People...

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
news:2007101310233243658-christophercampbell@hotmailcom...

I will not have a corrupt building inspector who scuffs the dirt away from
under an electric meter and then tells me that it is a quarter inch too
high again. Neither will a corrupt city official tell me again that it
will take a minimum of three years to get a building permit unless I pay
him $30,000 -- and the city attorney will not back him up again.

At least you didn;t have to deal with zoning officials and attempts to get
variances. A common case is trying to get a variance that the zoning board
(say, for example, Mr. Steve Hegelmann) says a varaince is just not
possible, but 18 days later, Mr. David Hegelmann is issued a variance for
the exact same parcel.

Of course, it helps that your lawyer be someone who worked in the HUD
Anti-Fraud unit for 12 years, and who knows how to tweak the states AG.

People have often pointed out that I seem cantankerous and unsympathetic.
Wanna ask me again how I got that way?

;-)

Interesting, isn't it, that the most difficult aspect of running a business
is getting past the bureaucratic fraud and the ambulance chasers, not the
actual "nut & bolts".

I relish the development process, but let my legal man handle the
bureaucrats. If it wasn't that way, I'd likely be in jail for homicide.
--
Matt Barrow
Performance Homes, LLC.
Cheyenne, WY

Jay Honeck wrote:
I'm not surprised to hear about California (a state my extended family
has entirely vacated, after living there for almost 80 years), but
Washington? I thought that was the new "paradise" all the "good
folks" from California were seeking?

Where do you think many of the folks escaping CA went?

Matt

Matt Whiting wrote:
Jay Honeck wrote:
I'm not surprised to hear about California (a state my extended family
has entirely vacated, after living there for almost 80 years), but
Washington? I thought that was the new "paradise" all the "good
folks" from California were seeking?

Where do you think many of the folks escaping CA went?

A lot of us snuck across the border to the People's Republic of Oregon.
;-)

On Oct 9, 7:13 pm, "S Green" wrote:
"Jay Honeck" wrote in message

ps.com...





There is a supermarket in my town (also a college town) that pays
about twice as much per hour. They don't have problems finding good
employees, and it is a pleasure to shop there - even though they are
not cheap.

We would love to pay our employees $16 per hour. Heck, I'd like to
pay myself that much!

We are in a strange spot regarding our prices (and, thus, our ability
to pay more). Many who stay with us request "the cheapest thing
you've got" but -- after hearing so much about us now -- they expect
the world from us.

These high expectations can lead to real problems. I always feel
guilty giving someone "the cheapest thing we've got" knowing that it
won't live up to their expectations (or what they've heard) of us, but
the flip-side is that I can't afford to give them the coolest
honeymoon suite for $69, either.

It's a real Catch-22. We find ourselves ever more busy -- we're now
running 80+% occupancy -- but we're scared to death to raise our
rates, due to our competitive position. In fact, we haven't raised
rates since we bought the hotel in 2002 -- that's five years of
holding the line on rates -- but in the meantime we've added service
after service.

This has severely limited our ability to pay our employees more, since
we're being ever more tightly squeezed by energy costs (up 35% in five
years!) and tax increases. Eventually the pressure will become
impossible to bear, and we will be forced to raise rates -- but surely
at the expense of occupancy.

The issue is not occupancy but revenue per day. A full hotel paying bugger
all for the rooms is not much use nor is holding out for premium rates with
the hotel empty.

My experience of US motels is that at the budget end (ie less than $70) all
they seem to offer is a bed, variable television, possibly free internet,
ice and a donut and coffee for breakfast so the opportunities to add revenue
from customers is limited.

Similar establishments in Europe tend to have restaurants and shops attached
which gives additional revenue from residents or even from local trade and
can make a big difference to the top and bottom line numbers, to the extent
that revenue per day can be 50% on top of the room rate. But then there is
not the plethora of fast food outlets sucking the customers away.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


When I am looking for a place to stay, all I care about is a good
night's sleep and a clean shower. I do not need a TV, gym, room
service, massages, restaurants and all the other fancy things that are
sold as "hotel staying experience". Is there really a demand for all
this stuff? I can't imagine anyone spending time in the hotel except
for sleeping. I am usually happy with places like Motel 6 for under
$30, unless it happens to be noisy or dirty. They are rarely that way,
but I have found some that were. On the other hand, I also stay at
high-end hotels (out of necessity, not desire). I am sure they must be
nice, but I never spend more than an hour of my waking time there to
find out what the fuss is all about.

When I am looking for a place to stay, all I care about is a good
night's sleep and a clean shower. I do not need a TV, gym, room
service, massages, restaurants and all the other fancy things that are
sold as "hotel staying experience". Is there really a demand for all
this stuff?

Yep.

I can't imagine anyone spending time in the hotel except
for sleeping. I am usually happy with places like Motel 6 for under
$30, unless it happens to be noisy or dirty.

I haven't found a motel for $30/night worthy of kenneling my dog since
the 1980s. In fact, I've found a lot of $99/night motels that made me
want to puke.

This is one of the main reasons we thought we could succeed in the
lodging industry, despite our lack of experience. Almost every motel/
hotel/B&B we'd ever stayed in -- at ANY price -- sucked.

The last five years has vindicated our business model. (Which read,
quite simply: "Eliminate everything we hate; add everything we like.")

On the other hand, I also stay at
high-end hotels (out of necessity, not desire). I am sure they must be
nice, but I never spend more than an hour of my waking time there to
find out what the fuss is all about.

Lodging decisions are almost always made by the woman of the family --
which is why massage therapists and work-out rooms are important.
Most guys are like you.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

But I'm also strange enough to think that it would be kinda fun to try
to mathematically model a Hotel business. If you'd want to work on this a little
off the group, I could send you a reply-able e-mail address. But I do think you'd
be crazy to want to (Then again, I read your son's post)

What would I want out of it?:
A) Keep my address private (it's semi-anonymous)
B) Don't sue me....for anything.

Hee hee! Ahem. Right.

Personally, I think it sounds great, but probably represents more of a
time investment than I can afford right now. With NCAA football in
full swing, we're so danged busy I can't find to fly, let alone work
on theoretical models of the hotel industry...

Send me your email off-group; maybe in a few months, when we're
playing shuffleboard in the halls to occupy our time (in between
remodel jobs), I'll have time to start down this road...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

After replacing the same disappearing light bulb 20 times, after explaining
to one girl that when she and her boyfriend take a bath together and splash
half the water on the floor that it goes down to the first floor

Hee hee!

We've got sixteen 84-gallon, two-person jacuzzi hot tubs in our
aviation themed suites.

Mix liberally with inebriated, healthy young couples...

I keep a drywall guy employed darned-near full-time, replacing
ceilings...

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

C J Campbell writes:

Now, the funny thing is -- and this is just a tiny portion of things
that actually happened to me -- that all this stuff happened in our
more expensive apartments or homes. We also had trailer courts. Some of
them were real slums. And none of them had problems worse than the
'rich' customers. OTOH, how could they have been worse?

What city was this?


Why, you looking for a move up to a trailer slum?


Bertie

C J Campbell wrote:
[snip]
People tell me that success is dependent on being in the right place at
the right time. I tend to agree. The problem with 99% of people is that
they have never figured out that they will never be at the right place
at the right time if they never show up to work.

'Cuse me, just got back from the office - got a call from one of the
developers about the computer system (aerospace, we're building models
of vehicles and testing them).

Now that's solved (at least until Monday morning), I'm going to be
in the right place at the right time in my cherokee for the rest of
the day.