Affixify Partner Industry Expert Series: Edition Three | The Hotelier's Sales & Catering Playbook

Affixify is thrilled to collaborate with the partners shaping how hotels win and manage group business, from the tools that help sales teams generate better leads and close faster, to the platforms that run Sales & Catering operations day to day and keep planners coming back.

Great group performance doesn't start and end with a single system …it's the result of the right processes, the right data, and the right technology working together across the entire sales cycle. We're grateful to the partners who showed up for this series and shared their expertise so generously.

What's Inside

We asked each partner for their best, most actionable advice. What follows is their expertise, the things they wish every hotelier knew.

Insights from Cory Falter, Partner, Revly CRM

Revly CRM, built by Lure Agency, is a sales enablement and prospecting platform designed to help hotel sales teams generate more direct business, warm up cold prospects, and win repeat group clients. While not a traditional Sales & Catering platform, Revly sits at the top of the sales funnel and what happens there directly shapes the leads that flow into your S&C system.

Cory Falter leads Lure Agency and works with hotel sales teams who want to stop waiting at the bottom of the funnel for an RFP and start building the kind of visibility and relationships that bring buyers to them first.

1. Not All Leads Are Created Equal. Know Where Yours Come From

A third-party RFP may have been sent to 10, 15, or even 20 competing hotels, putting your team into a crowded race where price often becomes the differentiator. A direct lead is different. That buyer intentionally found and contacted your hotel, typically meaning fewer competitors, stronger intent, and an opportunity to start building the relationship immediately. And when there's no third-party commission involved, more of that revenue stays with the property. The goal isn't necessarily more leads, it's more of the right leads.

2. Reduce Friction on Your Website Before You Do Anything Else

Too many properties unintentionally make buyers work too hard to get the information they need. Five simple fixes: answer the most common questions with robust FAQs, introduce the people behind the property with team videos, build confidence with testimonials and social proof, provide pricing guidance, and make it ridiculously easy to raise a hand with a short inquiry form. Buyers shouldn't have to hunt, guess, or fill out 17 fields just to start a conversation. The same philosophy carries through once that inquiry comes in: respond quickly, answer the questions actually asked, and make the next step obvious.

3. Prioritize Prospects Based on Signals, Not Just List Size

Timing and relevance beat volume every time. The goal shouldn't be to build the biggest list or make the most cold calls, it should be to identify the accounts most likely to have an opportunity and give sellers a relevant reason to reach out. That means paying attention to buying signals like website visits, email engagement, past business, and other indicators that an account may be moving into the market. Outreach should be helpful and specific, not another "just checking in" email.

4. Stop Treating the RFP as the Starting Line

By the time an RFP hits the inbox, the buyer may have already researched, shortlisted, and formed opinions about several properties. Getting in front of buyers earlier means strong search visibility, social proof, FAQs, and thought leadership that answers their questions before they're ready to raise their hand. Sales and marketing need to work together here: marketing creates visibility, sellers use that content to build relationships through proactive, relevant outreach. Don't just wait at the bottom of the funnel. Create reasons for buyers to find, trust, and contact you before they send an RFP.

5. Make the Planner the Hero, Not the Hotel

The best way to win the next piece of business is to make the experience still feel fresh long after the event. Capture feedback, learn what made the planner successful, and understand what they'll need next time. The conversation shouldn't be "when can you bring your group back?" - it should be "how can we make your next event even more successful?" Stay connected by sharing ideas and resources that help planners look good to their attendees, stakeholders, and leadership. When you consistently provide value without always asking for the sale, you earn the right to stay top of mind.

"Hotels that wait at the bottom of the funnel for an RFP have already lost the conversation. The properties winning more direct business are showing up earlier, removing friction faster, and building relationships before buyers are ready to raise their hand."

— Cory Falter, Partner, Lure Agency

Insights from Trevor MacLean, Head of Partnerships and Growth, Event Temple

Trevor MacLean leads partnerships and growth at Event Temple, working with hotels and consultants who want to stop losing group business to properties that simply move faster. 

1. Treat the First 24 Hours Like the Entire Sale

The properties that win group business consistently do two things differently. One: they ensure that they have an internal process in place to respond to leads within one hour or less. Two: they get something tangible into the planner's hands on day one that they can act on, including dates held, the specific space named, a price range, and a link they can open on their phone between meetings.

Two things make same-day proposals possible. First, leads get assigned automatically by segment or space size, so nothing sits in a shared inbox waiting for someone to claim it. Second, the proposal is built from a template that already holds your photos, floor plans, and menus, so the seller spends their time on the two paragraphs that are specific to this planner.

2. Put Add-Ons in the First Proposal

Most missed revenue never reaches the negotiation. It disappears because nobody offered these items out. Upsell opportunities all tend to surface after signing; once the planner has already committed their budget elsewhere. Often this leads to a "too late" scenario which loses the property money.

Fix it structurally. Build the add-ons into your proposal templates as default line items so the seller removes what does not apply. Removing is easy. Remembering is hard.

3. Build the Event Timeline Once, Then Let It Run

The stretch between signature and event day is where planner trust gets built or lost. Deposit reminders, BEO approvals, rooming list deadlines, final guarantees, AV confirmations, load-in details, and the pre-event agenda all have a due date you can calculate from the event date the moment the contract is signed.

So calculate them at signing. Every task, every planner-facing email, and every internal reminder gets scheduled off that date automatically. Your team stops working from memory, and the planner starts hearing from you before they have to chase you. Planners rebook with the property that kept them ahead of their own checklist.

4. Fix the Handoff Before You Buy Anything Else

A disconnected sales and catering system shows itself in small, expensive ways. Catering builds BEOs from a PDF that was emailed two revisions ago. The front desk learns about a 40-room block when the group arrives. Operations discover the room setup changed by walking in and looking at it. Someone retypes the same contract details into a third system and drops a zero.

Every one of those issues traces back to the same root cause: the contract, the BEO, the room block, and the planner's notes live in different places with different version numbers. Once they live in one record, the conversation shifts from reconciling versions to actually planning the event.

5. Measure the Handful of Numbers That Change Behaviour

Group and event reporting gets bloated fast. The short list that actually moves decisions:

• Time from inquiry to first proposal

• Win rate broken out by source and market segment, so you know which lead channels deserve more attention

• Lost business with a required reason field, including turndowns, because "no available space" and "priced too high" point to opposite fixes

• Revenue per group split into rooms, catering, and everything else, which is where the add-on gaps become visible

• Pace against the same point last year, by month of arrival

The best first step is to measure your own baseline for one quarter and manage against that. It is a more honest comparison than a number pulled from a property with a different footprint in a different market.

"Winning teams in 2026 are focused on using technology to make it easier for them to build better, deeper relationships with their prospects by automating what they can. They have pulled the manual steps out of their first 24 hours and are obsessed with speed to lead. Their sellers spend more time on building relationships and focusing on prospects' needs instead of on formatting."

— Trevor MacLean, Head of Partnerships and Growth, Event Temple

Insights from Mike Pavicich, Vice President of Global Sales, STS Cloud

Mike Pavicich leads global sales at STS Cloud, working with hotels and resorts that want to close more group business, retain more planners, and stop leaving event revenue on the table. 

1. The First 24 Hours Are the Start of a Relationship, Not Just a Proposal

The highest-performing sales teams move quickly, personalize every proposal, and make it easy for planners to say yes. That's only possible when sales, catering, and revenue are working from the same information. Properties that consistently win group business also treat the first 24 to 48 hours as the start of a relationship, not just a transaction: asking good questions, clarifying priorities, and following up proactively. I've seen properties win business simply because they responded the same day with a complete, personalized proposal while competitors were still gathering information.

2. The Biggest Miss Isn't a Lack of Upsell Options - It's Timing

Sales teams often lock in the room block first and raise F&B, AV, and other enhancements only after the planner has set a budget, so every add-on feels like an expense on top of an already-committed number. Properties that do this well introduce enhancements early, framed as recommendations that support the event's goals rather than as upsells. Presented that way, they read as part of a successful event, not an afterthought.

3. The Biggest Communication Gap Opens Right After Signing

The stretch between signature and event day is where planner trust gets built or lost, and the biggest gap is right after signing. Planners can go weeks without updates because rooming lists, tastings, AV, and guarantees sit in different systems with no one coordinating across them. The goal isn't to communicate more- it's to communicate at the right time with the right information.

Automation and a shared source of truth fix this. Automated reminders and a planner dashboard keep everyone aligned and give planners self-service access to timelines and approvals, so they stop chasing and start trusting.

4. A Disconnected System Isn't a People Problem, It's a Systems Problem

Friction between sales, catering, front desk, and operations shows up because every department is working from a different version of the truth. Sales confirms a change, catering updates a spreadsheet, and the front desk finds out when the group arrives. It's rarely the fault of the people involved. It costs staff time re-entering and verifying information that should have flowed automatically.

An integrated system gives everyone access to the same real-time data, so updates land immediately and planners never have to repeat themselves.

5. Room Nights Alone Don't Tell You Much About Profitability

Two identical room blocks can generate very different revenue depending on catering, space, AV, and other spending. Room nights as a metric don't capture any of that. Properties that manage group revenue well track total revenue per booking and profitability by event type, alongside sales-process health metrics like conversion rate, response time, and booking window.

Collecting more data isn't the point. Using it well is. The right dashboards point sales leaders toward where to focus next. The best first step is to measure your own baseline for one quarter and manage against that, which is a more honest comparison than a number pulled from a property with a different footprint in a different market.

"Most of the friction in group sales isn't a people problem, it's a systems problem. When your team has the right information at the right time, they stop firefighting and start relationship-building. That's the shift that actually moves the needle."

— Mike Pavicich, Vice President of Global Sales, STS Cloud

Insights from Courtney Cox & Janice Morris, Infor SCS

Courtney Cox, Solution Consultant for Infor Sales & Event Management, works closely with hotel sales and catering teams to help them get more out of the systems they already have, turning data entry into operational visibility and building processes that reduce manual work without reducing accountability.

Janice Morris, Infor SCS's VP of Product Management, brings a product-first perspective on where the industry is headed and what great S&C software should actually enable.

1. Stop Entering Data Just to Generate Reports. Start Using It to Drive Action.

If your team updates SCS and then immediately exports, emails, or manually communicates those updates, you're still doing a lot of work outside the system. Look for ways to leverage dashboards, reporting schedules, notifications, and shared visibility so the system becomes the primary source of operational awareness, reducing dependence on static event resumes and improving information flow across the property.

2. Review Your Response Process, Not Just Your Response Time

Most properties track how quickly they respond to RFPs. Fewer evaluate whether the right people are engaged, follow-up activities are assigned, and next steps are documented. Consistency often matters as much as speed when trying to improve conversion. A fast response that leaves the next step undefined is only half the job.

3. Treat Every Group as a Total Revenue Opportunity

Don't focus exclusively on sleeping rooms. Use your system to track catering, meeting space, AV, rentals, and other ancillary revenue from the beginning of the sales cycle. The most successful teams understand the complete value of a piece of business before making decisions about pricing, prioritization, or pursuit.

4. Identify Where Information Gets Re-Entered

Every time information is copied between spreadsheets, emails, resumes, and operational documents, there is an opportunity for errors and delays. Look for places where your teams are maintaining the same information multiple times and ask whether your system can become the source of truth instead. The answer is usually yes.

5. Focus Your Team's Attention on What Changed

The week before an event, most information hasn't changed. What matters are the exceptions: attendee count increases, room setup adjustments, menu revisions, room block pickup concerns, and planner requests. Build processes that make those changes easy to identify and communicate quickly. Managing by exception keeps your team focused on what actually needs attention.

"The best SCS users aren't the ones entering the most data. They're the ones creating visibility from the data they're already capturing. When teams use dashboards, automated reporting, and shared operational views to surface what changed and who needs to act, they spend less time chasing information and more time delivering great guest and planner experiences."

— Janice Morris, VP of Product Management, Infor SCS

What the Experts Agree On

Across all four partners, a few themes came up again and again. Here's what every hotelier should take away.

The relationship starts before the RFP lands.

Cory Falter was direct about it: hotels that wait at the bottom of the funnel have already lost the conversation. By the time an RFP arrives, buyers have often already shortlisted. Trevor MacLean made the same point from inside the sales cycle, the properties that win respond within an hour and get something tangible into the planner's hands the same day. Mike Pavicich framed it as a relationship, not just a transaction. The through-line is the same: the window to make an impression opens earlier than most teams realize, and the properties acting on that are the ones converting.

Revenue beyond room nights is where the real opportunity lives.

Every partner pointed to the same blind spot. Trevor built the case for putting add-ons in the first proposal before the planner's budget is committed elsewhere. Mike flagged that two identical room blocks can generate very different revenue depending on what surrounds them. Courtney and Janice pushed the same idea from the system side: track catering, AV, space, and rentals from the start of the sales cycle, not as an afterthought. The properties leaving money on the table aren't doing it intentionally- they're just not looking at the full picture early enough.

Disconnected systems aren't a people problem.

Mike said it plainly, and every partner echoed it in their own way. Trevor described the specific, expensive ways a fragmented handoff shows up…the BEO built from a stale PDF, the front desk that finds out when the group arrives. Courtney and Janice pointed to re-entry as the telltale sign: every time the same information gets typed into a second system, something is wrong upstream. When teams are spending time reconciling versions instead of planning events, the fix isn't working harder, it's consolidating where information lives.

Automation should create time for relationships, not replace them.

The best automation across every stage of the group sales cycle does one thing: it removes the manual work so the human work can happen. Trevor's automated event timelines mean planners hear from the property before they have to chase. Mike's planner dashboard gives self-service access so the team isn't fielding status requests. Janice's push for dashboards and exception-based reporting means sales leaders spend time on decisions, not on pulling data. The goal isn't less human contact - it's more intentional human contact.

Turns out, the secret to better group and event performance isn't a secret at all, it's the right people and the right tools working together across the entire sales cycle. At Affixify, connecting hoteliers with partners who actually move the needle is kind of our whole thing, and we couldn't be more excited about what's ahead. Stay tuned for more editions of the Affixify Partner Industry Expert Series.

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