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.

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.

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.

New Trends in Interior Design 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 recently heard ona  podcast from the Duke Marketing Conference’s closing keynote address about Proctor and Gamble’s word-of-mouth marketing programs called Tremors and Vocal Point.  Tremors and Vocal Point utilize what are called connectors and enthusiasts in our society.  Connectors are people with many friends and certain other qualities that make them ideal for spreading the word.  Enthusiasts ar epeople with a deep knowledge of a narrow field.   The idea is that if you give products to connectors and enthusiasts together, and give them the power to either affirm or deny the product’s positive qualities, that you can create huge results in sales.  The speaker at the Keynote Address said that P & G used Tremors for a certain television program they were promoting, and tripled the television program’s ratings.

Now, how does social media fit into this equation?  I don’t think it’s just having a fan page that matters, but especially in the nascent stages it matters who you get to sign up for that fan page.  I recently became a fan of the Green Bay Packers on Facebook simply because I had an influential friend who already belonged to that page.  Likewise, if you can identify the connectors in your industry and get them to buzz about your product on Facebook and Twitter, you will see huge results.  But as I said above, it’s identifying those connectors, and those raving fans with special knowledge of your industry (enthusiasts), and cultivating them.  And it will lead you to the other 445 people who you’ve been trying to mass cultivate all this time.

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

Volunteering for Trade Organizations Can Pay Off 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 companies expect to increase travel spending next year from what is expected to remain a craterous 2009, but some industry players are convinced it will be a matter of years before they resume pre-recession levels, according to speakers at last month’s National Business Travel Association International Convention in San Diego, conversations with industry buyers and suppliers and recent surveys of corporate travel managers.”

So hold on providers, because we may have finally reached rock bottom and it is time to begin the climb again. And what have we learned from the recession? As Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

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

The question is, how do you convince a client to go with your corporate housing company again based on the theory of reciprocity?

If it’s a large corporate client that you’re trying to land, such as IBM, you could go so far as to offer them a free night’s stay, so that they can see how your product and service is better than your competitor’s.

If it’s a traveling individual, such as a traveling nurse or a consultant, leaving a gift basket of food on the dining room table goes a long way.  Oftentimes these people are arriving in new territory, sometimes late in the afternoon, and after unpacking all of their things they simply want to stay in and make dinner for themselves.  Why not provide them with their first meal?

Reciprocity and Persuasion 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 are a few ideas for investing in good electronic equipment and high end design without breaking the bank:

• eBay. Technology quickly becomes outdated, gets refurbished and put on eBay. I buy almost all of my personal electronic equipment here and I’ve never been ripped off.
• Craig’s List. I’ve found everything from Eames folding screens to Moroccan mosaic tables on Craig’s List, all at hugely discounted rates.
• Shop like a designer. Interior designers are always shopping flea markets and second hand stores in their free time, in addition to hitting up the higher end design stores. If you or someone on your staff is handy, you can easily refurbish a piece of furniture and include it in your design scheme.

Standing out from the crowd requires hard work and creativity. One way to combat the “Keeping up with the Joneses” mentality is to be unique.

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

Product. Any simple hotel-corporate housing comparison will easily prove to your client that you have a far superior product to offer. After all, on average corporate housing offers at least double the square footage of a hotel room, separate living/sleeping areas, free local telephone, and more. Take the space on your website to lay out a comparison, and ask your salesperson to repeat key points verbally to the client, to remind them that they’re getting the best value for their money.

Price. According to the Corporate Housing Industry Report put out by CHPA, “The overall average daily rate for corporate housing in the United States was $117 in 2008, up 1.2% from $ 116 in 2007. In comparison, the overall lodging industry gained 2.4% in average daily rate according to Smith Travel Research.” This statement is incongruous with what The New York Times reports above, which is that hotels are slashing rates in order to fulfill their mortgages. Still slower growth in price in the corporate housing market than in the hotel market would imply that despite the slow economy, corporate housing still offers better value at less expensive rates.

Place (Distribution). Establishing inventory in cities and neighborhoods with a strong presence in the cityscape, as well as decent access to public transportation and major highways is key. But the provider can take it one step further by becoming involved in their neighborhood. What’s going on with your building? Especially if it’s a condo association, you may want to keep an eye on the decisions that are being made.

Promotion. Recessions are not the time to cut back on your advertising budget. Period. Robert Sharp Associated posted a wonderful blog on this subject, and there’s a concise ezine article as well. The NBTA, or National Business Travel Association, used to have a guide on their website called “How to Develop a Hotel Program” that I had previously blogged about. The guide has since been removed from NBTA’s website, but basically the steps were this: 1.) Organize Solicitation List, 2.) Select Hotel Partners, 3.) Create RFP Package, 4.) Analyze Completed RFPs, 5.) Negotiate with Hotels, and 6.) Select and Notify Hotels. Thrown in there were also some basics like defining goals, and assessing company culture. Anyway the same material can be reverse-engineered when you approach corporations with your cost-benefit analysis of why corporate housing is the better value over placing employees in hotels.

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