Sales: What are some best responses to "Sell me this hotel room"?

"I see you have no idea whatsoever how to successfully market a hotel, or how to find or identify candidates who might, nor would you know how to work with and properly supervise someone who could perhaps help you in that area; so I won't waste any more of your time. Good day."

Hotel sales and marketing people do not sell hotel rooms, they market the hotel. You might point out a unique design or uncommon amenity item in the rooms; but as far as 'selling a hotel room' goes, there is very little differentiation between hotel rooms found within the same class of hotels, even between competing hotels, unless you're selling a recently renovated Class B or economy property.

More of interest to a potential corporate or group account will be location, common area amenities (meeting rooms and conference facilities and the audio-visual equipment that goes with those, a pool, a business center), and the willingness of the hotel management to offer support in logistical and billing areas (special rate program, direct billing, food and beverage, transportation).

Any hotel salesperson who would attempt an answer to a question like that either knows nothing about hotel marketing himself or herself, or needs the job so badly that he or she is willing to endure the indignity of being made to answer such a question because he or she, for whatever reason, can't get a job at another hotel; so the question for the interviewer becomes, what do you want with him/her?

Any hotel salesperson who knows how hotel marketing is done in real life, and who is any good at all, will know from being asked such a question in such a way that the person or company doing the asking knows absolutely nothing about how to market a hotel and that, if he or she takes the job, he or she is going to be inundated with a bunch of Mickey Mouse requirements that make no business sense at all, is not going to be permitted to do anything that actually works, and is not going to last at that particular hotel long enough to do any good before he or she is personally blamed for the hotel's empty rooms, and forced out.

This is assuming that the hotel is even a marketable product, given its management, condition, and rates being asked. I've actually heard owners of properties that are not so marketable come off like "we know it has its problems, you have to sell it . . ."

You don't sell hotel rooms by pushing them hard enough on a large enough number of people. It's not an amazing-TV-offer can opener, an overpriced used car with on-the-lot financing, or a combination radio and toothbrush. Anyone in a position within his company to negotiate a hotel corporate or group account with you is going to know he can call around and see what kind of terms he can get.

I don't want "salespeople" selling my hotel rooms. I want my business development people doing my marketing so that people come and beg them out of my hands . . . and don't feel as though they're "begging" when they do it . . .

Originally appeared on Quora