Retaining your talent is based on several key pillars: keeping them motivated, listening to them, challenging them with the right objectives, and rewarding their efforts. Let’s see how this applies to your revenue manager.
Give him a team that matches the business
The revenue manager is not just a small operational hand that varies prices all day. This person will also make forecasts, models, reports, lead revenue meetings, manage OTAs, the different optimization levers, the length of stays, make group quotations, validate budgets…
On a limited perimeter, this remains manageable, beyond that, by loading the mule, you could create demotivation.
Our recommendation
Up to 5-6 establishments/destinations/flights/lines to be managed, it is manageable. Beyond that, we progressively recruit an additional person to relieve your revenue managers and not to sink them.
Set achievable objectives
Setting your revenue manager an average price objective is as senseless as asking him to increase the Google satisfaction score: it does not depend on him. An average price target is not stimulating and is dangerous for the company: it doesn’t mean that you will generate more sales.
Even a target of increasing RevPar by 5% does not depend on the Revenue Manager alone. In 2022 for example, increasing RevPar by 5% was very easy to do even for bad revenue managers, because the demand was there.
Our recommendation
You must set objectives based on his own KPIs, which are entirely his responsibility: reduce the rate of spill (dates that end full too early), of spoilage (we did not pilot well and we do not fill), implement actions to increase the RevPar, improve the management of channels, review the pricing strategy …
Make him increase his skills
Who has never had the impression of stagnating in their job?
By doing the same thing over and over again, you always get the same results. Unfortunately or fortunately, we are human, and habits are quickly formed. Your revenue manager knows her area by heart and doesn’t necessarily see the new areas for optimization. You’ve managed to retain her for a while, great news. But her fresh eyes have disappeared, and that’s bad.
On the other hand, revenue management is evolving, techniques are being refined, tools are coming in, your competitors’ resources are being trained… and you?
Our recommendation
Encourage his or her skills development on a regular basis!
Offer them help. There are plenty of ways to do this. Training, mentoring, discussions with a peer… You will certainly find the solution that is best adapted to your sector and your resource, and that will enhance the advantages of staying with you.
Trust him
If you have hired him, it is because his knowledge and skills have convinced you. So let him bring you new ideas, and let him challenge you! Because no, at the end of the year, you don’t make a +5% on the fly “because it’s like that every year”.
Our recommendation
The budget is your budget. The revenue manager has his own KPIs. If the budget is not achievable, listen to his arguments and let yourself be surprised.
Give him the means
“We want you to increase the RevPar, the PM, to sell better, not too much at the last minute, and very expensive. Oh, I forgot, we won’t have the budget for tools this year. Well, Excel isn’t so bad, is it? You’ve always managed anyway, come on, we’re aiming for +15% this year, we’re counting on you!”
Does this sound absurd? It’s the reality for many revenue managers – believe it or not – at the end of each year, when it’s time to close the budget.
No arms, no chocolate, right? In Revenue Management, it’s the same. No resources, no optimization. No tools, no reactivity. With no budget… Well, there you have it. Revenue managers spend their time forecasting travel costs. Do the same. Calculate your own opportunity cost of postponing the decision of an RMS to future years, there will certainly be a shortfall to figure out.
On the other hand, your competitors did not wait for you to equip themselves. More reactivity, more modern, time-saving… Their revenue manager is delighted!
Our recommendation
In summary, Excel can be a good tool, obviously, but it all depends on the number of establishments and your growth ambition.
From 100 rooms in total – or units to be managed, depending on your sector -, you should use it. Your revenue manager will feel listened to and taken into account. Also, the implementation of an RMS will bring a new project and challenge to his daily life.
Attach him to the right person
If you’ve already been through the N&C and diagnostic process, you’ve heard us say it before. The Revenue Management department must be attached to the right person in the right hierarchy. Attaching it to the sales department should not be your first choice.
If it is attached to the sales department, the sales department will often win. And that is neither good for business nor good for the motivation of your resources!
Our recommendation
So, the salesperson manages his accounts within defined limits, and the revenue manager decides on his pricing and dates to be given to BtoB. Each of them, reporting to the top management.
However, your current organization or the maturity of the RM may explain why you want to attach it to the sales department, or to marketing. This is a good example of where mentoring makes sense. The RM will be able to talk with peers and progress in his complex job.
Show him recognition
“It’s the RM’s fault, it’s the marketing’s fault”. Many revenue managers will recognize themselves, we often congratulate the marketing or sales teams for their excellent work, and their creativity, because yes, it’s true, the numbers are there, the traffic has increased and the conversion rate too.
Each department has an essential role, of course, but the year’s objectives were not achieved alone.
Our recommendation
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is your revenue. It’s a team effort and a long one. Remember to recognize the efforts of all, even those who seem to be in the shadows.
Involve him in a broad and challenging scope
Your revenue manager is a pro at optimization and pricing, but he or she also has many other strings to their bow! Offering them other projects that are slightly outside their scope can be both stimulating for them and beneficial for your company. Involving him in more “noble” projects will show him the importance of his opinion, of his ideas, and will undoubtedly boost his creativity. Maybe just what he needed to get him motivated.
Our recommendation
Depending on the size of your teams, consider including your MR in cross-functional missions. For example, by including him in the Task Force on the choice of strategic tools such as the PMS and the CRS. Involve him in even broader issues such as development, business model, strategic choices, business plan…
Offer him a remuneration that is commensurate with his talent and the market
An answer of “between 35 000 and 100 000” would not be accurate or relevant. Like any other job, a revenue manager’s salary depends on a combination of multiple factors. It’s a matter of finding the right mix between the factors of your environment – company size, sector of activity, geographical location – and your profile – years of experience, operational experience, technical skills, adaptability…
It may also depend on what is important to you: adaptability, foreign language skills, technical skills such as mastering a BI technology or writing in a computer language.
Our recommendation
Make a list of what is important to you and see to what extent your RM, or future RM, meets your requirements. Also, value all the little extras that he/she brings to you through his/her added value.
In addition to the gross salary, think of other levers that can be of value to him: reward his years of loyalty to the company, offer him a performance bonus, offer him BSPCEs, a company savings plan, benefits in kind such as gift vouchers or sports subscriptions, offer him training…
If you are unable to consider these last points and you wish to increase his salary, call N&C to find the right balance for your teams.
Offer him a certain comfort
Manual data entry, urgent requests from salespeople, incessant e-mail requests, repeated hotlines… These are all small tasks that are irritating for your revenue manager, and for which he or she does not always have added value and could be delegated.
Our recommendation
Talk to them. Hold regular meetings with him, sometimes even more informally, and let him express himself about his work; you’ll be amazed at what he can come up with when you listen actively.
Once you have all the information you need, make sure you get rid of all the irritants. For example, the urgency of other teams can also be a source of stress. So from now on, group requests are up to him to decide which day he wants to spend on them. But he is not given the hotline to manage at the same time…
With all this, he will be more fulfilled. He will be able to focus on tasks with high added value for your company. Win-win, we tell you!
