With many people out of work right now, and with the new tax incentive that has been passed, there has never been a better time to hire.

The recently passed Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act gives a payroll tax holiday and up-to-$1,000 tax credit for employers who hire unemployed workers.  The tax benefit is immediate, because the tax is simply never collected in the first place.  The tax benefit generally applies only to private-sector employment.  There is no minimum weekly number of hours that the new employee must work for the employer to be eligible, and there is no limit on the dollar amount of payroll taxes per employer that  may be forgiven.  For workers that would otherwise be eligible for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, the employer must select one benefit or the other for 2010.  In order to take advantage of this opportunity, employers will need to fill out a W-11 with the IRS.

Bonus: check out this blog in the Harvard Business Review about good hiring practices.

Hire Another Corporate Housing Salesperson– Right Now! is a post originally from the Corporate Housing Providers Blog, a source of advice, news, and more for those in the corporate housing industry.

Will the corporate housing industry find it needs an iPhone app to run more efficiently?

Who’s building the first corporate housing app for the iPhone? Apparently someone is, according to this job listing. They want to build an iPhone app similar to mynewplace.com or apartments.com but for corporate housing only. Hmmmm… A good idea but perhaps a better one for, say, TalonPro or maybe a division of Salesforce would be to build an iPhone app for corporate housing operations managers and sales professionals to stay on top of utilities and furniture deliveries while they are on the road. Any takers out there?

Who’s Building the First Great Corporate Housing App? is a post originally from the Corporate Housing Providers Blog, a source of advice, news, and more for those in the corporate housing industry.

I was delighted with CHPA’s choice for their annual conference this year, located at the Hotel del Coronadoin San Diego, CA. The Hotel del Coronado is a National Historic Landmark with over 120 years of experience in the hospitality industry. According to the website, Rand McNally recognized the Hotel Del Coronado for having “more fame and historical significance than perhaps any hotel in North America.” The hotel has been featured several times in Travel and Leisure magazine. It was in the classic film Some Like It Hot starring Marilyn Monroe. Eleven U.S. Presidents have visited The Del, starting with Benjamin Harrison in 1891. If you love historic landmarks, you will enjoy this year’s location for the 2010 CHPA Annual Conference. And if you do go, here are three lectures you won’t want to miss:

Social Media & Your Brand, Maryellen Ferring, Upsell Training. Everyone complains about gimmicky giveaways at conferences, but secretly I love them. They make excellent gifts for the ladies back at the office, besides making excellent mementos for the trip itself. I’ll often scurry past booths twice to pick up extras. If you like giveaways too, you’ll love the super-interactive Maryellen Ferring. According to her website, Maryellen does a lot of group exercises, giveaways, and incorporates props into her speech. And really, who could be more appropriate for a speech about the necessity of interacting with customers via social marketing than someone who thinks in a way that incorporates their audience into a lecture?
Selling Made Strong, Terri Norvell, Further Performance Group. One of the things that really struck me about Terri Norvell’s website was that she is president of the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. Which I would think would be a pretty difficult position to acquire and keep. Really, with her position I would have liked to have seen her included in the SEO panel that CHPA put together. And while she’s done product management for Frito-Lay and 7-11, she’s also been general manager of a temporary housing company, and been vice president of marketing and training for a property management and development firm. If you like super-focused lectures, then Terri Norvell is for you.
Increasing Your Sales Team’s Closing Percentage, Joe Porpiglia, D & D Consulting and Training. Joe Porpiglia seems to have all of the concrete, real world tools necessary for running a corporate housing company. Things I liked about Joe: he’s been married to his wife for 38 years, he worked his way up from a part time sales clerk at Greenbelt Cooperative, and what’s more, he seems to have been consistently promoted in every position he’s ever held, at least, according to his website. From what I can tell about Joe Propiglia, he has real experience in corporate housing and he’s in it for the long haul. If you’re looking for practical advice you can take back to your company, I would gamble on Joe Porpiglia.

Upcoming CHPA Conference is a post originally from the Corporate Housing Providers Blog, a source of advice, news, and more for those in the corporate housing industry.

Here’s the catch: Any stay less than 7 months in Florida gets hit with the sales tax. And there’s something else you should be aware of… Although there are local corporate providers in Tampa (See SCH’s Tampa page), your best bet once you’ve exhausted this resource is the private owner. However, beware: Florida is facing the highest rate of foreclosure of any state in the US, at 18.81% as of last March. Which means two things:
1.) Many, many private owners are looking to rent out their second home to corporate housing.
2.) Be extra careful whom you rent from, so that your tenants don’t end up getting locked out of their apartment by the bank.

Here are some options for marketing your corporate apartment:
1.) Auction it off on eBay.
2.) Craig’s List. In this case, it’s not a bargain hunter’s paradise.
3.) Shop Corporate Housing.

Super Bowls and How They Affect the Corporate Housing Industry is a post originally from the Corporate Housing Providers Blog, a source of advice, news, and more for those in the corporate housing industry.

Many states offer film incentives now, which can be lucrative to the corporate housing industry.

When British Columbia and in particular Vancouver offer huge tax incentives for filmmakers to move their business there, the money followed.

Now it seems like every state in the union is trying to get a piece of the pie. Michigan has had substantial success with landing new film contracts. SAG, or the the Screen Actors Guild, lists film incentives by state. If you want to get a step ahead of the ball, you may want to check out their website and figure out which states are offering the biggest incentives this year.

It isn’t just actors that land work in these states. The carpentry business will also see demand, and in our case, the corporate housing industry gets slammed with requests.

LA 411 and New York 411 both offer comprehensive lists of hotels, however there aren’t many providers listed. If you do business on either coast it might be worthwhile to list there.

The Michigan Film Office offers a list of corporate housing providers in the area. If you’re able to find corporate housing in Alaska, the Alaska Film Office has a list of accommodations as well.

One enterprising Michigan provider has even named themselves Film Crew Homes and seem to specialize only in film industry bookings.

There’s also the opportunity to house the film industry on a short-term basis during major film festivals such as South by Southwest, or Sundance. Sundance Accommodations Office should be able to offer some suggestions.

If you go on any production company forum, you realize that people in the film industry have long memories for people and events. Make a good impression, and you may end up criss-crossing the country with future productions.

Corporate Housing for Film Crews is a post originally from the Corporate Housing Providers Blog, a source of advice, news, and more for those in the corporate housing industry.

Tweets can be a useful way of managing your online reputation, as well as minimizing damage during a crisis.

There’s been a lot of buzz (or should I say chirps?) on The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal’s Small Business sections about using twitter to expand sales and marketing efforts.

All of the articles emphasize that Twitter can, to quote the Times, “shorten the emotional distance between businesses and their customers.” Many small businesses are hiring out the project or hiring consultants to train them. Of the two, the latter option seems more viable in the long run as it is really the owner/employees who need to be making that connection with their customers.

I think what’s most important to corporate housing providers is that Twitter can minimize the damage during a crisis. So if, say, there’s damage to the water main of an apartment complex where you have several units or more, you can connect with all of the residents at once through the use of Twitter. You can also monitor what’s being said about your business and respond to the individual tweets. For now, this can be very time consuming for business owners to do, however, all of this could change shortly Twitter is developing business apps that can streamline the process and make it more efficient, and the products should be out shortly.

Uses of Twitter for the Corporate Housing Industry is a post originally from the Corporate Housing Providers Blog, a source of advice, news, and more for those in the corporate housing industry.

Cutting your advertising budget is a risky proposition.  Smarter marketing is what’s needed.  Think of how Proctor and Gamble survived the Great Depression (Ivory Soap) or how Wal-Mart dominates the retail scene during a recession.  Shop Corporate Housing can help increase your share of voice and reach your targeted customer base.  For more information, call 727-331-6261.

4 Questions You Should Ask Before Advertising in a Recession is a post originally from the Corporate Housing Providers Blog, a source of advice, news, and more for those in the corporate housing industry.

How will staycations affect vacation rentals?

Perhaps it was 9/11 that began to the slow descent of what was once a nation of xenophiles.  For whatever reason, the age of the staycation has begun.   What is a staycation?  Wikipedia defines a staycation as a vacation taken close to one’s home.  A quick search on google will tell you, that as gas prices rose to historic highs last year, the staycation became more and more prevalent. The question is how did this affect the vacation rental market?

Bill Furlong, in his blog Escapia, compared vacation rentals from 2007 and 2008 by region.  Some regions saw losses of up to 30%!

While the vacation traveler only makes up a small percentage of sales for the average corporate housing provider, it’s still a sale nonetheless.  What’s more, as retirement accounts crashed with the stock market over the past year, retired couples who travel for extended periods of time have shortened their usual trips.  This means that corporate housing has lost out to the hotel industry in areas that see a lot of vacation rentals, like Florida.

Staycations is a post originally from the Corporate Housing Providers Blog, a source of advice, news, and more for those in the corporate housing industry.

Discounting your services can be addictive.

“Price-off deals are a drug.  Ask a drug-addicted brand manager what happened to his share of the market after the delirium of the deal subsided.  He will change the subject.  Ask him if the deal increased his profit.  Again he will change the subject.”
from Confessions of an Advertising Man, by David Ogilvy

David Ogilvy, of the great advertising firm Ogilvy and Mather, describes price-off deals as a drug because the competition in the marketplace often becomes addicted to seeing who can undercut their neighbor in price.  Once the frenzy has subsided, and a new standard has been set for what the price will be, what is left?  According to Ogilvy, there will be less share of the market and less profit.  In this economy, it may be tempting to undercut the competition in price but ultimately this is not a good idea.  Once the new standard is set, it becomes more difficult to profit from the enterprise.

“The time has come to sound an alarm, to warn manufacturers what is going to happen to their brands if they spend so much on deals that there is no money left for advertising to build their brand.  Deals don’t build the kind of indestructible image which is the only thing that can make your brand part of the fabric of life.”
(from Confessions of an Advertising Man, by David Ogilvy)

What’s most important during a recession is not to cut your advertising budget.  As tempting as it may be, recessions are the time to build your brand.  It’s true that there may be a price correction as the industry adjusts to what the market will bear.  But do not get bogged down in trying to get ahead of your neighbor by lowering your prices alone.  What’s better is to build the perceived value of your brand, so that at any price your company seems like the better bargain.

Advertising and Price Off Deals is a post originally from the Corporate Housing Providers Blog, a source of advice, news, and more for those in the corporate housing industry.

Not all walls in China are great.

MOBILITY magazine and The New York Times each recently had an article about issues that have arisen with Chinese drywall. The drywall, which was imported from China during the housing boom and has been installed in many new luxury apartment buildings, can cause severe health problems to those that live near it.

It’s difficult to say how many homes may be affected. In The New York Times article, Arnold Levin, a Phildelphia lawyer said that, “There could be 60,000 to 100,000 homes that are worthless and have to be ripped completely down and rebuilt.” MOBILITY inflated the number to 300,000 homes.

It’s easier to create a timeline of when the drywall was installed and to gauge the number of complaints that the government has received thus far. The Times article went on to say that, “The product safety commission has received more than 1,300 complaints from 26 states, but the bulk are from Florida, Louisiana and Virginia, where hurricanes led to an unprecedented housing boom in 2006 and 2007.” MOBILITY stated that the drywall was found in a home constructed as early as 2001, but both sources agree that the majority of homes that contain the offensive product were constructed somewhere between 2004 and 2007.

What can a provider do if they believe their tenant is being affected by Chinese drywall? The only thing to do, of course,is to move them, but who pays for the cost? The Times article elaborated on the ongoing lawsuits related to the Chinese drywall conundrum and it stated the difficulty of finding legal remedy to the situation or even of clearly delineating who is at fault. Unfortunately for now, providers who have tenants made ill by Chinese drywall may end up with a sizeable bill.

The Not-So-Great Wall is a post originally from the Corporate Housing Providers Blog, a source of advice, news, and more for those in the corporate housing industry.