USA, Arlington, Virginia. September 09, 2019

Knowland a hospitality industry leader in meetings market data and analytics for hotels, convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs), convention centers and other meeting venues, today announced an exciting partnership with Kennedy Training Network to meet the proactive sales training needs within hospitality group sales.

Through this strategic partnership, hospitality customers that want a more profitable and reliable source of business mix for group will be able to train their sales staff leveraging the Kennedy Training Network alongside the insights from the Knowland flagship product, Insight Elite.

"We are excited to partner with Kennedy Training Network," said Chelsea Madden, VP, Customer Success at Knowland. "We view a Proactive Group Sales Strategy as vital to the profitability of any hotel or venue space. Upskilling sales talent is an ongoing challenge which has come to light with the downturn in the market. General managers to owners are questioning if their sales teams have the skills necessary to compete for group and are not believers that they will win the day simply by responding faster to unreliable inbound leads. Partnering with Kennedy Training Network allows Knowland to scale our proactive sales training in ways we could not before."

"For over a decade now, most group sales teams have been able to meet goals solely by converting inbound leads. Younger sales staff have never had to prospect, while many seasoned veterans don't recognize that old-school approaches such as ‘dialing for dollars' and neighborhood sales blitzes fall short. Sales leaders need to operationalize daily outbound sales activities, but they also need to ensure the investment of time pays off," stated Doug Kennedy, President with Kennedy Training Network. "Our training offers contemporary methods for blending ‘tech and touch,' using personalized approaches to proactive selling. Partnering with Knowland, the leaders in event data and analytics, bring the solutions in hand to enable this strategy so it was a natural pairing."