It's important to talk to the right person when trying to get a great deal, that means someone who has the authority to negotiate with you. You can ask to speak to the Sales Manager or if they have a dedicated staff for meeting and event coordinating, speak to the manager of that department. Remember to research comparable room prices in the area online so that you'll have a good point of reference to bring to the negotiation table. It does take some advanced planning to get the best deals, but hotel room prices are more flexible than the average person realizes.

Be aware of the seasons and try to schedule your seminar during a time when the hotel's business is typically slow. Getting a great room at a great price will always be easier when the hotel isn't full. If you're booking a block of rooms for seminar guests and speakers in addition to the meeting room, you're also more likely to get a better price for both. Several popular hotel chains have extensive planning tools available online so be sure to take advantage of the wealth of information made available.

Once you've got a list of possible venues together, you can start contacting the sales department of each hotel and sending them your request for proposal or RFP. Make sure your RFP includes preferred dates, number and type of sleeping rooms you require, food and beverage requirements, a tentative agenda and the amount of meeting space that is needed. Based on the hotels' responses to your RFP, you should be able to narrow down the field of possibilities and schedule some site inspections. To save both money and time, you can substitute an actual site inspection with a detailed questionnaire, virtual tour or both!

When you start negotiations, always remember that everything is negotiable. If the group generates sufficient guestroom and food and beverage revenue, the meeting room rental fees can and should be waived. If you're planning a reoccurring event, you can also use your loyalty as leverage.

Once you've weighed your options and made your decision, make sure everything, big and small, is outlined in explicit detail in the written contract. Deposit procedures and acceptable methods of payment are two things that should be agreed upon before you sign anything.

After the event, take your time going over the invoice with a fine-toothed comb. The first draft of the invoice from the hotel is almost never correct so be sure to point out anything that needs to be corrected. Get feedback about the hotel from the seminar attendees. If there are complaints, politely let your hotel representative know about them. Any good salesperson will gladly offer an additional discount to ensure that you consider them again next year.

Matt Bacak became "#1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s e-Biz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets To Unleash The Powerful Promoter In You! Sign up for Matt Bacak's Promoting Tips Ezine ($100 value) just visit his website at https://www.powerfulpromoter.com or https://promotingtips.com.

Whether you stay at a hotel occasionally for vacation or you are a road warrior business person who feels like you spend half of your life in hotels, here are 6 ways to make your stay at a hotel more enjoyable.

1. Before you go to sleep on the first night, make sure that the alarm clock is set for the time you want and that the television does not have an auto-on feature. People will sometimes set these for the middle of the night as a prank on the next person in the room, since the cleaning staff will rarely check them.

2. Bring your own refreshments since refreshments provided in the bar fridge found in the hotel room are often exorbitantly priced.

3. Bring any problems that you encounter to the attention of the front desk as soon as you see them so that they do not assume it was you that left the room in that condition. For example, if you are missing a towel, let them know right away so they don't think you stole it!

4. Hotels are charging for local calls now, and sometimes by the minute, so make sure to clarify upfront any potential telephone costs. Often, going down to the lobby and using the payphone there is much cheaper, even if it is not the most convenient.

5. It is okay to demand excellence from the hotel because you are paying good money to stay there. Just demand it in a polite and reasonable way and always with a smile.

6. A hotel, like a car-rental company or a video-rental store, has a fixed number of income producing units. These units are used by customers who are not always as accommodating to your schedule as you'd like them to be. If you get to the hotel and find that your room is not ready, relax! You'll find that by being patient and understanding, the hotel staff will bend over backwards to make sure you are happy; while, if you are abrupt and impatient, they will provide only the service that you're paying for, and they'll do so grudgingly. Remember, it is rarely the desk clerk's fault that your room is not ready for you. More often than not, it is because another customer was late leaving their room.

These six ideas will help you have a more enjoyable stay the next time you have to stay at a hotel.

Jeff Lakie is the founder of Hotel Resources a website providing information on Hotels Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeff_Lakie

Running a guest house, bed and breakfast or small hotel isn't easy. With so many tasks competing for your immediate attention it is little wonder that some jobs get put off until later. Unfortunately, the task that gets dropped most often is the hotels marketing and promotion, which is possibly the most important job in the whole business.

So in order to give your hotel marketing the attention it deserves in order to deliver the results your hotel needs, your hotel marketing plan should include four key elements:

A stream of eager traffic

In order to stay profitable, hotels need a constant supply of fresh customers to fill their rooms. It is essential therefore that you put your marketing message in front of as many interested prospects as possible.

To do this you need to place your message where your customers gather. For example, if you are selling golf breaks, it would be a waste of your time and effort to advertise in a sports car magazine. It makes more sense to target golf magazines or websites, or possibly business publications aimed at your particular demographic.

An Irresistible Offer

Once you have found what marketing legend, Gary Halbert called 'a hungry crowd' it is important to present to them an irresistible offer. The key here is in the word irresistible. Having worked so hard to attract your viewers' attention it would be foolish to make a weak, feeble or bland offer.

Simply offering the same breaks at the same rate as all your competitors will do nothing to make you stand out from the crowd. Be unique, create packages that nobody else offers and you will go a long way to eliminating your competition.

Hotel Marketing Automation

The biggest improvement you could make to your hotel marketing is by introducing automation into the mix. Why? Because once you automate your efforts they become a system that is both repeatable and predictable.

Simply do the work once and let your system do the monotonous tasks without anything more than a watchful eye from you. This frees up your time so that you can tackle the more demanding issues of the day.

Rinse And Repeat

Set up the perfect marketing system that ticks away on autopilot? Well, why not develop another package that targets another demographic and set up another marketing stream to target them? Remember, the hardest part of any task is taking that very first step.

By creating a number of diverse marketing streams you are effectively spreading your marketing net wider. This means that you are targeting your customers with pinpoint accuracy rather than the wasteful blanket approach used by most hoteliers. As a result you no longer focus on price-cutting or deep discounts in order to put heads on beds.

Mark Heywood has created a short 35 page report that lays out exactly how to create and implement an autopilot hotel marketing system that you simply fit and forget at Hotel Marketing Secrets Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Heywood

You may have the most wonderful hotel in the world, with gorgeous landscaping, comfortable rooms, and impeccable service, but if guests don't know about it, your occupancy rates will be a continual disappointment. In this day and age, the most critical component of hotel marketing is great hotel website design.

Why Hotel Website Design?

The numbers say it all. During 2007, almost a third of all hotel revenues will be generated by online channels. Moreover, over half of your target audience's decision-making is influenced by the Internet. Over a third of hotel guests choose their hotel based on online research, but book through another channel. The remainder researched their choices through an Internet portal, but then tried to book directly with the travel provider.

Without great hotel web site design, it's as if you printed 1,000 beautiful, four-color, ten-page brochures that stunningly captured the unique nature of your hotel at ten dollars apiece, and then locked them away in a cupboard. How effective would they be? The "look and feel" is vitally important in motivating visitors to explore your hotel product, and in guiding them to buy, but without the right technology, site structure, and navigation methods, you will only have marginal online revenues.

Hotel Search Engine Optimization

Even if you have a wonderful hotel web site design, if no one can find your website when they are searching online for that "luxury San Diego hotel," that "romantic B&B outside Paris," or that "adventure scuba holiday in the Maldives," it's as though you didn't have a website at all.

The way that potential guests will find your hotel web site is through search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is both an art and a science - and shouldn't be left to amateurs. Search engine optimization techniques will enable your hotel website to be returned high in the rankings of search engine results - a critical element of effective online hotel marketing.

Factors to Consider

When choosing a marketing company for your hotel website design, make sure that they understand and meet these goals:

* Generating qualified, quality visitor traffic
* Motivating visitors to delve deeper into your hotel website
* Converting visitors into online hotel revenues

Too often, hotel websites are developed in reverse, placing the emphasis on design rather than on generating website traffic. The key is to balance traffic generation effectiveness, the site's "look and feel," and conversion techniques to produce a hotel web site that looks great, gets plenty of traffic that converts into bookings.

Find a Hotel Website Design Company

Today, Internet design and marketing companies have specializations. In order to get the best return on investment, it's best to choose a website design company that specializes in hotel website design. Make sure that their approach adheres to the following guidelines - otherwise, keep shopping. The company should:

* Identify your visitors' expectations and intentions
* Work with you to clarify your own objectives
* Develop a hotel website revenue conversion strategy
* Determine site components that satisfy both design and search engine optimization goals
* Map our "click paths" that will lead to conversion

Your hotel website design and search engine optimization are the two keys to generating the kind of traffic that will keep your occupancy rates in the stratosphere!
 

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web. Learn more about Hotel Website Design or Majon's Business and Entrepreneurs directory. Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Robertson

Market intelligence simply put, tells you where your revenue opportunities exist. Gathering intelligence on your competitors and your hotel's performance compared to theirs need not be a burdensome and challenging task. We used to call it "knowing your competition." How they stack up in terms of product and service, who they are, how they operate and who are their customers were some of the facts we needed to find out.

The tools used to uncover this information used to be a combination of gut instinct, interviewing their client base, poaching their staff and years of getting to know their hotels and those in charge. In today's data-filled environment there is significantly more market intelligence that is more accurate, timelier and much easier to come by. If someone had told me when I was a junior sales person with Hilton more than 20 years ago that I could easily get reports like the ones below, I would have jumped at the chance, even if I had to pay for the information myself; on my $11,000 a year salary!

Of course the "Grand Daddy" of all market intelligence tools has got to be Smith Travel Research's STAR reports. Creating an industry that didn't exist, Randy Smith has become the go-to guy for market data. Is there any hotel out there that is not getting this information on their monthly to year-to-date hotel performance in the areas of rate, occupancy and RevPar as compared against their competition, price points and market area? A must have to understand where you are so that you can plan where you need to be. Click here for more information on STAR reports.

Remember the days of sending out the junior sales manager to scope out the competitors' reader boards? Driving from hotel to hotel to conference center... well, for hotels seeking groups to fill rooms and meeting space these trips are a thing of the past! INSIGHT from the Knowland Group launched in September of this year. The company promises to "dramatically alter the way sales managers find group business". INSIGHT is a simple computer application combining Google's search engine and mapping technology with a searchable database tool that provides sales managers with qualified targeted sales leads on hundreds of thousands of events, groups and meeting planners every day, across every hotel brand, type, shape and size including freestanding conference centers. This market intelligence is currently available in over 70 markets within the United States and Canada. Click here for more information on INSIGHT.

Do you know how well your hotel performs against the competition through the various Global Distribution Systems (GDS)? The Hotelligence report from TravelClick is an outstanding example of how to gather this type of market intelligence. It provides historical information on your local market's hotel bookings made through the GDS's (which are used by over 98% of worldwide travel agents) and through the major Internet sites. The report allows hoteliers to analyze the success of their direct sales effort by monitoring market share as well as review the impact of your rate and inventory decisions. The report demonstrates the number of room nights and average rate on a monthly basis of all reservations through these channels and where they booked (your hotel or your competitors'). It identifies the booking travel agent and often even the corporate source of the business. This report will help you learn if and how much your accounts are "sleeping around", who is doing the philandering and who hasn't slept with you yet! It's worth every penny unless your sales team does not do anything with it... ask your sales team how they are utilizing this invaluable tool to book more business. For more information on Hotelligence and TravelClick click here.

Knowing what has happened through such reports as STAR and Hotelligence is good but predicting the future is even better. TravelClick also offers a sister report to Hotelligence called FuturePACE which provides data on the actual future bookings from the GDS channels on a day-by-day basis so that hoteliers can improve revenues through advance insights into the performance of current rate strategies and marketing efforts for their hotel and those of the competition. Providing revenues, room nights, average rates and market penetration information for the current and next two months out, you can count on this report to be invaluable to identify unusual demand or shoulder days so that they can be addressed before they happen. Click here for more information.

With some hoteliers still believing that discounting increases profits (how many times are we going to have to prove this myth wrong) and bouncing their rates up and down like a schoolyard basketball, you may need to identify these culprits so that you can drive to their hotel and deliver a copy of the Cornell report "Why Discounting Doesn't Work" by Linda Canina Ph.D., Cathy A. Enz Ph.D. and Mark Lomanno.

To check out your competitors pricing and what rates they're really selling on their website, on internet sites and on the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) try on-line search tools like TravelAXE, TravelZoo, Orbitz and Expedia. TravelClick also offers a very comprehensive to-the-industry report called RateVIEW that includes rate data from Internet Sites, brand web sites as well as the GDS.

It is now known that about one-third of all hotel bookings are made on the Internet. Of these Internet users, more than half will use a search engine such as Google, Yahoo or Ask.com to research hotels and nearly 70% will check rates from at least three websites prior to booking. The growing trend towards the internet booking channel is dramatic. How does your hotel stack up on the web? Web analytical tools (web market intelligence) can capture the buying behavior of your guests and measure your website traffic origination points that have the best conversion rates, detail which online or print ads produce revenues and track down the success of search engine pay-per-click campaigns by identifying exactly how much revenue was booked. Overall they allow you to understand how today's consumer sees your hotel from rank on the search engines to third party sites. An even more important emerging area of the web, the "social media" or what is also known as "Web or Travel 2.0" can also track online consumer reviews of your property and can assist you in maximizing this exciting new opportunity in hotel marketing. In short, knowing how you stack up on the web is vital to today's sales success. Tools for measuring your web success are available through Merlin Metrics from A Couple of Chicks Marketing and SearchVIEW from TravelClick.

There are many things hoteliers especially those in the sales functions should know about their local markets. How much does your sales leadership know about their success against the competition; where their revenue opportunities lie; the groups staying in competing hotels; their GDS market share; what corporations are staying at the competition; what upcoming periods represent surprise peaks or valleys in revenues; what rates your competitors are really selling or your hotel's success in selling through what will become the primary booking channel, the Internet? If these questions go unanswered, you're not sure how your hotel measures up or worse yet, there is no action plan around the market intelligence you have gathered, it may be time to assess and seek assistance from experts.

 

About twice a week now I am contacted by a hotel General Manager or Marketing Director who has seen some of the recent research figures for hotel internet revenues that says something like “In 2005 hotel revenues from the internet were 25.0% of all hotel room revenues…”.

The conversation very quickly gets to “I’ve just checked my on-line revenues and they are nowhere near that. What can we do?”

Naturally, the first thing I do is look at their web site. Some are visually stunning, especially on a high speed connection…beautiful “flash” movies (loading, loading, loading), navigation buttons that do pirouettes, music…and usually a mega investment has been made (please give me the name of that sales person, I have some sand that I would like them to sell for me in the Middle East)…and barely an extra room night to show for it.

Why? Because the site turns up on page 17 on Google, Yahoo! or MSN when you search for a suitable keyword or phrase (usually “destination + hotel” eg “Sydney hotel” is the most popular search term in most cities).

70-80% of online activity is people searching for something…all those lost souls who are eager to buy your hotel rooms, if only they could find you…in fact in one recent case, when I was searching for the prospective client’s hotel by it’s very own name their web site turned up way back on page 8 of Google. You and I both know that when we search, if it ain’t on pages 1 or 2 or at a pinch page 3, we’re just not going to look further…and neither does anyone else.

If you retain nothing more from my article please remember this: search engines are blind to images (and deaf if you play music on your site) and especially can’t see “flash” movie files or the text in those fancy navigation buttons (these are images too)…a search engine is a code and text driven binary agent that reads written instructions and words…so without the right code in the “back” of your site and the right text and density of keywords on the “front” pages of your site…you just won’t turn up in the first few pages of search results.

Don’t get me wrong…there IS a place for great visuals and dynamic, inspiring content AFTER you have got them to your site. The overuse and abuse of these dynamic elements is indeed a hurdle to your search engine results, but once the user has arrived, then you need some “bells and whistles” to convert them into a sale (more about conversion in one of my next articles).

Some web sites I see, even for premium properties, are just dogs that were last updated in 2003 (because every time they want a change their designer charges like a wounded bull); and lots of others are in-between but because the sites are not actively managed, they still don’t turn up in the first few pages.

Believe the research data! With 25% of revenues arriving via online channels and a further 25% being influenced by their online experience but booking via another channel, you just have to get your head into this space. Can you imagine what would happen if you ignored your convention market or stopped dealing with the travel industry…as a first step.

Over the next couple of articles I’ll address some of the other questions that I usually ask such as: what e-mail marketing they are doing and how, have they investigated the Pay-per-click options at Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing or MSN (coming soon) or how easy is it to book on their site. I’ll also touch on conversion but let’s focus in the short term on driving traffic to your site.

So, what can you do? Invest in the Search Engine Optimisation of you site… the art and science of maximising a web site’s ranking in the “natural” Search Engine Results for a key phrase. There is a lot to understand but if you visit our web site you will find some very useful tips and specific things that you can do to optimise your hotel web site…or of course you could give me a call or send me an e-mail and I would be more than happy walk you through the basic principles.

And you know what? I never get calls from hotels that have a smart, well designed but not too “tizzy” site. One that is edited in-house utilising a user-friendly Content Management System. Sites where you can easily navigate around without needing a helmet lamp and pick, that have fresh, recent content and special value-added packages; where you can actually book in real-time through a secure connection and get an instant confirmation. And when you need to make an online enquiry, it is easy and doesn’t ask for my shoe size and twenty other compulsory fields before begrudgingly sending off the data, only for it to take two days for someone to respond…

These sites already turn up in the first few pages, offer a great user experience and these hotels actively manage their online presence…they are well on their way to achieving and exceeding those 25.0% of revenues online that the research people are telling us…and, pardon the shameful plug but, quite a few of them are our clients!

Keith Paulin is the General Manager of Hotel Marketing Workshop (https://www.hotelmarketingworkshop.com). Like many hotel marketeers in the industry Keith “landed” in hotel sales and marketing after commencing his career in hotel operations. Keith has worked in senior marketing roles both within the industry (Hilton, Regent, Hyatt, Accor) and in other industries (HP, Lion Nathan, Shell) and has formal qualifications in Marketing and Business Management. Hotel Marketing Workshop works with chain and independent hotels delivering tactical, practical hotel marketing strategies at property level that work and, just as importantly, they assist with expert implementation. Keith has a very strong interest in the world of e-commerce, Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing and a clear track record in producing on-line results in hotel internet marketing. For more information contact: Keith Paulin General Manager Hotel Marketing Workshop E-mail: contact@hmworkshop.com W: https://www.hotelmarketingworkshop.com Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Keith_Paulin

I’ve always wanted to write a headline like “10 Lessons Guaranteed to Improve…”. You see these all the time and they attract an incredible number of readers and eyeballs…but then I almost changed my mind. Usually, when you read through the article you discover that the “lessons” are generally a sales blurb for the company.

Like me a few years ago, I’m sure that what you really want are some very specific tips on what you can do, today, to make your hotel website more prominent in the Search Engine Results Pages (or if you like acronyms, the SERP’s). So, not to disappoint you, here are 8 sure fire, practical things to do including, at the end of this article, a final tip that always produces results.

1 - Make your web site the default for your browser and on all the PC’s at your hotel

Why I hear you ask? So that every time you or one of your team open a browser, you are confronted with your Home Page…when was the last time you really looked at your website?. Pretty soon you will begin to get bored with the way it looks or the content…as do your customers! And you will do something about it…our research has proven that web sites that regularly update their content do much better in the SERP’s than static sites. Plus, regular visitors to your site will also gain a good impression and sales conversion levels will go up too.

Follow closely with me as we are going to do this NOW…Open your favourite browser, enter your URL (www.yourwebsite.com) in the address bar, click go. Once your web page has loaded, click on Tools at the top of the page, select Internet Options. A dialogue box will open and on the General Tab you should see Home Page…now click on Use Current (the instructions are very similar for the Firefox browser)…your website will now load every time you open a browser. And suddenly its profile has become much more important to you…

The other interesting thing that will happen is that your team members will also start to give you suggestions and feedback on your website…they too will see it every time they open a browser. Many will start to write material or supply images from events that you can include on some sub-pages…and your website will come alive.

2 – Get your competitors to tell you the keywords you need to know

Ah…thought that would get your attention. Next, you need to discover the keywords that drive online business in your city or region…there are a few ways to do this, but here is an easy one. Go to Google or your favourite Search Engine and search for “your destination” and “hotel” (eg New York hotel) and look at the results in the first page. Click on the top one and when the page loads, right click in a clear space on the page. Notepad should open and you will be able to see the code that actually writes the page that you were on.

Somewhere near the top you will see some coding called “title”, “meta name="keywords" content=, and “meta name="description" content=…unless they have been particularly sneaky, you should be able to see an indication of the words that the webmaster thinks are important to include on the page to enable Search Engines to find it.

Do this for the next three or four sites on the Search Engine listing and you will start to see a pattern emerge…great isn’t it? Don’t you love it when the competition starts telling you how to improve your SERP ranking?

3 – Open a Google Adwords or Yahoo! Search Marketing account. Now that you have some hints as to what your keywords should be, you need to build on this list. We use more sophisticated tools but both Google and Yahoo! Search Marketing have keyword tools that will suggest additional keywords based on the ones you have uncovered so far. Eventually, this account will let you produce ads for the “Sponsored Links” part of their pages (we’ll tell you more in another article)…but for now we are just going to utilise their keyword tools.

Go to the Google Home Page for your country. Below the search box click on Advertising Programmes and then click on Google Adwords and then click on the Sign Up Now button…now is not the time to chicken out, be brave.

This will be the best $5-10.00 that you have ever spent. You will be stepped through setting up an account…when they ask you to enter some keywords, just put in a couple of the ones you have already identified. They will also ask you to build an ad; use your property name as the title, and just say something nice in the following two lines…you won’t be ready to publish yet but you have to go through the motions to get access to the tools.

4 – Start building your own keyword/phrase list Now click on the Tools or Keyword Tools tabs or buttons and you will be lead through how to find even more keywords based on the ones you already have. Using common sense and some discussion amongst your team and perhaps even a guest or two, build up a list of your preferred 20 keywords/phrases.

5 – Put your keywords in the title area of your website pages The “title” area of a web page, as the cleverer of you have already discovered, is that blue band at the very top of the screen when a web page is loaded…that’s right, with the white text in it. Search Engines place significant emphasis on the text that they find in the title bar.

Ask your web designer to put some of your keywords in the title of your home page. The most important words at the beginning followed by a nice destinational comment that repeats the destination name and the word hotel a second time (eg San Diego Hotel :: leading luxury hotel in San Diego – The Classique Towers Hotel)…do not “stuff” the title full of too many of your keywords or repeat them more than two, or at the most, three times.

Do not start with your property name…if you must put your property name in the title, put it at the end. Search Engines add the most “weight” to the words at the beginning of the title. Now, work you way down your keyword list putting different keywords on different pages, thus creating a different keyword emphasis for each page and add the same keywords into the text on the page.

By the way, did you notice that the title is what most Search Engines display in the SERP’s? That’s also why the title needs to be well written as searchers will judge whether to click on the link based on what they read on screen.

Are you still with me?

6 – Look at your web site statistics EVERY day Every day…this is one of the easy ones. Wherever your site is being hosted, they are bound to provide you with at least a basic statistical summary of how many visitors you get to your site per day (not hits, visits), how many pages were viewed and other data. This is usually available online with a login.

Make it a habit to log in and view your statistics every time you start your work day. Should your web hosting service not provide statistical data then move your site to one that does…if you are serious about building traffic to your site and online revenues then this is as essential as you knowing last nights results or next months room holdings.

Nearly there…

7 – Finding out the number of sites that link to your page Links to your page from other web sites are like votes for your page. In simple terms, if all other content between your site and another is equal but they have better or more links, the other site will be delivered ahead of yours in the SERP’s. The number, theme relevance and quality of links to your site are given significant weight by the leading Search Engines.

To find out how many links there are to your site currently, go to Google and in the search box type in link:www.yourwebsite.com (for Yahoo! and MSN use linkdomain:www.yourwebsite.com). Do it for all three because you will see a difference in the results. Each Search Engine looks at links differently, hence the variation in the number of Inbound Links displayed.

Whatever the number is, you need to double it over the next six months…slowly but surely. If you add too many, too quickly the Search Engines get wise and start to dampen the effect of your new links. And please, do not sign up to one of those “We can add 10,000 links to your website in One Day for $29.95!” …they add you to crap, spammy sites and your inbox will be full of junk in a day. Plus, even if they do add so many links, it’s likely that the Search Engines will either drop you from their listings or just completely discount the links because rapid link growth is seen as being not “natural”.

So, how do you build links? There are lots of ways but my favourite “in house” way is to pay your Conference and Events team $20 for every client that they get to link to your website. Conference and Event clients are usually pretty happy to link because your site will save them answering a bunch of questions about the venue on their own site. The success rate is about 50.0% so if you have 10 events a week, that’s 5 links from high quality sites per week or 250+ a year. Within a couple of months you will start to see your site moving up the SERP’s. “$20!” I hear you stammer? Make it $50…it’s worth many, many times that in terms of SERP rankings and revenues.

Ah ha! I feel a disclaimer coming on…they say that free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. The elements I have described here barely scratch the surface of what is usually needed to boost you online revenues, but, the way I look at it, it’s a start…someone very famous once said “A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.” …welcome to your first 8 steps.

“But Keith, that’s only 7 essentials for building online revenues!” you say! OK, so you think I can’t count, but if you have made it this far, you are now way ahead of 80.0% of hoteliers. Would you like to be in the Top 10.0% of hoteliers and be seriously starting to grow your web revenues past 10, 20 or even 30% of your total revenues? Well, with suitable apologies all round, now is the time for that commercial…

8 - Register now for our “Hotel emarketing 101” workshops.

“Hotel emarketing 101” is a one-day workshop focussed on Hotel Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing, Online Media Options and Hotel Website design, development and construction for building online revenues. With speakers from Hotel Marketing Workshop, Google, Beyond Interactive and Binary Business these essential emarketing workshops will be held in May 2006 in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. Visit www.hotelmarketingworkshop.com for a brochure or to register online.

And now that the “commercial” is over, go on…start working your way through this list…and start seeing the results.

Keith Paulin is the General Manager of Hotel Marketing Workshop (https://www.hotelmarketingworkshop.com). Like many hotel marketeers in the industry Keith “landed” in hotel sales and marketing after commencing his career in hotel operations. Keith has worked in senior marketing roles both within the industry (Hilton, Regent, Hyatt, Accor) and in other industries (HP, Lion Nathan, Shell) and has formal qualifications in Marketing and Business Management. Hotel Marketing Workshop works with chain and independent hotels delivering tactical, practical hotel marketing strategies at property level that work and, just as importantly, they assist with expert implementation. Keith has a very strong interest in the world of e-commerce, Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing and a clear track record in producing on-line results in hotel internet marketing. Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Keith_Paulin Top 10 Electronic Marketing Musts Define Your Online Marketing Strategy If you want to secure your share of the lucrative online marketplace, think about all the steps you will take to target Leisure, Corporate, and Group markets for your lodging or resort. Then, create a well-defined e-commerce market plan by clearly identifying the tools that people use to find and book hotels online. Open your eyes to the myriad of online channels, such as Search Engines, Independent/Brand Websites, Email, Blogs, GDS sites, and Travel Sites that will help you gain presence and profit on the internet. These ten elements will make your internet journey worth your while. Search Engines and Independent Websites For Lodging Industry Get the best out of your independent and brand websites and soar on the search engines by defining your online marketing plan. Your initial move will be to identify why people are traveling to your neck of the woods. 1. Know Your Internet Market – Identify your target market by researching what people are searching for in your area on the internet. Then, market for local and regional factors. Use offline and online methodologies to determine which factors are bringing visitors to your area .Group these reasons into a clearly identified online marketing bucket, for example: Groups, Corporate and Leisure. 2. Content is King . . . Create content which addresses the needs of your customer. Develop unique reasons (USPs) for your hotel and destination, and develop a differentiated approach for key customer segments. Create unique specials and packages, event-related getaways, seasonal promotions and launch one-to-one marketing initiatives to provide unique value and personalization. If your online audience is looking for Paramount’s Great America theme park, then offer relevant content regarding the theme park, along with your hotel room, tickets, transportation, etc. Make sure you have high quality, rich and relevant content on your electronic distribution channels whether it is your brand site, your travel site, your hotel website, GDS, or your email marketing campaign. Talk about your USPs, packages, promotions with local events, and getaways. 3. Link Building . . . Make link building an integral part of your online hotel marketing efforts. You want to be listed wherever your customers are going and looking. Good quality links from relevant websites tremendously boosts your online presence and organic ranking. Secure links from relevant and good quality local, regional, national, and niche specific websites. 4. Increase Conversions from your hotel website – You will increase your online conversions by offering convenience and value. Remember, you do not have to discount your rooms to create value packaging. Get close to your customers needs. A good idea is to bundle local attractions, things to do and activities as part of your hotel packages. Packaging and quality photography converts! Make the booking process for your hotel easy and efficient. Give your customer ways to book your packages and rooms online. 5. Lowest Rates Guaranteed on hotel indepwebsite– The dynamic internet is changing the way people are making their travel and hotel arrangements. You can secure your customer directly by employing best practices such as rate parity across all sales channels, creating a strong links program, email marketing, loyalty programs, pay-per-click campaigns and last minute offers, etc. Your ultimate goal is to create a powerful presence on the internet through both independent and brand websites . . . and gain customer trust and loyalty. Following A Successful Email Marketing Plan 6. Email Marketing – Develop a well defined and ongoing e-marketing plan. Offer your online guest a reason to “opt in” to your Email Offers program. Send compelling email messaging that gives them what they are looking for. Give reasons to come back, such as local events and last minute offers. Track the results of all your campaigns. Get the Best From Your Distribution Channels 7. Participate In Distribution Channels & Check HODs! – To optimize your online marketing channels, check what your GDS (Global Distribution Systems) and IDS is saying about you. Call your Franchise GDS department and request a copy of your HODs (Hotel Description on Airline systems). Make your rates and limited inventory available on third party websites. Always practice rate parity. For independent hotels, participate in your GDS system. 8. Tracking Return on Investment from Hotel Website – Track your online and offline results. Since most people searching online will call the hotel to close the sales, offline tracking is essential. Typically, for every one person who books online, 5 people will call you. Establish a unique phone number for your website, whether it is a 800-number or local number. Train your staff to track phone results and to become familiar with what is sold online. Your Front Desk staff is an influential sales tool especially when it comes to closing the deal. Establish a good tracking system at the front desk. 9. Online Tracking – Review your website stats regularly! The key things you should review are how many unique visitors are finding your site every day, the top 10 referral sources, top 10 Keywords people are using to find you, the top 10 pages generating the most traffic, your click-through to goal conversion pages -such as reservations, manager specials, special offers pages – and the top 10 feeder markets. Your online marketing is constant process of researching, strategizing, implementing, tracking, and analyzing – not a one-time event! 10. Build A Good Online Reputation - Worry about what consumers say about you online? Check Trip Advisor, E-Opinion Sites, Yahoo Travel, Hotel Chatter, and local travel blogs in your area! The realm of e-marketing is far-reaching and very rewarding if you utilize the many sales channels available to your hotel – from websites to personal emails. Creating search engine friendly brand and independent hotel sites, compelling content, maintaining email campaigns, and participating in travel sites and GDS will help you achieve the competitive edge on the internet. Remember, tracking your results will let you know what’s working and where your revenue is coming from. Copyright 2006 Benu Aggarwal About the Author Benu Aggarwal is founder and president of Milestone Internet Marketing,Inc experts in creating complete internet marketing solutions for the lodging and hospitality industry. Please contact Benu at benu@milestoneinternet.com. https://www.milestoneinternet.com/ Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Benu_Aggarwal Effective Casino Marketing Makes All The Difference   The gaming industry can really bring prosperity to a community. Creative and consistant casino marketing have really improved the commercial viability and way of life of the American Indian Reservation that I live in. My reservation is one of the oldest reservations that was established in the state, and it also used to be the poorest. Living conditions used to terrible and tribe members have been suffering in poverty until they built the Indian casino on the southern end of our reservation. During its initial years that casino was just a simple steel building that had a restaurant area, a few blackjack tables and only one hundred slot machines were available. Then the management hired a casino marketing company to improve the business. The company began by creating innovative advertising campaigns for radio, television, and print. They also developed promotions and rewards cards to attract and maintain the customers. The results of the casino marketing strategy were remarkable, the casino now has several hundred tables for a variety of popular casino card games, thousands of slot machines, four plush restaurants, and a grand hotel with more then 500 beautiful rooms. A conference and event center that host many concerts each year was also added. Because of the success of the casino they have opened another one about 45 miles away. This one is even bigger with more hotel rooms and a golf course. The casino marketing company made the golf, fishing, and gambling packages successful through bold and creative strategies. The casino business has helped us by creating many jobs in our area. The area has also reaped benefits from increased gasoline, bait and tackle, and shopping sales. By doing thorough research of the other businesses in the area the casino marketing company ensured that the local economy is positively impacted by the casino’s expansion. Apart from the revenue of the local businesses, the living conditions on the reservation have also improved. The casino marketing company maintained the homes near the casino to make them pleasing to the eyes of the customers. A government center, a clinic and a school were made available to the reservation residents. The future of the tribe members and their descendants are now stable due to the opportunities made possible by the gaming industry. Morgan Hamilton offers expert advice and great tips regarding all aspects concerning Casino Marketing. Visit our site for more helpful information about Casino Marketing and other similar topics. Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Morgan_Hamilton

Meeting planners know the value of meticulous planning. They are responsible for selecting and contracting with the speaker, promoting the event, booking the hotel for the speaker, arranging transportation for the speaker and ensuring that the facilities are set up perfectly on the day of the seminar, writing and presenting an introduction of the speaker. Whew! With so many advance details to consider, it is no wonder that some meeting planners forget one of the most important times for the speaker……how to graciously exit after the speech!

Many big name speakers who have been through this routine thousands of times before have their agents arrange the contract carefully to arrange no more than ½ hour for a reception either before or after the speech. They know the value of their time away from the crowds. It is the job of the meeting planner to be the buffer and tell the fans that Mr. or Ms. Celebrity has to catch a plane in 1 hour and has to be going. Most people respect that and let the star move on. But what about the rest of the speakers? How important is that time to them? And how can you tell whether or not the speaker is thrilled about staying around chatting with curious audience members, or dying to get the heck out of there and go to call their spouse and talk to their kids?

As a former celebrity agent and now a speaker myself, I have the advantage of coming from two perspectives. The agents’ job is to convince the meeting planner to rush the star home. As a speaker, I know the importance of spending some personal time with the audience to reinforce the friendly and supportive speech I just delivered…..up to a limit.

Recently I delivered workshops on Public Speaking and Professional Coaching. In order to arrive at the location, I had to get up several hours before my flight to fight traffic to get to Newark airport one hour in advance. I had a transfer planes in St. Louis after an hour layover. At 3:00 I arrived in the desigated location, had to rent a car and drive and hour and ½ to the hotel sight. You get the point. By the time the speaker arrives, he or she could be tired and needs a bit of a rest before presenting.

The weekend was a huge success, but immediately following the event, the meeting planner was no where to be found. One of the audience members who was on a “high” from the weekend wanted to share every last detail of her own life with me. While I tried to maintain a certain amount of sincere interest, I was also so mentally and physically exhausted because I had given every ounce of my heart and soul to the participants during the weekend. At this point, I needed the meeting planner to be my buffer and quickly move me on out of there. But, I politely listened, and slowly walked out the door to my car, and finally explained that I’d be available via email to continue the conversation. With that, I tumbled into my car and excited the scene.

As a meeting planner, discuss the exit routine with the speaker in advance. Do they like to hang around afterwards to chat and if so, for how long? Do they want to create a “code” that will alert the meeting planner that the speaker is ready to go and should be shuffled out the door? Should it be announced in advance of the talk that the speaker will have to catch a plane immediately following the event and has to leave soon thereafter? Or as a meeting planner friend of mine, explained after hosting the famous and brilliant speaker Les Brown, that he had “performed so actively and intensly on stage and had worked up such a sweat during his performance that everyone understood his desire to exit!”

If you aren't working with an agent or a meeting planner, the best bet is to announce the amount of time you'll be spending after the seminar to address questions and answers. If you know that 1/2 is as much as you can spare, then announce it up front so no one will tie up all of your time. Additionally, give out your email address and suggest that if you don't have time to talk with everyone, suggest that they email you. Lastly, if you want to get the names and addresses of everyone in attendance, invite the audience to see you after the event for some free information. This is a great way to get THEIR information without imposing.

Speakers need you to help them maintain their positive image and caring attitude by helping them graciously exit the floor when they are ready to go. Some speakers love the personal contact for hours after the speech and have the energy to do so. Others are ready to exit after a few brief moments. So next time you are discussing the details before the event, be sure and discuss the best attack for the inevitable and timely “exit routine” so your speaker goes out loving the event instead of regretting it!

Mary Gardner , The Charisma Coach! is an Executive Communications Consultant and Trainer. She works with, coaches and trains individuals, sales teams, executives, and celebrities. She owned and operated one of the first coaching institutions on the east coast, CCI, in NYC, Philly and NJ. Mary has appeared on ABC’s 20/20 and has self published a book on public speaking. Mary is married to Sway and is mommy to Jeremy 5, and lives in Orlando, FL. Contact information: mary@marygardner.com WEB: www.marygardner.com Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mary_Gardner

Every event whether it’s a meeting, party, seminar, conference, charity event, or your high school reunion will have common threads regardless of what it is, where it’s held, when or why it is happening. The following common threads are found in every organized event. Make sure you plan each of the following steps thoroughly and you are guaranteed success.

1. Plan Your Vision: Your vision is the main reason and focus for having the event? It is a combination of your goals and objectives.

2. Set the Goals and Objectives: A goal is the general purpose of the event that provides a road map for the planning process. An objective is a measurable, attainable target that contributes to the accomplishment of the goal. An event can have one or multiple goals and objectives.

3. Select a Site: Location, location, location! Every event needs a site! Pick the location to match and support your vision, goals and objectives.

4. Create Promotion/Marketing Materials: You must get your message out. You need to get the basic information to the right people in the right amount of time so they know when to show up, where to go, and what to do when they get there. The message could be as simple as the date, time, and location via the telephone or as complicated as a multi page brochure for a multi-day conference with numerous events combined in one event. Or perhaps some major TV advertising and sophisticated website design for online registration.

5. Identify Your Participants/ Guests: Without them, you would not have an event. Whether they are invited guests, paying participants or required attendees, people will be coming to your event. Know your audience and target them carefully.

6. Create the Agenda/Timeline: Whether it is written down or planned, every event has a timeline. There is always a starting point and a finishing point. This is detail outline of the activities. What is happening from hours before the participants arrive to the follow-up when the event is complete. And it is the schedule of what is actually happening throughout the event. The agenda can be two types. The one the participant receives and follows and the one that the people working the event receive and follow. This tells people where to go, or what to do when you get there.

7. Establish a Budget: Money comes in and goes out. With some events no obvious money will be coming in, such as a wedding or company social. Create a budget nonetheless to make sure not too much money goes out. For larger events, budgets are a must especially when profit is one of you objectives. Without a budget it is hard to set guidelines and measure results.

8. Select the Food and Beverage: It may be a pitcher of water and mints at a one day seminar, a sit down dinner for 10,000, an all day concert where vendors will be brought in to serve the public, coffee and doughnuts at the morning sales meeting and/or soda, cookies in the afternoon for an all day conference, or appetizers served during a 3 hour cocktail party for 700 people. This is a wide and general segment of an event and will vary widely depending on the vision, goals, and objectives and of course, money.

9. Arrange for Transportation: You may need to transport 800 people from 10 hotels to the meeting site twice a day or it could be just getting yourself to the site on time. You may need to arrange the travel needs for the entertainment, speakers, and VIP’s, including picking them up at the airport. Or this may include contracting with an airline for discount airfare or negotiating with rental car companies for special rates to offer to your participants.

10. Hire Staff/Volunteers: This could range from checking in your participants for your workshop, or 100’s of volunteers at a conference or sporting event. It could be the caterers, musicians, florists, cleanup crew, equipment setup, valets, ticket takers, MC’s, speakers, or the balloon lady. It almost always takes more than one person to successfully coordinate an event.

With 25 year experience in the event planning industry Shannon Kilkenny has proved that with the guidelines outlined in her book "The Complete Guide to Successful Event Planning" anyone can plan or coordinate an event. Her book is for the novice and experienced planner alike. Visit her site https://www.successfuleventplanning.com Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shannon_Kilkenny Hotels & Resort - Plan A Meeting - Convention Services One Stop Shopping & CVB Services Let our experienced staff help you find the perfect spot for your next meeting, convention or event! One phone call or email can set into motion a successful event in Frisco! Our services are free to you. You can also choose from our list of convention centers to plan your meeting or any other event. If you are facing problems while planning for an event, find our meeting planner tools or you can always contact us direct at 877-Go Frisco. To research group hotel pricing and open dates, click here - Provide us with your meeting specifications (fill out our online RFP) and we'll send it to only those hotels in Frisco, Texas that you choose and/or venues and return the bid proposals back either directly to you or in a formal bid packet. - The Bureau staff can assist in bid presentations to your Board of Directors, Site Committee or General Membership for multiple hotel events - Let us schedule and accompany you on your site inspection to give you a true feel of Frisco hospitality! - Need assistance with fun activities and venues for your delegates? Call our expert meeting planners and we'll find an off-site venue or one of several sporting events taking place during your event! * Baseball, Soccer and Hockey Games * Outdoor sculpture garden and art on pubic display * Antique shopping * Points of interest in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex We can help you manage a variety of tasks and projects including, event marketing, event production, corporate meeting planning, conference planning, event/meeting coordinator, and much, much more. You define the event, choose a venue, and let us execute your design. To select the venue, simply browse through our list of convention centers, or hotels in Frisco, Texas. Our meeting planners and organizers can translate your imaginations into a successful event. We ensure that you and your guests receive the best service, and are left with great lasting memories. Our dedication and commitment to our clients is evident in everything we do. We create events with the client's personal style in the details. All of the details will be covered and everything will go perfectly. The Frisco CVB can provide you with our Official Visitors Guide for your attendees on site. Find meeting planner tools or other hotels in Frisco, Texas on our website. As a nationally recognized leader in Internet destination sales, marketing, and successful Internet business models, Donovan Shia works with the Frisco CVB management team to lead their online marketing efforts. A ten year industry veteran, Shia has a history of planning, executing and delivering Internet sales and revenue for companies like Microsoft and Cendant. Shia's background in Internet business development, tightly focused on city/regional models, is the backbone of the CVBHotRates.com business model. How To Negotiate The Best Deal On The Hotel Room It's important to talk to the right person when trying to get a great deal, that means someone who has the authority to negotiate with you. You can ask to speak to the Sales Manager or if they have a dedicated staff for meeting and event coordinating, speak to the manager of that department. Remember to research comparable room prices in the area online so that you'll have a good point of reference to bring to the negotiation table. It does take some advanced planning to get the best deals, but hotel room prices are more flexible than the average person realizes. Be aware of the seasons and try to schedule your seminar during a time when the hotel's business is typically slow. Getting a great room at a great price will always be easier when the hotel isn't full. If you're booking a block of rooms for seminar guests and speakers in addition to the meeting room, you're also more likely to get a better price for both. Several popular hotel chains have extensive planning tools available online so be sure to take advantage of the wealth of information made available. Once you've got a list of possible venues together, you can start contacting the sales department of each hotel and sending them your request for proposal or RFP. Make sure your RFP includes preferred dates, number and type of sleeping rooms you require, food and beverage requirements, a tentative agenda and the amount of meeting space that is needed. Based on the hotels' responses to your RFP, you should be able to narrow down the field of possibilities and schedule some site inspections. To save both money and time, you can substitute an actual site inspection with a detailed questionnaire, virtual tour or both! When you start negotiations, always remember that everything is negotiable. If the group generates sufficient guestroom and food and beverage revenue, the meeting room rental fees can and should be waived. If you're planning a reoccurring event, you can also use your loyalty as leverage. Once you've weighed your options and made your decision, make sure everything, big and small, is outlined in explicit detail in the written contract. Deposit procedures and acceptable methods of payment are two things that should be agreed upon before you sign anything. After the event, take your time going over the invoice with a fine-toothed comb. The first draft of the invoice from the hotel is almost never correct so be sure to point out anything that needs to be corrected. Get feedback about the hotel from the seminar attendees. If there are complaints, politely let your hotel representative know about them. Any good salesperson will gladly offer an additional discount to ensure that you consider them again next year. Matt Bacak became "#1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s e-Biz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets To Unleash The Powerful Promoter In You! Sign up for Matt Bacak's Promoting Tips Ezine ($100 value) just visit his website at https://www.powerfulpromoter.com or https://promotingtips.com. Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matt_Bacak Sales Management Neglect...the Real Cost Have you ever wondered what the real cost of mediocrity within your organization might be? Sales managers must wake up! Has there ever been a time when a mess-up by someone internally, proved to be quite costly in both money/resources and time/energy? Has there been a time when a mess-up by someone in your organization caused a huge toll on an outsider, i.e. supplier or customer? In the world of selling, mediocrity can demand untold costs. In selling, there are generally two categories: hunters and farmers. The hunters are the sales people, both inside and outside, that specialize in going after new business—their thrust is the hunt, bringing in new customers. Farmers on the other hand specialize in nurturing house accounts and business that the hunters have brought in. Too often, organizations will settle for farmers that are mediocre, or careless and don’t tend to their crops. The prices businesses or organizations pay for allowing this kind of behavior are truly unnecessary. My first real job in outside sales, other than selling encyclopedias door-to-door, was in selling to retailers. The owner of the business, Ray Kahn, once told me, “If you lose an account because you were out sold, it’s okay. But, if you lose an account because you weren’t paying attention to that account—you’re out of here!” Several years later, I saw first-hand that he meant it. Ray fired a hunter/farmer salesman, Mike that had been with him for a decade. Unfortunate for all that were involved, Mike got complacent and lazy, losing a major account because he wasn’t paying attention to the needs of the customer. When a farmer doesn’t pay attention, it is an absolute travesty. Mike was an okay hunter, but not a great farmer. This situation is not unusual. If you manage sales people and you tolerate a farmer not tending to their crops (accounts), I believe that you are just as guilty as your farmer sales person. It is you, after all, to whom they are accountable. Not long ago, I traveled to the American East Coast to speak on selling at a chapter of the National Speakers Association (NSA), of which I am a member in Los Angeles. This NSA chapter had been meeting at the same suburban area hotel on the same Saturday of each month for the previous three years. This particular Saturday in January was to be different. The “you know what” hit the fan late Friday night. Following dinner that evening, my contact with the group dropped me back at the hotel where I was staying and where the meeting would be the next day. In passing, she asked if I knew that I’d be presenting the next morning in the hotel’s restaurant…during regular service hours…to the public? Their usual meeting room had been booked out from under them. Well, that was a surprise that was to me. Three days earlier, when the NSA Chapter’s program chair called the hotel to check if everything was in place for their coming Saturday meeting, the hotel sales contact, Lois, told the program chair that they had no reservation for the group for the coming Saturday. And, Lois told the program chair that the room they usually use, along with every other meeting room and space in the hotel was also sold out. Wow, what a predicament! Even worse, Lois offered no possible solutions to a long-time customer. The meeting chair asked Lois how this could be? Especially since the group had been using that meeting room the same Saturday of the month for the past three years and had an on-going relationship. Lois answered by stating that she thought it was odd that the organization had not signed a contract for the coming year. Lois continued by stating that since the hotel’s customers “call them” she didn’t give it a second thought. Excuse me! If I was Lois’ boss, I’d do to her what Ray Kahn did to Mike—fire ‘em! There is no excuse for this kind of behavior. That farmer, Lois, definitely was not tending her crops (accounts). Can you believe it? Worse, the sales person was ignorant enough to state, “Our customers call us.” She sold the room out from under this group. Perhaps because the group to whom she sold the room was generating higher revenue? Perhaps she was only mindful of her commission check? Perhaps it was her way of telling this NSA Chapter that they were no longer welcome at that property? The Real Cost What do you think might be the real cost to the hotel from Lois’ debacle? To the credit of the hotel’s General Manager, late that Friday evening, I worked with him and food & beverage (F&B) manager for over an hour looking at possibilities to make the next day’s presentation work, even though it was to be in the hotel’s restaurant, during service hours to the general public. The hotel general manager explained to me that he, and his staff had been working on the problem for the past three days. They had even called other hotels to try and move the meeting—but without success. Let’s take a rough look at the real cost to this hotel: A hotel general manager making around $100,000 a year, working a six-day work week equates to about $333 per working day. If we take into account that the general manager, food & beverage manager, sales staff and others had been dealing with the issue for three days and just add up the general manager’s pay, that gives us about $1,000 cost to the hotel. I’m sure Lois’ commission on the sale of the room and F&B was nowhere near that much. Now let’s add in the damage to both the national brand and that particular location. This group happened to be a gathering of local-area professional speakers. Since many are intimately familiar with hotels, their expectations tend to be a bit higher than most. What will they say to local meeting planners about this hotel? I doubt it would be complimentary. If the approximately 50 professional speakers mention the situation to only one meeting planner over the following year—that’s potentially 50 local meeting planners that have received a poor report about this property. What’s the cost of that? If only one of those 50 meeting planners decided not to book a meeting at that property based on what they heard, how many thousands of dollars would that property not receive in future revenue because of Lois’ behavior? Let alone the tarnished perception of this particular brand nationally could cost the chain dollars. Surely it would be more that Lois’ commission on that particular room, on that particular Saturday. The Rest of The Story This had been the second time that this property, or should I say Lois, had pulled this kind of situation on that particular NSA Chapter. As such, the board of directors immediately decided to start looking for another property at which to hold their monthly meetings. By the next month’s meeting, the chapter had already found a new home for their monthly meetings. That adds even more to the real cost, as the revenue from the chapter was valuable to the hotel during slow times. Gosh, because that farmer, Lois, was too unorganized, oblivious, lazy, apathetic, ignorant or greedy, the real cost to the hotel’s productivity and revenue was, and will continue to be, substantial. What does this mean to you? In selecting and/or maintaining the wrong people to represent your organization’s interests, you will pay dearly for their impoverishment of skills. Solutions The TEA Master Key should prove helpful. The three key areas necessary to explore in serving your customers well are: Training, Ego and Attitude. !. Training your employees well is a given, the subtleties are in their understanding the DNA of your organization’s culture and an advanced understanding of how to most effectively use the “tools” that you have made available to them. Understandably, this takes time, but few companies devote the necessary hours to this endeavor. And, if your employees are not continually learning, you must re-examine the limited value they deliver to your organization. 2. Ego is good, when kept in check, allowing one to be confident, yet not arrogant. Unfortunately, too many employees let their ego get in the way of their performance, i.e. too much ego that they never admit a mistake. Mistakes are good, if one learns from their mistake. Years ago, Ray Kahn would say, “If you are not making mistakes, you are not learning, and I don’t need you. But, if you do not learn from your mistakes, I don’t need you either.” Other ego issues revolve around one’s need to be right! In serving customers, it is more important to get things done, than to focus on being right. 3. Attitude can make, or break, an employee and a customer’s perception of your organization’s value proposition. Employees with an attitude of apathy are like termites eating away at the fiber of your organization and one day that fiber that holds your organization together will give fail. On the other hand, employees with the attitude of service, not servitude, flourish and with them so does your organization. Give your employees plenty of reasons to have superior attitudes—it will serve you well. To access helpful additional information from Ed Rigsbee at no charge, please visit www.rigsbee.com/downloadaccess.htm. Adapted from Rigsbee's forthcoming book titled, Customer Service Screw Ups--Learn from the Mistakes of Others. In this book, Rigsbee rants about the crummy customer service he has received and offers suggestions on how you can truly partnering with your customers. Ed Rigsbee, CSP is the author of PartnerShift, Developing Strategic Alliances and The Art of Partnering. Rigsbee has over 1,000 published articles to his credit and is a regular keynote presenter at corporate and trade association conferences across North America. He can be reached at 800-839-1520, ed@rigsbee.com, or visit https://www.rigsbee.com. Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ed_Rigsbee Tips To Get Most From Renting A Room   Renting your spare room out to a lodger is a good option to help pay for your mortgage. Following are certain tips that can help you to get most from renting a room: • It is advisable to meet the person before renting a room. A short introductory meeting with the person can help you in deciding whether or not you would get on with the person. • This introductory meeting offers you an opportunity to ask relevant questions such as those regarding their spouse, family, job profile, working hours, other habits, etc. If you do not meet the person before renting a room, you might have to regret later. If you find difficult to get on with that person at a later stage, it might get difficult and embarrassing for you to get rid of him at that time. • Clear ground rules should be set right from the start. For instance, if you do not want the lodger to allow people for an overnight stay in his room, state the same at the outset. If you want the lodger to refrain from smoking or taking alcohol inside the house, make your point clear in the very beginning to avoid issues later on. • However, it is advisable to be patient and tolerant of small things. You are being paid by the lodger and constantly enforcing small rules can make it less harmonious to live with a new person. Bear in mind that the income from renting can help you pay your mortgage and therefore, you cannot afford to let the current lodger leave. Searching for a new lodger who would hopefully abide by the rules and regulations set by you, will lead to wastage of time and money. • It is good to have a written agreement signed. A sample contract agreement can be obtained online. Do not rely on verbal agreements. They are legally invalid. The written agreement should include a statement about stipulation of monthly income, and how much notice is required to break the agreement on either side. • Advertising plays a major role while renting a house. Advertise in the best selling newspapers, best places as well as online. • Finalize a fair market value after carefully analyzing the market rent. Do not be greedy, or else, it will become difficult to find a lodger. If you fail to get a tenant, you will lose the rent money. • On the other hand, if you manage to find a good tenant, you will not only get then rent money but also an opportunity to make a new friend. To conclude, as the people you live with greatly influence the quality of life, it is always advisable to wait patiently till you get a suitable lodger to move in. Leasing and Renting versus Buying - Answers From a Las Vegas Buyer Agent - leasing and renting Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sumit_Bhatnagar

You open your email to find a notice about an upcoming seminar or workshop on a topic you desperately want to learn more about.

Later that day, you get the mail and there's a postcard inviting you to the same workshop.

"Should I go?" you think.

"It's expensive, I'll have to pay for airfare and hotel, but I'll learn *so much* and will really be able to propel my business forward," you say to yourself.

After much wrangling between those two guys that sit on each of your shoulders, you decide to go for it. You tell your clients you'll be gone, you buy the plane tickets, book the hotel, pay the workshop fee and you're excited!

The day finally arrives. You can hardly wait. You get a seat and wait for things to start.

By the second hour, your head is brimming with ideas while your stomach is full of coffee. You desperately want a break and can't focus on anything else.

The break comes and goes and now you are starved. "WHEN is lunch anyway?" you hear yourself asking your neighbor.

After wolfing down something which the hotel is convinced passes for food, it's back to the workshop. Now the carb crash comes and you need a nap -- the speaker is very interesting, but hey, you're getting the seminar CDs and will catch up on anything you miss then.

Does this sound familiar? I've been to three workshops/seminars in the past two months and have watched this scenario unfold for HUNDREDS of people -- again and again.

It's critical you have a system in place to insure you get the most out of each and every seminar and workshop you attend -- after all, you're spending your money AND time attending.

1. Bring a notepad.

Insure you have either a notepad or notebook dedicated ONLY to "Action List" items.

This is not a "To Do" list -- "to do" lists sound like work and generally lower your energy. This is an "Action" list -- completing these items will propel your business forward.

Personally, I put a small box next to each item that I can check off as it's completed. I don't number them as these are not in priority order. The order is based on when the item pops into my head.

2. Bring a notebook.

You should have ONE notebook for ALL your seminars and workshops. This is for your "Notes" -- if the presenter provides you with a handout of his presentation, GREAT, you can take notes directly on it.

If not, however, you'll want to keep all your notes in this notebook -- start the section with the seminar name, location and date and note each speaker's name and presentation title and any notes from it.

Notes, NOT action list items. . .action items go on your Action List. It's important to keep them separate so you don't need to search through pages of notes for your action items.

Always remember: It's not what you know that matters; it's what you IMPLEMENT!

3. Bring plenty of business cards.

You'll be amazed at how many people forget to bring business cards with them when attending workshops.

Always insure you have plenty of cards with your current information and, preferably, a picture of you on it. We meet so many people at seminars; you want to insure people remember you when going through their new stack of cards at home.

4. Take a day.

If possible, take a day or 1/2 day when you get home to unpack, get back in the swing of things and take a good look at your Action List.

Are there items which can be done in 10 minutes or less? If so, identify those items and schedule an hour for each group of 5 activities over the next week (this allows a little extra time). This will insure you make steady progress soon after the seminar.

Do you have bigger projects? No sweat, break them down into smaller chunks -- 30 minutes at most -- and schedule them on your calendar.

By scheduling these activities *on your calendar*, you'll have a start and end time for getting them done and insuring you got the most out of your time at the workshop.

5. Follow-up

Chances are you've met new friends and potential clients.

Now's the time to drop them a brief note and let them know you're happy to have met them and follow-up with any information you may have promised.

And, remember, if appropriate for you, thank the speaker for the seminar and all you learned.

Your Coaching Challenge

Your coaching challenge for this week is to prepare a "Seminar Toolbag" which includes a notepad, notebook, business cards, two pens and anything else you may need.

Here's what's in my Toolbag (a bag I take to all seminars) in addition to the above: granola bars, lip balm, post-its, tissues, peppermint patties, a digital camera and since I'm not a coffee drinker, my favorite tea bags.

Sandra Martini, the Automatic Business Coach, and award-winning author teaches small business owners how to implement processes and systems designed to take them out of the day-to-day running of their business. For more information and to receive her FREE e-course/audio series, "5 Quick & Easy Ways To Put Your Marketing on Autopilot", visit https://www.SandraMartini.com