Jacobs wants to discuss Visit Orlando chief’s compensation package
Posted on March 18th, 2012
The head of Orlando’s visitors bureau has signed a new, three-year contract that boosts his earning potential this year to as much as $474,000, in a deal could become a flash point at Tuesday’s Orange County Commission meeting.
Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs isn’t commenting yet on the size of Visit Orlando President Gary Sain’s salary package, but she said Friday she wants the public-private organization, which gets most of its operating funds from the county each year, to provide more details about the compensation.
“I think they need to come in and explain it,” Jacobs said. “I’m going to reserve final judgment until I hear all of the facts.”
Sain, who has led Visit Orlando through a recession and a record recovery in tourism, is to receive $338,800 in base pay under the new contract, a raise of 3 percent from his previous salary. Read full article…
Tags: Orlando, Orlando Chiefs
No Comments »
Selling Skills
Posted on March 11th, 2012
Selling is not a favourite task for many entrepreneurs and small business owners. We picture sales people as greedy, unethical, unscrupulous individuals who are determined to close a sale at any cost. Yet we cannot survive without generating sales so selling skills are a critical competency we need to acquire.
Selling is an honourable profession and everyone who operates a business should learn some fundamentals. From my perspective as a small business owner, sales trainer and consumer, the most important selling skill to learn is how to effectively qualify your prospect.
The most common mistake sales people make is to immediately launch into a product presentation or pitch when they first meet their prospect. They extol the virtues of what they sell and tell the prospective buyer how good, fast, reliable, inexpensive or easy to use their product is.
Tags: Selling, Selling Skills
No Comments »
2012 Buyout Guide
Posted on March 3rd, 2012
Agency Description Timelines
Air Force The Air Force announced a second round of buyout and early retirement offers for civilian employees on Jan. 3. The first round, in September 2011, included buyout authority for up to 6,005 civilian employees. The Air Force says this is all part of its attempt to maintain civilian funding at fiscal 2010 levels. The application deadline ended on Feb. 3. Employees must separate by April 30.
Agriculture The Agriculture Department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service wants to trim its ranks by 300 employees by end of the year. But the agency’s total headcount will drop only by about 150. NRCS plans to offer 900 employees the chance to take buyouts or early retirements, and the agency will accept about 300 of them. Buyouts offered this spring with employees separating in the fourth quarter.
Tags: Buyout, Buyout Guide
No Comments »
Dow crosses 13,000 for first time since 2008
Posted on February 27th, 2012
NEW YORK The Dow Jones industrial average crossed 13,000 on Tuesday for the first time since before the 2008 financial crisis.
The Dow passed 13,000 about two hours into the trading day, then quickly dropped back. Its last time above 13,000 during a trading day was May 20, 2008, four months before the Lehman Brothers investment bank went under.
U.S. stocks got help from a long-awaited bailout deal for Greece, aimed at preventing a potentially catastrophic default, and from strong corporate earnings reports at home.
Just after 11:30 a.m. EST, the Dow was up 41 points at 12,990. In other trading, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up five points at 1,366. The Nasdaq composite index was up 10 points at 2,962.
The last time the Dow was above 13,000, the unemployment rate was 5.4 percent, far below today’s 8.3 percent.
Tags: 2008, First Time
No Comments »
Epcot exhibit joins fight against childhood obesity
Posted on February 20th, 2012
Taking aim at childhood obesity, Epcot unveiled its latest attraction this month — Habit Heroes. Housed inside Innoventions, the park’s futuristic showcase of ideas, Habit Heroes targets teens and their families.
A team effort of Disney and Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the new exhibit takes visitors through a series of interactive experiences to fight bad habits.
Visitors — up to 12 at a time — enter the 4,700-square-foot attraction through an old, back-alley gymnasium where they meet video superheroes Will Power and Callie Stenics. From there, the buff duo takes them on an action-packed fight against the enemies.
In the first of three interactive rooms, visitors confront (remote) Control Freak and blow up raining televisions. Next they take on Sweet Tooth and Snacker, and wage a food fight with video-arcade style guns that abolish junk food using healthy food as ammunition. Brocc
Don’t Do What You Love
Posted on February 13th, 2012
One of the most common pieces of advice to those who are thinking of starting a small business is to do what they love.
I’ve even given this advice myself. (Have a look at Top 10 Tips for Starting a Small Business That Will Succeed, for instance.)
But years of advising people who want to start their own businesses and watching them go through the start up process has taught me that I was wrong.
Or, at least, (being kind to myself), for many people, this advice is misleading. Particularly when you are at the stage of starting your own business where you’re casting about for ideas and deciding what kind of business you want to start, choosing to start a business based on what you love can lead you on a path headed entirely in the wrong direction – or even over a cliff.
You should not do what you love because:
1. Love is blind.
I know it’s a clich, but it’s also true.
Tags: Love
No Comments »
The thumb of all fears
Posted on February 4th, 2012
The Pentagon is revealing parts of its budget plan for fiscal year 2013. The proposal includes the scaling back of several weapons systems, savings on personnel costs, along with an assurance from top DoD officials that even though the military will be smaller, it will be more agile and more capable. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is also calling for another round of base realignments and closures.
Feds need to develop a strategy to ease retirement path The Office of Personnel Management is vowing to tackle its backlog of retirement applications. OPM received more the 15,000 new retirement applications this month, which is more than double the normal load. All told, there’s a backlog of about 50,000 cases.
CTO Aneesh Chopra to step down Aneesh Chopra, the White House’s first chief technology officer, is stepping down. A White House official confirmed Chopra’s last day would be Feb.