Why Hospitality Sellers Must Think Long-Term on LinkedIn: A 2025 Reality Check

As the digital selling evolves, so does the way we approach sales—especially in hospitality.

According to a recent Gartner study, by 2025, 80% of sales conversations will happen on a digital platform.

Last time I checked, many hospitality sellers are living in their inbox, attending networking events, delivering those cookies for blitzes - yet do not have a strategy in place on how to engage on a platform like LinkedIn.

That's a huge miss and a wake-up call for all of us in the industry. Tt’s time to stop thinking about LinkedIn as a short-term tool and start viewing it as a long-term strategy.

From One Message to Massive Impact

A while back, almost three years ago in fact, I sent 75 messages on LinkedIn to execs at a very well known hospitality management company. I didn’t get an immediate response, and honestly, I didn’t expect one as LinkedIn is still a very underutilized tool in hospitality and even more underutilized at the Exec Level.

But months later, one message came back to life. It led to five engagements within the company that involved training 200 executives. From there, it snowballed into conducting two specialized training sessions for their internal women’s subgroup, presenting at their conference in Vegas, and even facilitating a training session at their corporate office.

But it didn’t stop there. Just a few weeks ago, I had a call with a team representing six or seven hotels in California. They booked directly on my calendar from a referral internally, all because they now know me, people see my content and I have credibility.

Imagine if I never would have sent those messages after building out my profile?
This applies to your team. If you are a VP of Sales or Commercial Strategy and your on property team or those on your tech sales team are not leaning into HOW to use this platform, you are missing out.

The Lesson: Stop Hoping and Start Planning

Here’s the kicker: This didn’t happen by accident. It wasn’t luck. It was persistence, coupled with a strategy to engage with value and insights. You can’t just plant one seed and hope someone response. And I guarantee if your team sends a message that talks about a renovation, savvy new tech tool or a feature - no one is going to respond. It’s about continuously providing value, giving more than you take and using this tool as a research assistant so YOUR TEAM is the first name that comes to mind.

Most people believe that one well-timed post or message will lead to an instant sale. But that’s not how it works.

Reverse Engineering Success

What’s even more fun is when you reverse engineer this process. Think about it: Where did this all start? That one message wasn’t just a shot in the dark; it was part of a bigger plan to engage with prospects. Each interaction, each piece of value shared, added up over time.

So, while everyone is in the thick of budget seasons, I'd ask yourself - does our marketing plan have ANY strategy tied to where every single one of our buyers hangs out (LinkedIn) - if the answer is no, why not? Because you don't yet know how to use it? Because it's new? Yes, but the cell phone was once new and now, a 2 year old can manage it.

I'd caution you to bring in speakers who can actively train your team on how to leverage LinkedIn as their best sales assistant vs. a rah rah speaker who 5 minutes after the conference is forgotten.

Final Thoughts: Play the Long Game

If you take anything away from this, let it be this: doing what you have always done and expecting different results is a fallacy. Just like anything else, adoption has to be reinforced and attention paid to metrics.

What's working, what's not, who to learn from and HOW to approach buyers on this platform is what will set your team apart.

And please, stop having your team post photos of the latest promotion at your hotel if you are on the hotel side, or of your product if you sell into hotels and provide a tech tool. THAT does not drive business.

Sharing value, engaging consistently, showing up to nurture and support others, and diving in with a strategy lead to results.