The Importance of Selling Abilities in Corporate Hospitality Sales to Corporate Customers [Summary]

Little has been published recently about the salesperson/customer dyad. Drawing upon the selling and sales literature in the area of marketing, the authors with the cooperation of a large anonymous hotel company conducted a study to determine those common selling abilities deemed important to both sides of the dyad. Using a previously developed scale of 14 major selling abilities, the study was able to identify nine agreed upon abilities that both parties felt were important and five abilities on which the corporate customer and the hotel salesperson differed significantly. Understanding how the corporate customers view the sales abilities can assist sales managers in recruiting and training salespeople who will help the property increase their share of corporate revenue.