Before going further into the subject of Teambuilding and Event Customization and Personalization, Sam Inspire is pleased to share his experience of how he had closed many event sales when he was working as the Business Manager at a travel and event startup Destination Management Company.
How Powerful Personalization and Customization Help Close Sales
As mentioned above, his company was just a Startup. This means how hard to merge in the market of event and travel business in Siem Reap, Angkor. All the giant players were here with a reason of geographical niches of Angkor temples as their selling point. Just to get the clients to contact was already hard, how about to get the clients to pay between 50 to 100 thousands USD in each event. Looking at to the time, it was just like a dream, but he made it with all those super big clients and 99% of the clients were super satisficed and return again and again. The miracle created for all these achievement was from personalization and customization. It took a lot of work, dedication, and times, but that is all about the event enthusiasts. Here Sam is pleased to present some of his success stories:
Sam was an obvious partner from the beginning since he was very responsive, smart, communication was smooth and easy, and he was the only one able to customize his offer to meet our needs and special requirements (in comparison with other local agencies that we contacted).
When D-day arrived, Sam’s team shown a very good organization. It is not easy to handle such a big multicultural group especially when agenda is very tight, but Sam did it! We went for a tour to a floating village, and meet the people living there. That was an amazing experience. We were humbled and had a good life lesson! But the best part is that it was really authentic, a memorable authentic experience that I believe, only Sam can provide!
Besides this amazing tour, we went for a temple tour to Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Phrom. Again, the perfectly smooth organization from Sam’s team allowed us to visit 3 temples without rushing in a half day where all the other agencies say this is not possible. Our guests were all really happy!
On behalf of Manitou Asia & Manitou Group, I would like to say a huge thank you to Sam again for being such a good partner to us during this event. Your knowledge of your country, and your customer focus are 2 precious gifts that will surely lead you to success!
I strongly recommend him to anybody who wants to have a memorable experience in Cambodia with no trouble!
Mathieu Procureur
HR & Marketing Projects Specialist, APAC
All our people were amazed and thrilled and all commented how lovely and helpful and professional you all were at the Sofitel Angkor and at Sam’s company.
We had the best week, and the conference was a huge success and it was a lot to do with your great attention to service.
At the Sofitel the food, quality, rooms, service, staff and the conference set up was first class. And Sam, the organisation and support by you and your team was superb!
Congratulations on your hotel, company, staff and yourselves! It was a great experience we didn’t want to leave!
From Dr Myles and Michael!
Kind Regards
Michael Gardner,
Group Director Medical Services
Oliver Johnson,
General Manager
Beyond Personalization and Customization : Budget, Expertise, and Responsivity
These are just some examples of how powerful the customization and personalization helped Sam to sell his event and team building products. Nevertheless, personalized and customized production is not 100%, it could only help around 50%. The other 50% relies on the clients’ Budget, your Expertise and Knowledge, and Responsivity, how fast you can response to their questions.
Event Budget Negotiation
No mater, how big the clients are, their internal event organizers have also target to reach, the more they can save, the better credit they can earn. Furthermore, as for the destination of Cambodia, their expectation must be a lot lower than those of the cosmopolitan cities like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok etc. Therefore do your best to support the organizers in negotiating and giving varied possibilities of the destination products and suppliers availability. However, be in mind that, don’t make yourself cheap and the event goes cheap. They only come once a year for the company outings, spoiling their event will result in the worst case especially to the organized company. The solution to maintain the quality of service while bidding the lowest cost possible. All these, you have to smartly explain to the clients, why and what. They will surely understand and accept it.
Show your Area of Expertise
Be ahead of the market with your area of expertise. Grabbing multi-skills is great but not everyone is capable to do so, therefore develop yourself in one specific field. For multifunctional or intersectional company, it is always potential to have experts to take care of different production or department. For instance, Leisure product team, Incentive event team, Teambuilding event team… to empower them and invest them to the full potential, let them do or experience the full process of how the Lifecircle of each production work from creating product ideas to closing report. With all these practical knowledge plus regular update, they will be ready to answer and present any minor details to the clients. From Sam experience, for any clients request or questions, he got miles away of answers prepared and retrieved to response at the fastest and promptest manners. This made the clients feel super confident. When they are confident with you at the first place; it creates a lot of ease during the event execution.
Being Responsive is the Key to Sales
Understanding the position of our customers, event organizers is vital to the teambuilding and event customizers. They need you on and all over the time of their need, so make sure you make them feel that can call you or Whatsapp you any time they need. Sam shared his experience that, some time he stayed awake all night if his customers are from the US. And as a professional event expert, he still enjoyed his career a lot, especially when he could support his clients the maximum. Never wait a second to respond, even if you don’t have the answer yet, just let them feel you are 100% available to them. Above all, to a piece of Sam’s advice, never acting rudely behind the clients even on phone. People nowadays are very smart, they could catch you unnatural response very quickly. So you have to be patient and find a way to enjoy yourself out of that.
Preparedness to Loose Your Clients
Would you believe a very happy clients to leave you to others? Yes, you have to accept it. It happens all the time for its own reasons. It could be that the event has changed the destination. The global crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic that force them to cancel the travel. Or the top management has fallen in the competitors trap of sale techniques, where the organizers forced to work with that agents.
Since it is the fact, what you can do is be as professional as you are and wish them good luck honestly and politely. Possibly, you could still get part of the event and full event will be yours in the future.
Event Personalization Tip Conclusion
To conclude, Personalisation and Customisation is one of the hottest trends in the events industry. The research that we have gone through on many sites, 90% of personalisation engage attendees and build loyalty and close the sales. But yet, see also other tips above and be flexible to your real time situation.
Sam Inspire family wishes you good luck with your event and team building event success.
Having difficulties in customizing and personalizing your company event to Cambodia, Sam is here to be your assistant. Here are some of the bespoke Teambuilding and Event programs .