leadership and/or other appropriate stakeholders.

• Maintains successful performance by increasing revenues, controlling expenses, and providing a return on investment to ownership.

• Implements the brand’s service strategy and applicable brand initiatives in all aspects of the sales process and focuses on building long-term, value-based customer relationships that enable achievement of the hotel’s’ sales objectives.

• Interfaces with regional marketing communications for regional and national promotions pull through.

• Executes all weekly and monthly reporting for regional and ownership requirements.

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

Building Successful Relationships

• Develops strong partnerships with local organizations to further increase brand/product awareness.

• Develops and manages internal key stakeholder relationships, including above-property MCR regional sales team, operations counterparts, and owner relations.

• Develops strong community and public relations by maintaining property participation in local, regional, and national tradeshows and client events.

• Executes exemplary customer service to drive customer satisfaction and loyalty by assisting the customer and monitoring their satisfaction before and during their program/event.

• 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.

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

Leadership

• Functions as the leader of the property’s sales department.

• Develops sales goals and strategies and verifies alignment with the brand business strategy.

• Executes the sales strategy to meet individual booking goals for both self and staff.

• Coaches leaders of revenue generating departments in developing effective revenue strategies and setting aggressive goals that will drive the property's financial performance.

• Verifies Sales team understands and is leveraging Marriott International (MI) demand engines to full potential.

• Works with Human Resources, Engineering and Loss Prevention to monitor compliance with local, state, and federal regulations and/or union requirements.

• Partners with Human Resources to attract, develop and retain the right people to support the strategic priorities of the market.

• Creates effective structures, processes, jobs, and performance management systems are in place.

• Sets goals and expectations for direct reports, aligns performance and rewards, addresses performance issues, and holds staff accountable for successful results.

• Forecasts talent needs and manages talent acquisition strategy with Human Resources (HR) to minimize lost time due to turnover.

• Maintains an active list of the competition’s best salespeople and executes a recruitment and acquisition plan with HR.

• Supports tools and training resources to educate sales associates on winning event sales solutions.

• Champions leadership development and workforce planning priorities by assessing, selecting, retaining, and developing diverse, high-caliber talent that can lead the organization today and strengthen the leadership bench for the future; continues to upgrade the sales & marketing talent; works with HR to anticipate future talent needs based on business growth plans.

• Identifies, trains and mentors sales associates; utilizes all available on the job training tools for associates

• Transfers functional knowledge and develops group sales skills of other discipline managers.

• Provides day to day leadership to sales associates to achieve property sales objectives with overall responsibility for achieving booking goals and property revenues.

• Evaluates the property’s participation in the various sales channels and develops strong working relationships to proactively position and market the property.

• Manages the marketing budget to enable development of property specific campaigns, promotions, and collateral to drive revenue and meet property objectives.

Requirements

• Management Experience (type): Director.

• Four-year college degree preferred.

• 5 Years of Sales Leadership Experience in a Full-Service Hotel required.

• 2 Years of Sales Experience in a Luxury Hotel required.

• 2 Years of Sales Experience in a Marriott branded Hotel required.

• An understanding of Marriott systems, including CI/TY, MarRFP, MRDW, OneYield, and ARM/EMPOWER strongly preferred.

• Additional Requirements (i.e., % of travel time, etc.): Ability to travel on short notice and adaptable to schedule changes.

• Highly professional presentation and communication (oral and written) skills, with the ability to address executive level constituents.

• Proficiency with standard Microsoft Office (particularly Excel and PowerPoint).

• Demonstrate the ability to perform critical analysis.

• Must be able to manage people, including giving directions and delegating responsibilities, and be a culture ambassador.

• Must demonstrate outstanding customer service, organizational, and interpersonal skills as well as excellent attention to detail and the ability to multi-task.

• Must be entrepreneurial, nimble, creative, resourceful, and willing to try new things.

• Must be able to work variable hours including evenings and weekends when needed.

• On-site full time at Hotel.