Dir-Sales & Marketing-B

Role Overview

Director of Sales & Marketing for Marriott. The role leads the property's sales department for properties with bookings over 300 peak rooms and significant local catering revenue.

Role Purpose

Functions as the leader of the property's sales department, managing reactive and proactive sales efforts and providing day-to-day leadership to sales associates to achieve property sales objectives. Implements the brand's service strategy and applicable brand initiatives across the sales process, focusing on building long-term, value-based customer relationships that enable achievement of hotel sales objectives and deliver return on investment to the owner and Marriott International.

Key Responsibilities

Sales Strategy & Market Development

• Manage the development of a strategic account plan for the demand generators in the market.
• Determine and develop marketing communication activities in conjunction with Regional Marketing Communications.
• Provide customer intelligence in evaluating market and economic trends that may lead to changes in sales strategy to meet or exceed customer expectations.
• Review the Strategic Alignment Review (STAR) report and competitive shopping reports to maintain awareness of the hotel's market position.
• Research competitor sales team strategies to identify ways to grow occupancy and RevPAR and increase market share.
• Attend sales strategy meetings to provide input on weekly and overall sales strategy.
• Suggest innovative marketing ideas and develop deployment strategies to continue growing market share.

Sales Operations & Execution

• Manage the property's reactive and proactive sales efforts.
• Evaluate and support participation and account deployment with Area Sales and Group Sales within the Sales Office.
• Participate in sales calls with members of the Sales and Marketing team to acquire new business or close on business.
• Execute and support the operational aspects of business booked, including generating proposals, writing contracts and customer correspondence.
• Implement a seamless turnover from sales to operations and back to sales while consistently delivering a high level of service.
• Monitor the effective resolution of guest issues that arise as a result of the sales process by creating mechanisms to channel issues to property leadership or other appropriate stakeholders.
• Serve as the sales contact for the General Manager, property leadership team, Group Sales and Area Sales leaders.
• Serve as the sales contact for customers and serve as the customer advocate.
• Serve as hotel authority on sales processes and sales contracts.
• Serve as the property sales liaison with Area Sales, Group Sales, Revenue Management, Event Management, Regional Marketing Communications and other hotel departments as appropriate.

Marketing & Communications

• Manage the marketing budget to enable development of property-specific campaigns, promotions and collateral to drive revenue and meet property objectives.
• Interface with regional marketing communications for regional and national promotions pull through.
• Identify public relations opportunities and coordinate activities to augment the overall marketing communication strategy.
• Support the General Manager by coordinating crisis communications.
• Execute and support Marriott's Customer Service Standards and hotel's Brand Standards.
• Participate in and practice daily service basics of the brand, including Marriott Hotels and Resorts (MHR) Spirit to Serve Daily Basics, Renaissance Hotels and Resorts (RHR) Savvy Service Basics, Courtyard, SpringHill Suites, Fairfield Inn Basics of the Day, Residence Inn Daily Huddle, or TownePlace Suites Morning Meeting.
• Implement the brand's service strategy and applicable brand initiatives in all aspects of the sales process and focus on building long-term, value-based customer relationships that enable achievement of the hotel's sales objectives.

Stakeholder & Customer Relationships

• Develop strong partnerships with local organizations to further increase brand and product awareness.
• Develop and manage internal key stakeholder relationships.
• Develop strong community and public relations by maintaining property participation in local, regional and national tradeshows and client events.
• Execute exemplary customer service to drive customer satisfaction and loyalty by assisting the customer and monitoring their satisfaction before and during their program or event.
• Serve 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 to Marriott.
• Gain understanding of the hotel's primary target customer and service expectations; serve the customer by understanding their business, business issues and concerns, to offer better business solutions both prior to and during the program or event.

Leadership & Team Development

• Provide day-to-day leadership to sales associates to achieve property sales objectives with overall responsibility for achieving booking goals and property revenues.
• Develop sales goals and strategies and verify alignment with the brand business strategy.
• Execute the sales strategy in order to meet individual booking goals for both self and staff.
• Coach leaders of revenue-generating departments in developing effective revenue strategies and setting aggressive goals that will drive the property's financial performance.
• Verify the Sales team understands and is leveraging Marriott International (MI) demand engines to full potential.
• Set goals and expectations for direct reports using the Leadership Performance Process (LPP), align performance and rewards, address performance issues and hold staff accountable for successful results.
• Identify, train and mentor group sales associates; utilize all available on-the-job training tools for associates.
• Transfer functional knowledge and develop group sales skills of other discipline managers.
• Support tools and training resources to educate sales associates on winning catering solutions.
• Champion 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; continue to upgrade the sales and marketing talent; work with HR to anticipate future talent needs based on business growth plans.
• Forecast talent needs and manage talent acquisition strategy with Human Resources (HR) to minimize lost time due to turnover.
• Maintain an active list of the competition's best sales people and execute a recruitment and acquisition plan with HR.
• Partner with Human Resources to attract, develop and retain the right people in order to support the strategic priorities of the market.
• Create effective structures, processes, jobs and performance management systems.
• Work with Human Resources, Engineering and Loss Prevention to monitor compliance with local, state and federal regulations or union requirements.

Financial Performance

• Maintain successful performance by increasing revenues, controlling expenses and providing a return on investment for the owner and Marriott International.

Qualifications & Experience

Required

• 2-year degree from an accredited university in Business Administration, Marketing, Hotel and Restaurant Management, or related major, plus 4 years experience in sales and marketing or related professional area.

OR

• 4-year bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Hotel and Restaurant Management, or related major, plus 2 years experience in sales and marketing or related professional area.

Preferred

• 4-year college degree.
• Demonstrated skills in supervising a team.
• Lodging sales experience.
• Hotel industry work experience, demonstrating progressive career growth and a pattern of exceptional performance.

Additional Information

• Performs other duties as assigned to meet business needs.
• Marriott International is dedicated to being an equal opportunity employer, welcoming all and providing access to opportunity.
• Marriott actively fosters an environment where the unique backgrounds of associates are valued and celebrated.
• Marriott is committed to non-discrimination on any protected basis, including disability, veteran status, or other basis protected by applicable law.