10 Proven Strategies to Boost Your Hotel Sales Team’s Productivity in 2025

In Hospitality Technology’s latest research study, 81% of respondents – representing thousands of properties worldwide – reported “increasing staff productivity” as a top initiative for 2025. It comes as no surprise considering the evolving demands of guests and urgency to stay relevant and accommodating to achieve revenue goals.

Sertifi’s sales solutions can certainly help (more on that later), but here are ten actionable tactics you can implement to boost productivity and accelerate revenue this year.

1. Set Clear Goals

Define measurable objectives for you and your team and be sure to track progress regularly. Use key metrics like average deal size, conversion rates, and sales cycle length to assess performance and opportunities for improvement. I’ve found it helpful to have my team not only document big picture goals but the individual steps to getting there. We look at their plans in weekly one-on-ones to gauge progress, celebrate wins, solve roadblocks, and determine any changes to tactics.

2. Prioritize High-Value Leads

Use behavioral insights and data analytics to identify and prioritize leads most likely to convert. For example, leads who click on offers, promptly respond to inquiries, or ask detailed questions show stronger intent. Or consider creating a lead scoring system using criteria like budget range, event or group size, and engagement level. Once you know who your high-value leads are, ensure your team takes good care of them by giving them guidelines around response times, ensuring leads are being followed up with in a timely manner.

3. Optimize Your Sales Processes

Great processes are the necessary foundation to work smarter – and bonus, they’ll help you gain more time to focus on your guests. Take some time to audit your existing processes across your entire sales cycle and see where bottlenecks exist – and if you’re a leader, ask your team for honest feedback since they’re closest to the day-to-day processes. For example, evaluate how quickly you’re able to get signed event contracts and deposits back and how easy that step is to keep track of. Or perhaps there are ways to improve your BEO template to get better aligned with guests faster on what their day-of expectations are.

4. Leverage Automation Tools

Automation can transform how sales teams operate. Once you’ve identified your bottlenecks, identify ways technology can eliminate them. For example, Sertifi’s sales solution allows you to combine contract e-signature and deposit requests with automated schedules and reminders, even integrating to sales and catering tools like Delphi.fdc, so you can stay on track without tons of manual setup and follow-up. This way, you can focus on building relationships and serving guests.

5. Use Templates

Create standardized templates for emails, proposals, and contracts to save time while ensuring consistency in communication. Make sure reviewing team templates and where to find them is part of your team’s onboarding process.

6. Make a Daily Game Plan

Figure out how to organize your workday in a way that makes you feel more energized. Maybe you feel more productive knocking out the same tasks for different leads back-to-back, or maybe it works better for you to break up the day with a bunch of different tasks, so things don’t feel monotonous. A simple tactic I find helpful is using time blocking, as in I block a short window on my calendar that details what I need to get done in the day.

Also build an organization system that works for you – and be careful not to overengineer it to the point where it’s ineffective. I’ve been known to ignore reminders because I have too many and don’t have an appropriate amount of time to respond to them.

7. Make Every Minute Count

Make sure you document a task list and keep a pulse on what quicker activities you have on it. In one productivity framework called Getting Things Done, a recommended tactic is flagging tasks as “fast tasks,” so you have a clear sense of what you can get done with less time – like when you have five minutes to spare before your next meeting. ChatGPT is also a great tool to spark ideas when you’re struggling to get going on a task.

8. Use Collaboration Tools

Tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Asana facilitate seamless communication, task delegation, and progress tracking, fostering a more connected team environment.

9. Conduct Regular Training and Upskilling

The hospitality landscape is ever-changing. Regularly educating yourself on emerging trends, technology, and sales-specific skills, such as negotiation and time management skills, ensure you and your team stay ahead and adaptable. Carving out time for webinars and in-person events is a great way to learn and network with experts (and maybe even identify leads).

This is also a great team building opportunity. Let everyone take turns presenting information or ideas back to the group. By having to prepare a presentation and talking points, it even helps the presenter reinforce their own learnings.

10. Foster a Recognition Culture

Celebrating successes of all shapes and sizes fosters a positive, productive, motivated workplace. Take time to recognize top performers and collaborative efforts. Here at Sertifi, we have a “Cheers for Peers” channel to celebrate wins regularly and award gift cards to three recently recognized team members at our monthly all-company meetings.

Now more than ever, the recipe for success for any hotel sales team is striking the right balance between technology and human touch. By implementing the above strategies, you can enhance productivity, close more deals, and accelerate revenue – without sacrificing your creativity and the high-touch guest experience needed to succeed.