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welcome to the vrm a spring forum I'm Kathy cook the executive director of training at Kennedy training Network before I introduce you to your speaker today let me tell you a little bit about KTN we're based in Miami Florida but we do training worldwide for hotels resorts and for vacation rentals vacation rentals is actually about 50% of our training and we do training on topics for reservations homeowner services and hospitality your presenter today is Doug Kennedy he spoke at his very first vrm a conference in 1996 and has been back almost every year since in this session he focuses on how to get your reservations team ready for the coming wave of deal seeking vacation day dreamers thank you thank you to the VR ma for pushing forward with doing the spring forum virtually I'm actually recording this session on April the 30th and about now I'd probably be on a plane headed back from a fantastic spring forum where we would have had a great time being together in person and doing attending educational sessions meeting all our suppliers and partners and doing all the networking but we're moving onward and upward in dealing with the situation at hand so thank you for selecting my session of the spring forum and let's get right to it I truly hope this session will bring value the session I'm doing for you today is targeting for your reservation sales team and to get your reservations team ready for what I anticipate to be the coming wave of deals seeking vacation day dreamers so if you're attending as a leader or manager hopefully you'll share this information with your frontline reservation salespeople or perhaps save the link and have them watch it as well so we can all be on the same page and do our best so getting into our topic what a wild couple of months we have all endured first a wave of cancellations somewhere around the middle of March all of a sudden the whole reality chain in the travel business Kathy cook and I were actually in Hawaii doing training for five different vacation rental companies over a two-week period we finished our last session on March the 11th hopped on a plane on the 12th by the time we landed on the 13th the travel world had been turned upside down and around that time your phones and reservations started ringing and ringing and ringing incessantly with a tidal wave we're really a tsunami of cancellations revenue falling in the wrong direction and how painful that must have been for those of you who are charged in this department and we're speaking to today being looking every day at call conversion how much revenue did we bring in maybe even being incentivized or having contests for capturing those bookings and all the sudden we saw the revenue flow in the wrong direction back out of the company how challenging that alone and how demoralizing to have the same person that you crawled and followed up with and convinced a book and now they're calling back to cancel at the same time you had to endure some rather difficult conversations with those callers now hopefully a lot of your guests postpone or move their deposit forward but we did depending on your in your specific situation at your company difficult conversations were had during that time about cancellation terms contracts travel insurance what it covers and what it doesn't cover refunds a lot of guests learn the challenges when you book through a third party and not directly with the vacation rental company hopefully that's going to help us increase direct bookings on the other side of this so we went through that and then as the volume started to die down after maybe ten days two weeks then the reality set in with the owners I'm talking about the vacation rental company owners and managers and we realized as we did here in KTN that if there's no business and no revenue coming in unfortunately we had to have some painful conversations with the staff we loved so much and we had to do furloughs for so many people it was not different here in Katy and fortunately we have people were very understanding and they're all sitting tight we hope to bring them back very soon and I hope that's the case with your company as well which is why we're doing this session but right now here at the end of April the tail end of April when I'm recording this for you is what I call the quiet phase we have you know people are kind of sitting tight they're home there's not a lot of travel plenty going on at least for most of the people that I talk to in the industry the phones are quiet okay and so what we do with this time now and what comes next and I know by watching this session you're showing that you're wise to know that action we take now will set us up to succeed for what is going to be the most important time in voice reservations history so let's talk about that what comes next it is going to the age where reservation sales agents become the superheroes of your rental companies so get your capes ready ladies and gentlemen it's going to be you there leads the charge to bring the businesses back ok now let's talk about what's happening on the other side in a minute but I want to finish this thought by saying your colleagues and operations and the owners of your inventory ok they're counting on you to get as many bookings as possible to carry them through we lost a lot of business for the Spring Break crowd and the eserve for those of you who have spring business you know May starts to be a ramp up time it's still perhaps some of may can be safe but we really are counting on a good summer happening so let's talk about the other side of the phone conversation we will soon start to have what I call the vacation day dreamers starting to think about what comes next for them now right now vacation think dreamers are really busy ok so now of course a lot of people who have gone on furlough that they're not working but you know a lot of people would rather be working right now and being stuck right now going doing the home anything can be very tough for everybody grandparents are pitching in with child care we have sometimes mom and dad fighting over who's going to get the One Laptop or who gets the broadband a broadband connection because somebody's app is sucking up too much bandwidth and we have a lot of people who may not be spending money on their usual activities but you know plenty of people are still working and those who are are not spending money on the entertainment and all the you know dining out maybe they're getting takeout these days so there will be a lot of people that are suffering financially but we have a lot of other folks who are working overtime there are essential services there first responders and they're out there making things happen for society today so what do we say when the people start calling right now they're just daydreaming but here pretty soon and maybe you've already started to see that there going to be a trickle of calls turning into a stream of calls turning into a river and I hope I midsummer a flood but when people start to call here at first especially make sure to connect on a humanistic level show empathy for them in their circumstance take a moment to ask by the way how are you doing how's your family holding up how are things in your area oh where are you calling from what's going on there yeah it's tough for all of us human connection right now is something we all crave I know I took a lot of sociology classes in my school era and I always heard about Oh human beings are social creatures we crave and we need actually there's studies that people physically need the connection well we're really proving that now with quarantine so connect on a human level the second trend that we have right now is we're going to have collars that have had their vacation traditions to have been displaced we've got the folks out there that always went on a cruise every summer or they took that flight they went to Europe or they went to some exotic location or they flew across the continent they just don't want to be that far away right now a lot of uncertainty and a lot of worry so we want to make sure that we understand what's going on on the other side when people are not able to visit their usual destinations when that happens you're going to get more inquiries from the first-time vacationers now if you've been through KTN training with us or attended my other sessions at VR ma you know I always talk about how much traditionally we tend to love that repeat guest that comes every year as we should but the real money opportunity is from what we always kind of fund a little bit we call them the clueless callers who don't know what they want they've never been to the destination and they have a lot of questions you're going to get more clueless colors and we should love those clueless colors hey maybe when we didn't become the vacation with us maybe they'll stay with us next year instead of going back somewhere else so be prepared for those who have had their traditions what's going to be happening is those who are displaced are going to have a sense of what I call choice overwhelmed when one good thing about when you vacation at the same place every year it's easy all you have to do is book that same place that you stay or something similar you don't have to do any research and more importantly you don't have to make any choices but now you've got parties that are out there and maybe the one sister wants to go here and the other sister wants to go there and you're both doing research or they're going online and you know they don't know what they want to go to the beach or to the mountains or to the lake and so reassuring them that they're making a good choice taking time to have conversations that's what we need to be doing here the coming era now if you've been through my sessions as I mentioned we want to make sure that you have those displaced callers the displeas'd s traditions rather what they need more than ever is someone who helps them decide where to spend their vacation what they do not need is just somebody who helps them find more vacation homes are available ok we always call that website search support that's for those people who all they do they search online they have questioning they give us a call and the website search support mentality agents with that mentality of just being a website search support staff they said when is it how many nines how many people how many bedrooms your property and mine no oh well vacation homes are a little different yeah because they're all individually owned the decoration is different and you know everyone's taste is different so why don't you go online write down these property codes or let me email you a list of all seven homes that meet your specifications that is not helping people to sign you know a computer can do that or we can do that self-service at your website okay so we want to fill in the piece missing piece to that puzzle let me share with you a few more tips to selling your displaced vacationers and then we're going to finish up by talking about the value driven Deal seekers which I think are the most challenging calls we have coming soon now I do want to also point out that a Katie and Kathy and I and Michelle we offer private webcam sessions so normally the way that works you get your reservations team together we're on webcam they're on webcam hopefully if possible and we communicate one-on-one on some of this content then we assign them project work in between it might be role-playing it might be mystery shopping or might be some activities then we reconvene usually for one-on-one coaching at the end or if you prefer a second team event so let us know if you want details on that but I'm going to share with you thanks to the BRM a sponsorship some of the key points we cover in our private trainings as well when you have the displaced vacationers in particular you want to be sure to ask more and better questions to engage them in a conversation the KTN vacation rental training for reservations is called quest why because we gotta understand what is it they didn't see online there's so much information online yet they decided to call or they just started to email us so if you're in a phone conversation or replying to an email ask questions so tell me more about where you'd usually go tell me more about your plans what are you looking to do not just how many beds how many people how many nights or were there okay so how active is everyone are you looking for indoor are you looking for relaxing activities or you want more adventure so and then once we find out what their story of their plans are we can tell the story of our vacation destinations we call this the storytelling approach to selling so let me share with you a few key points from storytelling selling particularly when you have these displaced tribal traditions that are going to happen you want to offer up those local insiders tips this is a wonderful thing with a local person voluntarily tells you something that would be appropriate and helpful to you that means something now very often I'm sure you get questions what would you recommend were you locals like to go what are your locals like to eat where's a good locals place for breakfast but what we want to do is volunteer this local insider information also to recommend suggest and endorse endorse your destination endorse the property's location and endorse and recommend the property itself now this does not mean that we're going to play favorites between two homes that are right next to each other and make one a homeowner upset and we recommended the other property but what we can do is recommend a location a type of property and once that prospective guest has a property in mind we can endorse it we can say you know what based on what you told me it sounds like the perfect choice and so that is a wonderful way to help them decide not just telling them what's available and then finally we call it narrating the pictures years ago when websites had just a few basic images we called it painting the picture but today most websites from our clients that we see especially in vacation rental you have dozens of photos some of you have virtual tours some of you have 3d floor plans and yet people still want to hear a human being describing so do all you can to tell the story let's finish up now by talking about the deal seekers the soon be dialing your numbers if perhaps by the time you're watching this virtual presentation maybe they started already so a coming wave of meal seekers now these same people will not only be calling but the same the guest mentality people with the same paradigm here will be enquiring by direct email they're also going to be messaging you in app what I mean is through those third-party OTAs so what do we have to do first of all even I want to point out that not only will this be the displaced travel of traditions we've spoken to but you may find those regular repeat guests present themselves as being a deal seeker you know we usually rent this house and we stay there at the same week but are you all running any specials this year you know so be prepared because everyone is going to be wanting to get it something extra when they know at least right now it's going to be a buyers market so I'm going to share with you three sales trip tips for the deal seeking vacation day dreamers first of all is great framing so again this is something we covered in our previous training but it's going to be more important now than it ever has been before and that is to mention those higher rated quote unquote normal traditional rates for the day period mention those first whenever you reference any discounts or special promotions or even if you just mentioning a shoulder season offseason rate okay so let me give you an example to help better explain this now if you know the actual high demand rates depending on how your property management system displays race and availability you may actually see there all the rates for different date ranges okay and in that case you can specifically reference an actual number okay so that might look like this so for the nature looking at the normal rate in this home and summer season or just to let you know in the peak season this rate goes for five thousand but right now for your dates I can offer to you for forty five hundred okay so that would be like for a week long say perhaps somewhere now another example might be if you're offering 10% promotional discounts for those who booked now for certain date periods I've seen a lot of that going on in this case you might say normally the rate would be 5000 but with the 10% discount it's going to be 4,500 this does require you to do good mental math or keep a calculator nearby and do some figuring because it's very helpful if you can mention the exact specific rate however I know that may not always be the case so you may not actually know the high demand rates and if that's the case just express surprise about the rates you're showing it's almost like you have to be a little bit of an actor and step into character that's one of Cathy cooks favorite things to mention in our traditional training and our webcasts is you know in this business you got to put on character a little bit and step in to your role and your role right now is to convince that person to book so we can bring in and be the superhero of our company so if you do not know the actual rates just step into character and act surprised Wow right now I'm actually showing a really terrific rate of 4500 I can't believe this Wow right and just kind of act pleasantly surprised and excited that what you say right now that's actually creating a little time urgency there which we're going to be talking about as our second point now initially at least in the early parts of our economic recovery we know that the chances are really good it's going to be a buyers market and released at first hopefully we get into June in July and demand is so far back backed up and respond sorry so far rebounded and demand has been pegged up then all of a sudden you know we may be having a very busy fully occupied late summer early fall but at first everybody knows it's going to be a buyers market now in the vacation rental space the color may actually know this because they can actually go online to your property management system put in their dates and see the list of properties that actually are available and they come up at that time so they may lead off by telling you I see online you have plenty of space actually I see online then you have ten homes for these days they may want to play let's make a deal can you check with the owner of this home and see you know I see there's ten homes available if they don't take my offer they don't get any they won't get anything so it could be a buyers it will get a buyers market and the buyers themselves may tell you that they know that so what do we do we use urgency statements that fit the actual conversation that you're having right now let me give you some examples you can say well yes surely right now we do have availability but I'll tell you what sir all of a sudden we're getting a lot more calls these days okay now I know a lot of you yeah I don't want to ask you to be dishonest or just say full so when you think about it it's true let's say yesterday you've got no balls at all it's 11 o'clock in the morning the guy calls you you can say sir all of a sudden we're getting a lot more calls we're getting twice as many calls as we got yesterday we got done and now we have one right they sure have pick up lately especially since you called so I'm trying to make it fun for you but he actually is you know again if you have to be an actor a little bit or you could say seems like we're starting to get a lot of calls right some kind of statement that creates some urgency and now we want to offer to lock in those choices so yeah we do have availability but all of a sudden the phones are ready tell you what I would definitely lock in this rate or this home or this vacation home well it's still open you know let's lock it in for you okay and then of course we can remove the barriers now over recent years vacation rental industry as demand has grown and the economy's been it's such a nut market for a long time we have been able to be more restrictive with charging larger advance deposits further out and restricting cancellations to being further out as well however most companies right now realizing we be a little more flexible so this is a great time to continue on and say let's go back to the previous slide I can definitely like recommend though why don't we lock this in for you now while it's still open because this way if things change you can always call back to cancel but this way you've got it locked in because it sounds like this home was perfect just for you and we still have it and I'm surprised at this rate okay fight fight fight tenaciously for that extra booking okay that's how we become superheroes finally our third point I want to encourage you in the vacation rental reservations business to have your hunter mentality now you know 100 mentality what that means if somebody goes out after business instead of a farmer who's water in the vegetable garden and trying to grow the business that's already planted we gotta go hunt down business in the postcode in 19 here coming up on the bookings for early summer so hopefully if you've had a humanistic conversation you've asked them questions you've sold and you've recommended suggested endorse the destination that you're in you talked about how beautiful the lake is or the mountain hiking or the beach and you've made a connection you created her to see you tried to confirm it hopefully they're going to go ahead and vote but we know a lot of people just won't cross that line so that's why we have to change up our mindset you're going after the business all right so follow up proactively now a couple of points here a lot of people in vacation rental space have been doing this for many years we have the tropical system we have the data system a lot of the property management systems I know streamlined offers lead tracking please if I left any one out of our wonderful PRM sponsors the RMA sponsors I know I've talked with your providers you may have other tools but those are three examples that I do up off the top of my head in this case you have a CRM built-in that you can get their contact information send them a follow-up email and then put it on a lead stream or lead task sheet where you can make a phone call an email again okay now if you haven't done that talk to one of those providers or talk to your own provider that you're working with but I want to give you a tip for being successful because if you don't have a system now you don't need a system leaders give your team on board with this they can start with a notepad and pen or a little bit better than that an Excel spreadsheet that says guest name dates requested telephone email I want you to add another column that says remarks and that's where we're gonna put what we've learned about them so first things first rather than saying do you want me to send you a follow-up email okay ask in a way that assumes that they do do you want me to send you an email when somebody asks me if I want to receive an email I am pre-programmed say no I'm good okay however if you say well mr. Kennedy or Douglas it's been wonderful talking with you about your plans let me get your email address so I can send you a follow-up including my local contact information cuz I'm a local area expert in that case if you made a humanistic connection you've shown interest in their plans you told the story chances are pretty good they're gonna say okay now in addition to sending them the in addition to putting in their phone their email in their name what I want you to do is to add into the CRM or to the Excel spreadsheet any information about personalized follow-up messaging who are they traveling with okay are they traveling with their sister or their adult children or babies first time at the beach or teenagers first time going whitewater rafting or the first time visiting your lake specifics on why they're traveling such as anniversaries birthdays reunions okay is it the first time Vicki visiting are they coming back for the third time for the seventh time okay anything else you learned specific to their travel plans that's going to help you personalize the follow-up information all right and then as far as actually sending the follow-up is absolutely fine to use an email template and sure your leaders have put together hopefully leaders we put together in several different templates that are specific to certain type of travel plans those are fine to pull down and use but be sure reservation sales superstars that you start that email with one or two sentences to let them know it's just for them okay hello Douglas how exciting to hear about your plans to surprise your wife with his fake ation now that your kids are off to college and then drop in the template from then on this extra step humanizes the exchange and that's what we want to do so if you are interested in please reach out and let us know with our private web cam services web cam training and coaching services or telephone mystery shopping or third party called scoring if you have call recording and tools we can actually score a real call us and help your team but I want to give a shout out to the VR ma for moving forward with the virtual springform I hope you've enjoyed our session on getting your reservations team ready for the vacation day dreamers and I truly hope your brought value thank you for joining my session today and I surely hope to be seeing everyone this fall as we hopefully will be reuniting in Orlando or a lot of coding or at least some elbow tapping I wish you well