Category Archives: Business & Careers

Tips To Get a Hotel Business Off The Ground

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Tips to get a hotel business off the groundChoose your location wisely

 

To have a successful hotel business, you need clientele. Tourist hot spots are, of course, a prime location. However, if you are just starting a hotel, many prime locations can be too costly. Although it can be hard to predict some things, if you can buy property in an up-and-coming area, it is possible to start a hotel business with less capital investment. You also stand to gain a lot of equity. There are plenty of examples of entrepreneurs seeing their real estate investment gain considerable value over the years. Stephen Wynn is famous for setting the standard for luxury hotels in Las Vegas. He started investing and developing real estate before Vegas became the world-renowned city it is today. His first Vegas enterprise was renovating the dilapidated Golden Nugget; however, it was the opening of his Mirage hotel in 1989 that set the standard for luxury Vegas accommodations. Now Stephen has the world famous Bellagio. A good real estate agent can help you with delray beach housing as well.

 

Know your budget

 

It is easy to go over budget when starting a hotel business. For example, you will need more money if you plan on offering a food service or other amenities. Even lower-priced hotels usually at least offer a continental-style breakfast, but a kitchen is not necessarily needed for that. If you buy a building, make sure that you are prepared for the costs of renovations and upgrades. Sometimes you can get a real bargain by getting a property that needs some work. The downside is that it can be hard or impossible to know what issues a building might have. A building inspector can help you make sure that you are not biting off more than you can chew. You don’t want to find the perfect property and then discover when the walls are being redone that you have asbestos that needs to be removed.

 

Get ready for some hard but rewarding work

 

The hotel business is not easy. You have many people to keep happy. Stamina, and a good attitude are all necessary to succeed in the hotel industry.

 

Victor Sukseree is the manager of the five-star Dusit Thani Hua Hin Hotel, in Thailand. He says that he works all the time but doesn’t mind because he is passionate about what he does and looks forward to every work day.

 

 

Why The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Acting Career Is To Quit

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acting tips, acting career, acting, advice, book, how to be a successful actor, quit, Catherine BalavageI know what you are thinking: what? That makes no sense. But bear with me. I have been acting for a long time. Since I was a teenager and in that time I have had some amazing parts, met amazing people and worked on projects that I was proud of. Also in that time I worked with a lot of jerks, had some terrible auditions, worked on awful projects and had some really awful experiences. My hair was always in a state of recovery because some over-zealous make up person had gone to town on it, my breasts were always being taped down by gaffer tape because costume people ‘didn’t know what to do with them’ and I was working too damn hard in an industry where the pay had not only not risen, but was actually the lowest in fourteen years. I kept almost getting the life-changing parts but lost out at the final hurdle. To put it frankly, I had had enough.

The last straw was working on a film on which I sustained a serious back injury. I damaged a disc and also had nerve damage. Over a year of painful physiotherapy followed. It was a nightmare. It was the last straw. ‘I quit’ I told my husband. ‘I just can’t do this anymore’. But it was only then the moment of clarity came; ‘Don’t quit’, my husband said, ‘You are too talented and have too much to offer. Take a break and then go back to it’. Cue the previously mentioned moment of clarity. He was right. Quit, but then go back.

The truth was, I just wasn’t into it anymore. I hated auditions, I hated working, I hated all of the BS that came with acting. So I quit, wrote my acting book, and by the time I was ready to go back I was in love with acting again. I wanted to make films again. I wanted to be on a television set. The break gave me the distance needed to realise why I had become an actor in the first place. I rediscovered all of the things I loved about working in the entertainment industry, which is the only way you can deal with all of the stuff you don’t love about it.

When your heart isn’t in something it comes across. You just have to take a break and go do something else for a while. Get a good-paying job and build up your bank account, travel, learn a new skill. Do anything but quit acting. It just might be the best thing for your acting career that you ever do.

 

If you are an actor then check out my book How To Be a Successful Actor: Becoming an Actorpreneur. It is available in print and in all eBook formats on both Smashwords and Amazon. 

 

 

Work From Home Week 2015 – 19th to 25th January

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working from home, work, home workingAs someone who works from home I can vouch for its good points and its bad ones. Mostly it is great, offering flexibility and the chance to work to the best of your potential. No nasty commute needed so it is good for your bank account and the environment too. In fact, this is Work From Home Week and in June 2014, new rights to flexible working laws were introduced in the UK, declaring that all employees – who have worked for the same employer for at least 26 weeks – are eligible to request flexible working, including the option of working from home. In fact, most recent figures now show that around 14% of people in employment are working from home, highlighting the idea that it’s increasingly becoming a viable and attractive alternative for businesses.

Launched in 2003, Work From Home Week, running from the 19th to 25th of January, puts a spotlight on this rising figure, raising awareness of working from home for both employers and employees alike.

In a time of constantly evolving technology, it’s never been easier to access information away from the office, so we’re calling on employers to embrace the opportunity as a way to boost happiness and productivity among their employees.

Graham Long, Vice President of the Enterprise Business Team at Samsung UK supports working from home.

‘’At Samsung, we believe it’s vital for people to be given the option and the tools to work flexibly, which is why we view Work from Home Week as an important and worthwhile initiative.

“Our own research reveals over a quarter of workers would opt for flexible working over a pay rise, and more than four in 10 (42%) employees strongly agree with the idea of being able to access work emails and apps outside of official working hours. Despite this, many businesses still don’t trust their employees to do so, highlighting the need to educate enterprises on the benefits of working from home. The option to work more flexibly can have a huge impact on productivity and wellbeing and with advancements in mobile technology, it is now possible for employees to work beyond the confines of the office, making working from home a choice that should be open to all rather than a select few.’’

Of course, for many across the UK, working from home isn’t just for a week. For the hundreds of single parents, carers, injured veterans and those living with disabilities, working from home is a necessity.

To celebrate working from home, the team behind the campaign have compiled the top 5 reasons to consider it!

Money – Not only would you save money on travel costs – train tickets, petrol, parking, etc. – but not eating out for lunch on a regular basis is bound to save you some pennies too. For parents, it gives the opportunity to radically reduce the costs of childcare.

Commute – Forget about delayed trains or road traffic dampening your spirits.

Comfort – Rather than donning a power suit or being restricted to a desk all day, choose your own dress code and working environment.

Green Living – Working from home can help reduce your carbon footprint, conserve office space for your employer, and perhaps most importantly, allow you to be the master of your own environment!

Freedom/Flexibility – Having the freedom to choose your hours and coffee breaks, while not being dragged in and out of corporate meetings all day is something that could potentially boost your overall moral and work ethic. Not to mention it allows you to create that ideal work/life balance.

Work From Home Week runs from the 19th – 25th January 2015. Twitter @WorkFromHomeWK  #WFHW

 

People Who Were Fired For Tweeting: Why We Should Be More Careful On Twitter

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The importance of social media training was highlighted by Labour MP Emily Thornberry tweeting a picture that many found condescending and classist. Many people tweet without thinking and those in a position of power routinely get themselves into trouble because of this. Reputation is everything in business and it can be destroyed with a single tweet. Twitter is a great resource but many forget how powerful it is and that tweets are not private. Clicking ‘tweet’ can ruin careers.

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Thornberry’s infamous tweet featured the St George Cross flag, draped from a suburban home which had a white van parked in the driveway. The now ex-shadow attorney-general for Labour lost her job because of the tweet which not only damaged Thornberry, but also the Labour party as a whole. Ed Milliband was said to be ‘furious’. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said: “We should have pride in flying the Cross of St George – don’t knock the national flag of England.”

Prime Minister David Cameron also said the Labour MP’s actions were “completely appalling” and made a suggestion that she was “sneering at people who work hard, are patriotic and love their country”.

After the incident Twitter founder Jack Dorsey was asked if the reaction to Emily Thornberry’s tweets made him frightened at the power of his creation. He said: “I don’t think it’s any different from what we’ve been doing as a humanity – it’s just faster.”

Other people who have lost their jobs because of inappropriate tweets include:
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CNN Middle East editor Octavia Nasr wrote a controversial tweet regarding Lebanon’s deceased Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. Nasr wrote of her “respect” for Fadlallah, who was very anti-American and was also linked to bombings that killed more than 260 Americans. She later said she had been referring to Fadlallah’s “attitude” and apologised for trying to discuss a complex figure on Twitter.
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Politician Stuart MacLennan was fired by the Labour Party after making a number of offensive tweets. He referred to Commons Speaker John Bercow as a “t**”, David Cameron a “t***” and Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, “a b******”.” He also referred to elderly voters as “coffin dodgers”. He apologised for the tweets and was removed from the party’s ticket.
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Former MLB pitcher Mike Bacsik lost his job as a radio producer after drunk tweeting racist comments during a Mavericks-Spurs game.
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Comedian Catherine Deveny was fired from a job writing for Australian newspaper The Age when she tweeted about her hopes that Steve Irwin’s daughter gets laid.

Her former boss, editor Paul Ramadge, said, “We are appreciative of the columns Catherine has written for The Age over several years but the views she has expressed recently on Twitter are not in keeping with the standards we set at The Age.”

 

TV extra on Glee, Nicole Crowther, tweeted about some plot spoilers she had heard on set. A big no-no in the entertainment industry. She was then fired via Twitter by the show’s producer, Brad Falchuk, when he tweeted in response: “Hope you’re qualified to do something besides work in entertainment.”

 

Comedian Gilbert Gottfried was the voice of the Aflac duck and made jokes about the Japanese tsunami. “Japan is really advanced. They don’t go to the beach. The beach comes to them.” He tweeted. Unfortunately for him Aflac is the largest insurance company in Japan and he was fired.

 

A woman called Connor Riley got a job offer from Cisco and tweeted: “Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.” Cisco employee Tim Levad then replied: “Who is the hiring manager? I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the Web.” Oops.

 

 

Immediate Media Co Partners With Leading Independent Publisher Network Handpicked Media

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Exciting news in publishing: Handpicked Media, whose independent publishing platform Frost Magazine is proudly part of, has teamed up with Immediate Media. The press release is below and we are very excited. 

The Handpicked Media team.

The Handpicked Media team.

Immediate Media Co, the special interest content and platform company,  announces a partnership with Handpicked Media to provide sales agency support for the leading social content marketing and blog network.

The partnership sees Immediate’s commercial division provide agency sales support to Handpicked. Immediate already provides similar services for a roster of clients including BBC Worldwide, Eye to Eye Media and LPG Inc.

Handpicked represents over 300 independent websites and blogs, reaching over 10 million unique users a month. The partnership will allow Immediate to use its commercial infrastructure to unlock the value of these influential bloggers and sites.

As a social content marketing platform, Handpicked Media has curated a growing network of influential blog sites across a range of lifestyle channels since it was launched in 2009 by media entrepreneur Krista Madden. It manages the interaction between its network and a range of consumer brands, offering clients an array of opportunities to reach a very targeted and highly engaged social audience. Key content channels within the Handpicked network include Entertainment, Lifestyle, Beauty, Fashion and Food.

Immediate Commercial Director Duncan Tickell says: “Handpicked has a network of fantastically engaged audiences with its roster of blog and independent media sites. These highly passionate and engaged audiences are complementary to our existing portfolio and offer our commercial partners a new and exciting way in which to connect with them”.

Handpicked solutions include social media strategy, blogger outreach, content creation, events and integrated campaigns for a range of brand partners including Intel, Vodafone, P&G and Hilton.

Krista adds: “We are really pleased to be working with the successful team at Immediate Media, their range of brands is a perfect fit for the Handpicked audience. We both see the benefits of creating great content with context and scale across our popular communities. ”

Immediate is home to internationally famous brands including Radio Times, Gardeners’ World, BBC Good Food, Olive, You & Your Wedding, Perfect Weddings and Made For Mums.

Follow them at @Immediate_Media

 

 

Sarah Parish on Acting: It Can Turn You Into a Monster

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Sarah Parish has given a rather excellent interview to the Radio Times. Here are some of my favourite quotes from it.

On starting acting: “I had no confidence. I think because I started so low. I had quite low expectations. I felt one step behind, and it’s always been, ‘I can’t believe they actually chose me’. I went for small parts because I thought that was probably the only thing I would get. I never auditioned for leads. I just assumed I wouldn’t get them.” That is said with so much self-parody that I feel like I’m allowed to ask: “Do you think you missed out because of that?” Huge eyebrows: “Well… ya think? But you live the life you’ve lived, don’t you? I didn’t have that God-given confidence you get from going to a public school and going to Rada. I went to a comprehensive and felt lucky if I got a job in the chorus. But the upside is I was never disappointed.”

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If the industry has gotten better for women in the past 20 years: “I did hear something alarming the other day, I bumped into a friend at an audition, another girl my age. I asked if she was still doing this show – I can’t tell you what it is – and she said, ‘No, it was cancelled. The reason they gave was that they already had a female-driven programme.’ Wow. Because you can’t have two female-led dramas on telly. How awful would that be! So we’re still not there. I don’t know if we’ll ever be equal. We’ve still got an old-fashioned way of receiving female characters. They’ve got to be the wife, or they’ve got to be nuts.”

On the charity she and her husband, James Murray, set up; the Murray Parish Trust: “It’s in memory of Ella-Jayne, our first daughter.” [She died of congenital heart failure at eight months old] “It’s a terrifying and traumatic time [when your child is ill], you just want to be there all the time. They really, really need this hospital. The accommodation they’ve got for parents at the moment is so sad. £70 million it’s going to cost. Our charity is the little Jack Russell that goes down the hole and scoops everybody out. The big money willcome in afterwards.”

Second daughter Nell gets in the way of her career: “My agent will say, Darling, you’ve got to do a play’. I don’t want to do a play. Why do I have to do a play? You have to go off and do your time in a play to remind a certain genre of people that you’re still an actor. It’s a ball ache. I don’t want to have to leave my daughter and go to London every night.”

On pilot season: “If there was a little room you could go in beforehand where you checked in your dignity, your soul and your pride, that would be fine. But unfortunately you have to go into pilot season as a whole person. Every day you drive around with your clothes in the back of the car, you sit in rooms full of people as sad and as desperate as you are, with so much make-up on they could sink the Titanic, tiny little thin people. Sometimes casting directors might look at you, sometimes they might be on the phone, sometimes they’ll talk over you. And more often than not, you’ll hear nothing. I have got jobs out of it before, but it’s just not worth it. We tape all our [audition] stuff in our garden shed, now. Having a shed in our back garden has made us a lot of money, me and Jim.”

On the pressure on men: “You have to have a six pack, you have to have a pair of glutes, you have to wax your chest. You have to sign a contract saying you will show your bum. You see these poor guys right before a scene, doing press-ups, when they should be thinking about their character. That’s what we’ve come to expect from men on screen now. It’ll be from up there [she gestures to some nameless authority]. Hot, young people with perfect bodies. That’s what people want to see. And of course it actually isn’t what people want to see. I want to see interesting faces. I want to see different bodies. I want to see people I can relate to. There’s nothing attractive about knowing a man has been flexing in front of a mirror five minutes before a scene. When did that become sexy? And I don’t want to see a woman looking starved to death. When did that become sexy? These are first world problems, It’s very easy as an actor to live in a bubble and think that life is about acting, and of course it’s not. It can turn you into a bit of a monster.”

Isn’t she awesome? I think so.

If you are an actor then check out my book How To Be a Successful Actor: Becoming an Actorpreneur. It is available in print and in all eBook formats on both Smashwords and Amazon.

The Indie Author Fair – a Pop-up Bookshop at the Chorleywood Lit Fest

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Sunday 16th November, 2pm-5pm, British Legion Hall, Chorleywood

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Indie authors and indie bookshops ought to be a marriage made in heaven – ideally suited to work together to create something fresh and exciting.

Catriona Troth, from the indie author collective, Triskele Books, is proud to have facilitated one such partnership – the first, she hopes, of many. Chorleywood Bookshop, well known for bringing literary luminaries to ‘the best little lit fest you’ve never heard of’, are working with the Triskele Books author collective and the Alliance of Independent Authors to host the inaugural Indie Author Fair at the Chorleywood Lit Fest.

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For the first time, in one place, forty indie authors convene to showcase their work and demonstrate how indie author publishing represents all that is innovative, daring and creative.

The Fair will feature works of crime, romance, historical fiction, comedy and lit fic, all read by the authors themselves. You can join in with story time sessions for children of all age groups, or browse the books while having afternoon tea and discover a hidden treasure.

indieauthorfairchildrensflyerIndie authors are a supportive, enthusiastic gang of professionals, ready to answer questions and share their experiences – good and bad. You can discuss plot with a crime writer, brainstorm covers with a designer, pick historical fiction brains, kick around marketing ideas. Or meet the people who make indie authorship happen: Sponsors Ingram, Matador and Reedsy are available to answer your questions.

Troth hopes it will turn into an annual event. “The Fair seems to have captured imaginations – authors are coming from as far away as Spain and Switzerland.”

Alliance of Independent Authors founder and co-host of the Fair, Orna Ross, is looking forward to, “the connections and collaborations, and the energising creative spirit that always blows when a crowd of dedicated indie authors get together.”

Richard Mollett, CEO of the Publishers Association says, “The Indie Author Fair is a great way of promoting writing and reading in Britain.”

If you love reading, if you enjoy meeting authors, if you’re curious about independent publishing – then come to the Indie Author Fair!

 

For more information, please contact Catriona Troth catriona.troth@gmail.com

 

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/727624687310614
Online catalogue: http://issuu.com/janedixon-smith/docs/iaf_catalogue_proof_issuu/0