If you think of a hotel or venue contract in the same vein as you would a pre-nuptial agreement your perspective may change. As with any contract, hotel or venue contacts have conditions and parameters designed with both parties in mind.
Seasoned event professionals who have excellent relationships with their facility representatives understand the value of discussing specifics to negotiate a win-win for all. Whether negotiating a meeting for 25 people or convention for 500, contracts are a stepping stone to a successful event and ultimately, an event planners success. Open communication is the key, as with any marriage. Here are a few reminders to ensure a happy, healthy and prosperous “marriage” with your hotel or venue.
1. Legal name: The company or organization responsible for and answerable to the conditions of the contract (not necessarily payment) should be accurate. Ensure the legal entity on the contract is spelled correctly.
2. Patience: Everyone is under the gun and has deadlines. Reality check - you are not the only game in town. If you have short turn around times other bookings and clients may need to be contacted, re-negotiated or relocated. Realistic expectations of time lines for you, your client and the hotel will make the booking process and experience much more enjoyable.
3. Use the phone – call! You may get the answers you need and more quickly. Sales representatives are inundated with detail which may not translate clearly in lengthy emails. Your representative is human and human contact will help nurture your relationship with the facility.
4. Signing on the dotted line: A hotel contract should only be signed by the person(s) authorized to review and sign the hotel contract. If you have more than one signing officer, authorized staff member or require more than one signature, ask your facility representative to revise the contract indicating the names and titles accordingly.
5. Contract negotiations: Depending on the type of booking and components of your facility contract, identify the must have’s, required and desired points of negotiation for you and/or your client. Areas of possible negotiation can be based on a myriad of factors that you may not be privy to, including the revenues your event will generate, time of year, day, and week, current or anticipated availability during your event, facility policies and your space requirements.
6. Function name: The name of the conference or meeting you would like displayed on reader boards, registration desk, reservation channel etc. may not be the same as the organization you are representing. Differentiate and articulate to avoid contract, delegate reservation and on site challenges.
7. Be realistic as to your needs: Be ready to provide historical data. Make it a habit to get the as much detail regarding guestrooms types, reservation pick up, patterns, function attendee numbers and revenues for the last event you are re-booking. This is good housekeeping and should be done as soon as possible following an event or convention. Today’s refined computer systems allow relatively easy access to this information.
8. Additional charges: Be sure you know whether additional charges will be added to the hotel contract after the contract is signed. Ask specific questions regarding additional costs for electrical hook-up, phone lines, equipment, audiovisual, skirting on tables, porterage, etc. If there is a charge for these services, it should be specified in the hotel contract. Taxes rates are not controlled by the hotel. Ask if there are any anticipated increases or decreases. Don’t be surprised to see “rate are subject to change and availability without notice” in certain sections of your contract.
9. Clarify Terminology and contract language: If you don’t understand specific terms of the contract ask for clarification and ask your representative to re-word it in terms you/your client understands. There’s no point in adding to the confusion and increasing the chances of error when you are on site and running in 20 directions.
Unfortunately previous experiences have made it necessary for hotels to implement safety nets in their contracts. Over the last 25 years hotel and venue contracts have become cumbersome, standardized and loaded with jargon that often only corporate lawyers understand. The most important thing to remember is that contracts are templates and have components that can be “massaged”. Exactly like a Pre-nuptial or come to think of it, separation or divorce agreement!
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JSY INNovations provides practical and tactical marketing solutions that create identity, build awareness and increase positioning. With over 25 years of hotel, event and hospitality experience, JSY INNovations provides sales, marketing and media services for hospitality, event and meeting professionals. Phone: 905-633-8508 or visit jsyinnovations.com.
Showing posts with label JSY Innovations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JSY Innovations. Show all posts
November 25, 2007
How do you get ranked higher in a search engine result?
Webprezents is a new concept in web identity. So what is the answer? Participation.
Webprezents creates a web identity for you on the web that touches on the busiest and most socially relevant sites in the world. If you want the world to see you, you need the search engines to see you. Go where the traffic is and you will surely increase your relevancy.
Keywords and keyword strategies are irrelevant in today’s internet world unless they are tied to a strategy that makes you important to search engines. Just because your website contains the keywords that have been tailored to your target market, does not mean you have increased your importance to sophisticated search engines and their sophisticated methods. Search engines do not simply index keywords and rank you on the number of times you use them. They rank you based on your visibility, your dynamic site content and your overall web presence.
Webprezents builds a blog for your company and ties it to key search engines dedicated to Blogging content. Your site is setup with RSS feeds and you have ties to the most popular social networking sites on the web; the Web 2.0.
The biggest misconception about social networking sites is that they are used by a demographic that does not use your service and therefore has no use to you. This truly is a misconception. To build a strong web presence, you need to be associated with high traffic sites so that search engines find you relevant. Forget who uses social networking; just remember that search engines index the most popular sites regularly.
Webprezents then builds out your blog by adding dynamic content from other popular social sites. Video, photographs and audio clips all play a part in today’s media rich web world. RSS feeds can send up to the minute live feeds to your existing static website and create a virtual, living identity. Subscription services to other indexing, book marking and news feed sites create a dynamic circle of data that continues to flow, even when you sleep.
Blogging alone does not create a web identity, but by utilizing many of the tools available on the web, Webprezents can increase your relevancy on a topic, service or product you want to feature. The change can be so dramatic, that within days, you can be the popular answer to a search engine query. Just think of when you are looking for something on the internet, how do you search for it?
All of the major news sites use this methodology, and have created a relevancy or credibility with search engines that allow them to provide almost instant results. You will not have to compete on that level and become the source for today’s breaking news. Your job is actually easier. Webprezents will quantify your product identity, tie it to you geographically and increase your standing as the defacto source for answers in your market or subject sector.
The Web 2.0 is here to stay so use this to your or your business’s advantage. Don’t rely on keywords when everyone else is using the exact same system. Use a system that actually makes search engines work. Be relevant. Use Webprezents!
Webprezents creates a web identity for you on the web that touches on the busiest and most socially relevant sites in the world. If you want the world to see you, you need the search engines to see you. Go where the traffic is and you will surely increase your relevancy.
Keywords and keyword strategies are irrelevant in today’s internet world unless they are tied to a strategy that makes you important to search engines. Just because your website contains the keywords that have been tailored to your target market, does not mean you have increased your importance to sophisticated search engines and their sophisticated methods. Search engines do not simply index keywords and rank you on the number of times you use them. They rank you based on your visibility, your dynamic site content and your overall web presence.
Webprezents builds a blog for your company and ties it to key search engines dedicated to Blogging content. Your site is setup with RSS feeds and you have ties to the most popular social networking sites on the web; the Web 2.0.
The biggest misconception about social networking sites is that they are used by a demographic that does not use your service and therefore has no use to you. This truly is a misconception. To build a strong web presence, you need to be associated with high traffic sites so that search engines find you relevant. Forget who uses social networking; just remember that search engines index the most popular sites regularly.
Webprezents then builds out your blog by adding dynamic content from other popular social sites. Video, photographs and audio clips all play a part in today’s media rich web world. RSS feeds can send up to the minute live feeds to your existing static website and create a virtual, living identity. Subscription services to other indexing, book marking and news feed sites create a dynamic circle of data that continues to flow, even when you sleep.
Blogging alone does not create a web identity, but by utilizing many of the tools available on the web, Webprezents can increase your relevancy on a topic, service or product you want to feature. The change can be so dramatic, that within days, you can be the popular answer to a search engine query. Just think of when you are looking for something on the internet, how do you search for it?
All of the major news sites use this methodology, and have created a relevancy or credibility with search engines that allow them to provide almost instant results. You will not have to compete on that level and become the source for today’s breaking news. Your job is actually easier. Webprezents will quantify your product identity, tie it to you geographically and increase your standing as the defacto source for answers in your market or subject sector.
The Web 2.0 is here to stay so use this to your or your business’s advantage. Don’t rely on keywords when everyone else is using the exact same system. Use a system that actually makes search engines work. Be relevant. Use Webprezents!
July 29, 2007
Top 10 Myths About Search Engine Optimization
1. I don’t need to know about SEO – My web site and web master ensure I have a strong presence on the Internet that will bring more business
2. SEO works like magic
Not so. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is just like any other job in life. If you do a good job and put in the hard work, you will get results. When you search for something on the Internet, you expect the search engine to read your mind and provide what you are looking for on the very first line. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. If you want people to find you that way, make sure your website is the best it can be. Make your web site and your web presence the most informative place to learn about what you do or provide. Make sure you can answer the questions a potential customer would ask? Who are you? What do you do? When and where do you do it. How can I get it? People ask questions on search engines. Provide answers.
3. If I pay to be submitted to the search engines, I’ll see more traffic to my web site
Not so. URL submission pages came about in the 90’s. They should stay there. There are still companies that charge a fee for submissions to the top search engines on a regular basis. URL’s can be indexed within hours by participating in a blog or other Web 2.0 social site.
4. Paid services for key word optimization will increase Search Engine Optimization
These days the phrase, “Search Engine Optimization” or SEO is all the buzz. Most paid services focus on the keywords in a website and offer monthly keyword optimization strategies. Regrettably this is only a strategy and not reality. Search engines don’t work using keywords alone. Any business that relies solely on key word strategy for the internet will fail. Using incorrect, inappropriate, repetitive or too many or keywords can negatively impact your presence on the www resulting in being banned or lowering your business’s search engine ranking.
5. Regular submissions of my URL will increase my web presence
Wrong again. Any service that claims to submit your site to search engines on a regular basis may get you banned as the search engines may interpret the submission as spam.
6. Linking is all there is.
Links are important, as search engines will consider a site that is highly linked to be more important than one that is not. However, just creating links to satisfy this objective does not solve the problem. Simple back linking on each page does not really count as a legitimate link. You don’t need thousands of links to be relevant. If your content changes and you know how to get a search engine to spider you, then you can be relevant with only one link.
7. As a Canadian based business, if someone searches my company/organization name, I’ll come up on the first page when being searched or Googled.
Not necessarily so. Search engines can’t find you if they don’t know where you are based. Especially if you don’t have a URL ending in “.ca”. Google is very good at figuring out where you are, but can’t read minds – yet! Unfortunately, most websites forget to make it clear where they are located. Pretend you are in grade school again. Put your name and address on everything and consider a URL ending in “ca”.
8. Optimizing means I have to create a whole new website
Not so. Presentation is everything to a potential customer – whether they already know your product or service or not. What tags say makes your site attractive to the search engines. Expanding your presence on the Internet is about making your business more appealing to search engines. Even bad websites can be popular.
9. Multiple websites will make my business more popular
Don’t mirror your site or have multiple domain names that point to identical sites. Choose one site and point all domains to one place. Search engines will de-list multiple sites and see them as spam.
10. Blogs and other social sites are for kids.
Sorry, wrong again. The major news networks now use blogs. YouTube was featured in the last U.S. Democratic debates. Whether your customer base is young or old, you need to be actively participating in the new Web 2.0 – today’s interactive internet. Even if you don’t want to promote yourself to a specific demographic, you want to be seen by the search engines. Search engines comb the top 10 social sites every few minutes. You need to be there.
2. SEO works like magic
Not so. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is just like any other job in life. If you do a good job and put in the hard work, you will get results. When you search for something on the Internet, you expect the search engine to read your mind and provide what you are looking for on the very first line. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. If you want people to find you that way, make sure your website is the best it can be. Make your web site and your web presence the most informative place to learn about what you do or provide. Make sure you can answer the questions a potential customer would ask? Who are you? What do you do? When and where do you do it. How can I get it? People ask questions on search engines. Provide answers.
3. If I pay to be submitted to the search engines, I’ll see more traffic to my web site
Not so. URL submission pages came about in the 90’s. They should stay there. There are still companies that charge a fee for submissions to the top search engines on a regular basis. URL’s can be indexed within hours by participating in a blog or other Web 2.0 social site.
4. Paid services for key word optimization will increase Search Engine Optimization
These days the phrase, “Search Engine Optimization” or SEO is all the buzz. Most paid services focus on the keywords in a website and offer monthly keyword optimization strategies. Regrettably this is only a strategy and not reality. Search engines don’t work using keywords alone. Any business that relies solely on key word strategy for the internet will fail. Using incorrect, inappropriate, repetitive or too many or keywords can negatively impact your presence on the www resulting in being banned or lowering your business’s search engine ranking.
5. Regular submissions of my URL will increase my web presence
Wrong again. Any service that claims to submit your site to search engines on a regular basis may get you banned as the search engines may interpret the submission as spam.
6. Linking is all there is.
Links are important, as search engines will consider a site that is highly linked to be more important than one that is not. However, just creating links to satisfy this objective does not solve the problem. Simple back linking on each page does not really count as a legitimate link. You don’t need thousands of links to be relevant. If your content changes and you know how to get a search engine to spider you, then you can be relevant with only one link.
7. As a Canadian based business, if someone searches my company/organization name, I’ll come up on the first page when being searched or Googled.
Not necessarily so. Search engines can’t find you if they don’t know where you are based. Especially if you don’t have a URL ending in “.ca”. Google is very good at figuring out where you are, but can’t read minds – yet! Unfortunately, most websites forget to make it clear where they are located. Pretend you are in grade school again. Put your name and address on everything and consider a URL ending in “ca”.
8. Optimizing means I have to create a whole new website
Not so. Presentation is everything to a potential customer – whether they already know your product or service or not. What tags say makes your site attractive to the search engines. Expanding your presence on the Internet is about making your business more appealing to search engines. Even bad websites can be popular.
9. Multiple websites will make my business more popular
Don’t mirror your site or have multiple domain names that point to identical sites. Choose one site and point all domains to one place. Search engines will de-list multiple sites and see them as spam.
10. Blogs and other social sites are for kids.
Sorry, wrong again. The major news networks now use blogs. YouTube was featured in the last U.S. Democratic debates. Whether your customer base is young or old, you need to be actively participating in the new Web 2.0 – today’s interactive internet. Even if you don’t want to promote yourself to a specific demographic, you want to be seen by the search engines. Search engines comb the top 10 social sites every few minutes. You need to be there.
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