Business Development Manager

Job Title

This role proactively researches, solicits, and sources new accounts as well as qualifies new business opportunities by contacting and developing relationships with potential customers to drive long-term business growth and development. Key responsibilities include providing the sales team with information on accounts to generate new business opportunities. This role develops leads from marketing campaigns and trade shows, partners with analytics team, and solicit leads utilizing relevant databases, resources and tools. Additional responsibilities include leveraging excellent communication skills to cultivate strong relationships with customers from first contact until account is transitioned to the appropriate sales team; verifying accurate and timely lead / account turnover to members of the appropriate sales team; and creating, maintaining and / or updating databases, spreadsheets, and all other systems related to Sales and Marketing activities.

Education and Experience Required : High school diploma or GED; 2 years' experience in the sales and marketing, guest services, front desk, or related professional area.

OR 2-year degree from an accredited university in Business Administration, Marketing, Hotel and Restaurant Management, or related major; no work experience required.

Preferred : 4-year college degree; previous experience in proactive lead generation in hospitality and sales discipline; knowledge of property-specific business segments (e.g., group, catering, transient); knowledge of the hospitality industry. Proven work experience as a new business development sales manager, sales account executive, or sales manager.

Hands-on experience with multiple sales techniques, including cold calls. Track record of achieving sales goals.

Managing Sales Activities : Qualify leads from marketing campaigns and other sales tools and programming to uncover sales opportunities. Contact potential clients through cold calls and emails. Present key aspects of the company to potential clients. Build trusting relationships with clients.

Proactively seek new business opportunities in the market. Set up meetings or calls between clients or prospective clients and appropriate sales team. Maintain up-to-date knowledge of company products / services. Create, maintain, and / or update databases, spreadsheets, and other systems related to sales and marketing activities. Leverage Account Sales reporting and subscription resources.

New Business Development : Identify, research, and qualify new business accounts from the "top account" lists and business opportunities from external resources. Validate deployment status of account, verify account information in relevant sales booking and opportunity management systems and determine booking history with various locations.

Locate contact information for the accounts and determine booking agents and decision makers for the company. Research company website external sources to gather business activity within market and gauge business potential. Research neighborhood targets (e.g., undeployed accounts) from account list developed by partner teams and analysts.

Leverage business intelligence from tools / reports to find potential accounts in top five need markets. Verify accurate and timely turnover to appropriate sales team or sales channel to gain efficiencies.

Work collaboratively with the appropriate sales teams regarding the direct follow up effort with small business accounts. Build and maintain rapport with account sales and property sales teams to uncover new business accounts. Assume additional reasonable responsibilities as requested by management.

Reports and Documentation : Establish and maintain complete and up-to-date research information on each researched account in relevant systems to verify data integrity, ease of access, and accurate reporting. Provide account research for non-deployed accounts by leveraging systems, tools, resources, and industry affiliations to drive new potential accounts and drive volume to focus need markets.

Maintain tracking spreadsheets with account research and provide to leaders for prioritization. Prepare reports (e.g., production, business opportunity, period-end and / or month-end) as requested by managers.

Building Successful Relationships : Build and maintain strong working relationships to enable cross-functional communication. Seek opportunities to network with colleagues, solicit feedback, and exchange ideas. Resolve internal sales support process issues that arise and bring issues to the attention of leadership team as appropriate.

Work collaboratively with other sales channels to establish coordinated sales efforts that are complementary. Build and strengthens relationships with leaders and associates. Partner with and assists others to promote an environment of teamwork and achieve common goals. Listens to and consider the concerns of all associates, responding appropriately and effectively. Maintain a network in the defined sales channel and markets as applicable.