Most hotel tech sales collateral is written for the vendor's own team. It explains the product in the order it was built, uses internal feature names and assumes a rep will be in the room to fill the gaps. Increasingly, nobody is in the room. A 2025 Gartner survey of 632 B2B buyers found 61% prefer an overall rep-free buying experience, and 69% reported inconsistencies between the information on a supplier's website and what its sellers told them.

The window to shape the decision is also early. 6sense’s 2025 Buyer Experience Report, based on more than 4,000 buyers, found 94% of buying groups had ranked their preferred vendors before first contact, and bought from that preliminary favourite 77% of the time. Your deck, one-pager, case studies and security pack do much of the selling before a rep is invited.

This self-assessment takes about fifteen minutes. Score each of the ten questions honestly, add up the total and use the score bands at the end to decide what to fix first.

How to score

Give each question 0 points if the answer is no, 1 point if it is partly true or only true for some assets, and 2 points if it is true for every current asset. Ask one person from sales and one from marketing to score separately, then compare. Large gaps between their scores are a finding in themselves.

Collateral readiness: the degree to which a hotelier, an owner and an IT lead can each reach a confident shortlist decision from your materials alone, without a rep translating.

The ten questions

1. Does every asset say which type of property it is for?

An independent 40 room hotel, a 12 property management company and a branded resort read the same page very differently. Score 2 if each deck, one-pager and case study names its segment in the first screen. Score 0 if one generic deck serves everyone. If your segments are still fuzzy, start with your ideal customer profile by hotel type.

2. Do your website, deck and one-pager tell the same story?

Check three things across all three: the headline promise, the pricing model and the main proof point. Score 2 if they match, 1 if the wording differs but the substance agrees, 0 if they contradict each other. This is the gap behind Gartner's 69% figure, and hoteliers who compare vendors side by side notice it fast.

3. Can a general manager understand your one-pager in two minutes without help?

Hand it to someone outside the company who has worked at a front desk or in hotel operations. Ask them what the product does, who it is for and what changes on day one. Score 2 if they answer all three, 1 if they answer two, 0 if they need you to explain.

4. Is there an asset written for the owner or asset manager?

General managers choose software, but owners and asset managers often approve the spend. They care about cost per available room, payback and risk, not features. Score 2 if you have a short business case in their language, 1 if the numbers are buried in the main deck, 0 if there is nothing. Our guide to a business case a hotel owner approves covers the format.

5. Are your case studies specific enough to believe?

A useful case study names the property type, size, region, the problem, the before and after metric and the time period. Score 2 if most of yours meet all six, 1 if they meet three or more, 0 if they are mostly quotes and logos. See why hotel tech case studies stop working for common failures.

6. Can IT or the group's security lead get answers without booking a call?

Chains and management companies send security questionnaires early. Some vendors publish the basics: the Mews Trust Center lists SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and lets buyers request documentation. Score 2 if you have a public security page or ready pack, 1 if answers exist but live in a rep's inbox, 0 if every questionnaire starts from scratch. Our hotel security questionnaire guide lists what to prepare.

7. Do you explain your AI features plainly?

6sense found 89% of purchases in its 2025 study included AI features, and 58% of buyers engaged sellers earlier to clarify missing AI details. Score 2 if your collateral states what the AI does, what data it uses, whether the hotel's data trains it and what it costs. Score 1 for a partial answer, 0 if it just says AI-powered.

8. Can a buyer work out roughly what you cost?

You do not need a public price list, but buyers should understand the model: per room, per property, per booking or a percentage. Score 2 if the model and a starting point are clear, 1 if the model is clear but not the range, 0 if pricing is only available on a call. See how to build a pricing page for hotel tech.

9. Is there a written implementation and migration plan?

Switching a PMS or channel manager is a risk to the hotel's revenue. A plan showing the steps, timeline, data that moves and who does what lowers that risk. Score 2 if you have a standard plan you send before signature, 1 if it exists only after signature, 0 if there is none. Read why a migration plan closes deals for the reasoning.

10. Does someone own the collateral and review it on a schedule?

Collateral decays. Prices change, features are renamed, logos churn and case study numbers go stale. Score 2 if one named person owns the library and reviews it at least each quarter, 1 if updates happen when someone complains, 0 if nobody knows which version is current.

Score bands

Fixing the most common gaps

Most hotel tech teams score lowest on questions 4, 6 and 10. The fixes are usually small and fast.

One more check is worth doing. Partners and resellers use your collateral too, often without telling you which version. Programmes such as Hostaway’s affiliate programme give partners marketing assets and a dashboard, which only helps if those assets are current. If partners sell for you, include them in the review cycle.

When your deck is the asset scoring lowest, our post on when to replace your sales deck walks through the rebuild. Collateral sits in the convert stage of the hotel tech GTM system, alongside demos and proposals.

Scored lower than you expected? A free GTM leak audit shows where deals are stalling between first visit and signature, so you know which asset to fix first.

Frequently Asked Questions