Great Leads for the Savvy Sales Whiz

1. Great Leads for the Savvy Sales Whiz A MINT Skills Workshop Professional Development Institute February 3, 2004

2. What is the Meeting Information Network (MINT)? • It contains 28,000 meeting records from over 14,000 organization profiles. • Its data is gathered by 156 Convention Bureaus that share detailed information on meetings held in their cities. • It is used to pre-qualify leads, target potential business, provide economic data for convention center feasibility and economic impact studies.

3. What type of data does MINT house? Corporate and association meetings and conventions that meet domestically and abroad. Events must meet the following three criteria in order to be entered: • Use 50 or more rooms on a peak night • Held on a regularly scheduled basis • Rotate within at least one state

4. What does MINT have to offer?

5. POST CONVENTION REPORTS (PCRS) • Organization contact information including address, meeting planner emails, and website • Vital meeting statistics including attendance numbers, peak room pick ups, and exhibit information. • Future meeting dates/locations

6. Query Builder Allows users to search through all 27,000 profiles using specific criteria • To pull PCRs • To analyze data using MS Excel • To create mailing labels • To create custom made reports through MS Access

7. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FOUR QUERY OUTPUT OPTIONS?

8. History Report (HTML) • Recommended for queries yielding less than 1000 meeting records. This option will bring up a separate browser on the your computer screen with an HTML-based PCR. It is the same format as the VIEW PCR function found in every meeting record. When the new browser is opened, you can print out the PCR but it is not saved on your hard drive. Once the browser is closed, all the information is lost and you must run the query again to retrieve the information.

9. History Report (Microsoft Access) • Recommended for all queries, especially those yielding more than 1000 records. Like the HTLM version, the access option will retrieve a readable PCR, however it will also download the information to your desktop. You will have both the standard PCRs as well as separate tables with organization, meeting, history and booking information. Users must have a version of MS Access and have the ability to compress and decompress files (software such as winzip can be downloaded free of charge from the web) in order to use this history report option.

10. Data Download • The data download does not generate readable PCRs. Instead, it takes all the organization, meeting, and either the history or booking information that the query yields and divides it into separate tables. You can then use these tables to run your own reports/graphs with the data. The information can be downloaded as a comma delimited text file, as a Microsoft excel file (the default for this option), or as a Microsoft access file.

11. Mailing Labels Download • This option will download information for one or all of the following: the organizational headquarter contact information, the organizational headquarter meeting planner contact information, or the management company contact information. The data will be downloaded as a comma delimited text file in Microsoft notebook. This file can then easily be converted into an excel file to use for mailing labels.

12. WHICH ARE THE BEST FIELDS TO SELECT WHEN BUILDING A QUERY? • This depends on what exactly you are looking for but the following fields are the most versatile: Headquarter State Reg/Total Attendance Market Segment Pk Rooms Blocked Org Last Updated Pk Rooms Picked Up Past Mtg Start Year Hst Last Updated Date Past Mtg City Future Year Past Mtg State Future Mtg City

13. Tips on using Query builder • To select any field, place a check mark on the DARK grey side (left side), AND then make selection on light grey side (right side) • Whenever you see the select function, you must HIGHLIGHT your selection. In order to highlight multiple selections, hold down control key • For Gross/Net Square Feet, please use all the zeros for large numerical values (ie. 100000) and do not include commas. • NO PUNCTUATION MARKS (unless noted) • In order to narrow your query to include mtgs that can only meet in the US, select the Meeting Region field. The four mtg regions you should select if you are looking for meetings that are held in the US are Intercontinental, North America, US National, and US/CN Region (please note, US/CN means US/Canadian region, not US Central region).

14. To Download from Query Builder • After selecting the records, hit continue from query results page • Select Download Query Result • When asked to save or open it, save it (XP). For Windows 2000 or below, winzip will be needed. Hit Open, which will open winzip, and then hit extract. • Save it to Desktop (keep MINT folder). • Hit Extract All Files • Extract to Desktop (or MINT folder)

15. Open MS Access file • If you are using a version of MS higher than 1998, you will need to convert the file • Rename • Press yes • Under Reports tab, double click on MINT History Report to view/print PCRs • Under Table tab, you will find your org, meeting, history and booking tables (to import to excel, highlight table, go to tools, office links, analyze with MS excel.

16. To Create Mailing Labels Using Access • Go to Report Tab • Hit New • Highlight Label Wizard • Select label type (Avery 5162), hit next • Select font/size • Arrange the labels with the fields you’d like (ie. Org name, address, contact name). Include commas and spaces • Select sort method if desired (org name) • Rename, hit finish

17. To create a custom query with MS Access • Go to Query Tab • Hit New, Select Design View • Add Org, Meeting, History Tables • Connect Tables using Org Code • To select any field, double click on it • To add specific criteria, hit the totals key (Greek letter sigma), which adds an extra field below • Change Group By to Where, write your specifications under Criteria (use >< symbols) • Hit Run (!) to view your results