Voted best Large Hotel of the Year 2005, by East Midlands Tourism, Whittlebury Hall is a purpose built Management Training Centre, Hotel and Spa, located in Northamptonshire.

Scalford Hall is the sister property, a more traditional style venue located in Leicestershire.

Following the appointment of a new Group Sales Manager and in conjunction with the Training Manager, Rubicon Solutions were approached to support with Sales Training for key personnel.

It was identified that there were two main groups of people who needed sales training for their development, to create consistency across the two properties and drive additional sales.

Firstly, there were Reservation Agents, Conference and Event Co-ordinators and Business Development Managers, all based on property who needed Telesales Training. Following initial discussions, two half day workshops were designed to cover the following subjects:-

Telesales Course One

• Communication Skills
• Understanding the concept of 'Consultative Selling'
• Questioning and Listening Skills
• Selling against the competition
• Features and Benefits Selling

Telesales Course Two

• Showround techniques
• Identifying Buying Signals
• Closing the Sale
• Handling Objections
• Sales Follow-up

In addition, there were a number of proactive Sales Managers who needed additional sales training to help them to identify prospects, develop existing and new business and improve their negotiation skills. The Sales Managers initially went through the Telesales Training to ensure they had all the basic skills required and then had two separate days of training on Proactive Sales Skills.

Proactive Sales Training - Course One

• Identifying Sales Prospects
• Understanding Decision Making Roles
• The Research Process
• Improved Questioning to identify customer needs
• Effective Customer Appointments
• Closing Techniques

Proactive Sales Training - Course Two

• Defining Key Accounts
• The Account Management Process
• Key Account Plans and Key Account Teams
• Buying Modes and Motivational Drivers
• Negotiation Techniques
• Strategies for Marketing within Key Accounts

All courses were designed with a variety of learning styles taken into account and incorporated different learning methods including discussions, exercises, role plays and feedback sessions to ensure full delegate participation.

Specific feedback was received from the Training Manager in our questionnaire, as follows:-

"From another trainers perspective Melanie delivered some excellent training and came across extremely confident and knowledgeable in the subject area. It was very apparent that she has had some really good working experience in the hotel industry and applied it at most opportunities to help their understanding."

"I found Melanie very responsive to requests for materials, changes etc and adapted the sessions to suit the individuals."

Regarding how well Melanie fitted into the internal team - "Very well and credible, mainly due to her knowledge and experience."

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