Train Your Whole Team, At Your Venue, On Your Terms
Big Hat brings the workshop to you. Instead of sending one or two people to a public course in Melbourne, we design a one or two day program around your venue, deliver it on site, and train your whole team together — so everyone leaves with the same skills, the same scripts and the same standards.
That matters because your function sales staff are the single biggest factor in how much event revenue your venue captures. Function sales staff are the number one determining factor that attract, convert and maximise venue functions. With more venues than ever competing for the same enquiries, the venues that thrive are the ones with a well trained function team.
We are not your typical trainers. We have built and run companies from scratch, survived tough economic times and near-bankruptcy, managed hundreds of employees and generated millions of dollars in profit. Whatever you are going through, we know and can understand, because we have been there.
Is This Your Team?
In-house training tends to make sense when a team — not one person — is stuck on the same things:
- Enquiries are getting harder to convert than they used to be
- Your team is being ghosted by enquiries that are difficult to contact and follow up
- Everyone is too busy, with too many urgent things competing for attention
- Prospects keep asking for discounts and a cheaper price
- Function revenue is down, or the venue calendar is looking empty
- Front line staff could handle inbound phone calls better
- You have a low conversion rate from callers to customers
- Phone enquiries are mostly about price and availability, and little else
If more than a couple of those are true across your team, training one person will not shift the numbers.
Who Should Attend
- Venue owners and managers
- Function, event and wedding sales staff
- Reception and front line staff who answer enquiries
- Supervisors and team leaders responsible for sales standards
Because it is delivered on site, you can include people who would never be released for a public course — the weekend duty manager, the part-time function coordinator, the receptionist who takes the first call.
What You Can Expect To Get Out Of It
- A significant increase in sales and profits from your functions and events
- Knowing how to promote and sell more functions, events and weddings
- Better conversion of function and event enquiries into bookings
- More higher margin and higher priced events
- Using tech, systems and processes to attract and deliver better events
- A higher average event spend, with more extras and add-ons
Definite results and ROI are our number one priority. No theory. No fluff. Just practical real-world strategies and tactics that get results.
How In-House Training Works
A one or two day workshop, custom designed for your team
The length depends on how much ground you want to cover and how many people are involved.
Delivered at your venue, anywhere in Australia
You do not need to travel to the Melbourne public workshops, and your team is not out of the business for two days of travel.
Built around your business first
We first seek to understand your business, then tailor the content to your market, your unique needs, your challenges and your goals. Training staff is expensive and we need to get results fast, so the aim is the maximum return possible on your investment.
Interactive, memorable, and it sticks
Training is an ongoing process, not a one-time event — nobody ever got fit by going to the gym just once. Sessions use world-class fun exercises so your team practises new skills in a safe, friendly environment, and the habits carry back into the workplace.
A starting point, not a date in the calendar
Our training workshops are not just a one-off date in your calendar, but the starting point of a program of significant improvement in your hospitality business.
What Can Be Covered
Because the program is customised, you choose the mix. These are the areas we cover most often for venue and event teams.
Converting more enquiries
- How to convert enquiries over the phone, by email, face to face or via online chat
- Asking more effective questions to convert enquiries — the million dollar questions
- Developing a tailored, customised phone script, ready to use for all staff
- Asking for the sale — landing it without being too pushy
- Converting more venue inspection tours into functions and events
- Selling more using email — turning email enquiries into sales
- Best-practice hot, warm and cool enquiry follow-up techniques
- Dealing with enquiry ghosting — when and how to follow up your prospects
- Overcoming the common objections and obstacles to booking an event
Selling on value instead of price
- Confidently describing all the value of your venue and your offer
- Avoiding the discounting trap, and developing pricing confidence and integrity
- Advanced skills for influencing, dealmaking and negotiation
- Selling to different buyer types by matching personality styles
- Developing unstoppable confidence to sell better at higher prices
Filling the calendar and lifting yield
- Managing your functions calendar to maximise sales, profit and yield
- Filling your quiet periods and off-season dates with shift-selling techniques
- New function pricing techniques to optimise venue and function yield
- Selling more extras, add-ons and combos to lift average event spend
- Best practices for packaging up your functions, events and weddings offer
- Creating venue function kits that outline your offer and get more events
Getting more enquiries in the first place
- Promoting your venue using its best facilities, features and benefits
- Developing an effective venue sales and marketing plan
- Web marketing and social media to get more enquiries
- Low cost event and function marketing and promotion
- Building alliances in your local area to get more leads and referrals
- Outselling your competitors using USPs and mystery shopping
- Attracting more repeat and referral business, and more online reviews
Systems, process and risk
- Using more technology — function software and process automation
- Using function and event processes, forms and checklists
- Managing your risks with better event terms and conditions
- Getting organised and getting more done in less time
Each program finishes with your team developing their own action plan, so the workshop ends with agreed next steps rather than good intentions.
Programs Available In-House
Any of the Big Hat training programs can be delivered in-house, and combined into a single tailored program:
- Grow Your Functions, Events and Weddings Revenue
- Sales Skills for Function and Events Sales Superstars
- Inbound Sales Skills — Turning Callers into Customers
- Delivering a VIP Customer Experience — Serve, Sell and Satisfy
- Stepping Up to Supervision — Leadership and Teambuilding Skills
- Cutting Costs and Buying Better to Grow Your Bottom Line
Why Venues Choose Big Hat
We are hospitality industry focused and specialised
Our training works because it is custom-designed for you and your industry. It is all about your market, your unique needs, your challenges and your goals.
We have business experience, and lots of it
We are both experienced businessmen and trainers. Our training comes from real-life experience and, as a result, is proven to work.
We deliver change that lasts
Through our training methods and activities, we ensure the knowledge gained is retained, habits are changed and, consequently, adopted over time as normal behaviour.
Industries We Have Trained
- Hospitality — venues, golf courses, wineries, clubs, pubs and restaurants
- Accommodation — motels, hotels, resorts and caravan parks
- Tourism — visitor centres, tour operators, attractions and transport
- End of life events — cemeteries, crematoria and funeral directors
- Self storage, green industries such as turf, nurseries, landscaping and irrigation, professional services and dealerships
Clients have included BIG4, Panthers Club Group, Mackay Tourism, Kangaroo Island Tourism, NT Tourism and HMAA, now TAA. Kevin’s longer term clients have included Jeanswest, HPM Le Grand and Turf Australia. You can see more Big Hat clients or read what clients have to say.
Frequently Asked Questions
Next Step
Tell us about your team and what you are trying to fix, and we will put together a program outline for your venue. Get in touch with Big Hat.
