I have been using a few new business tools that I wanted to share.
TheResumator
TheResumator is a comprehensive solution for posting job openings, distributing job openings, receiving resumes, administering questionnaires and scheduling interviews. Instead of just having resumes emailed to an email alias, this system creates a database of candidates and even shows detailed reports about the candidates. I love being able to see exactly which job boards are referring the most qualified talent.
CheckDog.com
CheckDog scans any website to look for misspelled words. The system can be setup to run monthly reports and email you the results. This is great for finding misspellings before your website visitors do. It’s also fun to run reports on your competitors to find the many errors on their website.
SEOmoz
SEOmoz is the best tool for improving your websites search engine optimization. SEOmoz is a tool that will allow you to track your web pages and the keywords that you wish to optimize for. This tool will track your progress and make intelligent suggestions to improve your websites visibility to search engines. (hat tip: Netvantage Marketing)
Google TV Advertising
Did you know you can buy national television advertising through Google Adwords? It’s pretty amazing.
Google Adwords Remarketing
Google Remarketing is one of the most powerful forms of advertising I have found. Essentially remarketing, or retargeting as it is sometimes called, allows you to advertise to people that have viewed a particular page on your website on a third party site. A typical example would be: Customer visits your website, puts shoes in their shopping cart, then leaves or abandons the website. Using Remarketing, you can advertise the shoes in her shopping cart while that visitor is on a third party site, like Youtube.com for instance.
What business tools are indispensable for you in 2012?
Regarding my original post and my post yesterday. My friend Roger Martin had some additional information for me and some corrections:
Travis,
You asked a bunch of questions. All of them are good, but some make incorrect assumptions and are based on incomplete information.
In terms of pay/benefits:
Wages in the U.P. are lower than are wages below the bridge for most if not all professions and jobs. Please understand, however, that a good number of the 1,000 workers at the Kewadin properties are not full time (some are part-time, some are seasonal, etc.). In addition, many (if not most) casino employees earn tips in addition to wages (some dealers earn many thousands in tips). The amount they earn in tips is NOT part of the salary number. All full-time jobs include health care and other benefits. Almost certainly, the salaries at the Lansing casino will be higher, and full-time positions will include benefits as well.
In terms of number of workers:
Have you been to the five Kewadin properties in the U.P.? They are not equal in size to one another so would not “average 250 jobs per casino.”Two of the properties (in St. Ignace and Sault Ste. Marie) are rather large casinos with many slot machines and table games and other amenities. Three of the five are satellite casinos —small facilities in Hessel, Christmas and Manistique that cater to snowmobilers, anglers, hunters, folks on color tours, etc. In total, the five Kewadin casinos have 86,000 square feet of gaming space and 1,000 employees. The Lansing casino will have 125,000 square feet of gaming space, thus the need for more (about 1,500) employees.
In terms of the cost of construction:
In the blog you based your calculation of $1,960 per square foot for the Lansing casino on 125,000 square feet. That square footage number represents only gaming floor space, Travis. The total project footprint is 276,000 square feet, which takes into account all back of house space, counting rooms, cages, restaurants, kitchens, and on and on. In addition, the project includes two parking garages with 2,900 (roughly) total parking spaces. In addition, the FF&E (furniture, fixture and equipment) budgets for casinos are quite expensive because of all the technology in gaming properties. Please understand each slot machine in a casino costs roughly $9,000 and up. And then comes the computer management systems, all the electrical work, the surveillance technology, player tracking technology, and on and on.
In terms of revenues and profits:
The developer will assume all financial risks and spend $10 million to get the project approved. Then the Tribe will take all the risks and assume all debt and costs for building and operating a $245 million project. The Tribe will use its profits from the project to fund health care, elder care, college educations, housing, human and social services and other programs for their members. In addition, to be able to generate enough revenues to send every Lansing public school student to college is something we are proud of and, we would note, something no one else in this region is doing. And while the developer’s payment ends after seven years, the $5 million a year for Lansing public school students continues on and on.
Lets look at the revenue that two groups will receive directly from this casino.
1. The scholarship for Lansing kids
2. the developers
Lansing Kids get:
The project would include two parking decks and would share 2 percent of revenue - estimated at $5 million to $6 million - for the city to start a scholarship program for Lansing public school students - LSJ
Revenue $250,000,000/yr * 2% = $5,000,000/yr for the kids
Developer gets:
Sault tribal officials negotiated a contract with Lansing Future that would award the developer 14 percent of the casino’s operating profit, projected at $150 million annually, for seven years, the website reads. The tribe also would have to reimburse the company for as much as $10 million of its initial investment if the casino succeeds. - LSJ (Screenshot)
Operating Profit $150,000,000 * 14% = 21,000,000/year for Developer
After using Glenn Buege as my only repair shop for the past 2 years they tried to screw me today.
My 2008 Pontiac G6 convertible had a whistling sound that I took into get looked at. I received a call from Glenn Buege saying that “a new dual exhaust system would cost $1,500″. I turn them down and said I will come pick up my car.
Later I find out that my car does NOT have a dual exhaust! After calling a few other places, and leaving a messages for the General Manager of Glenn Buege, I get a return call from the service department saying that “Actually it’s a single exhaust and will only cost $480″. Glenn Beuge tried to steal $1,000 from a loyal customer. I won’t be returning.
“The tribe already operates five casinos in northern Michigan, where it claims to employ about 1,000 people with a $25 million a year payroll. For Lansing, 1,500 new fulltime jobs in addition to the 700 construction jobs needed to build the 125,000-square-foot casino would boost a local economy that already has momentum.”
$25,000,000 in payroll / 1,000 employees = $25,000 average annual salary per employee
1,000 jobs / 5 Casinos = 200 jobs per Casino on average
1,500 new lansing jobs / 200 average jobs per casino = 7.5 times the current average number of jobs per casino.
Seems odd.
The article also points out some interesting stats on salaries. I hope the casinos provide health care and fringe benefits because those salaries are a little lower than what I expected.
“Gaming Dealers: $25,910. They operate table games like craps, blackjack and roulette. In Detroit, the mean annual wage is $30,140; in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula it’s $18,110.
Gaming Supervisors: $47,100. They oversee the gaming operations and personnel in an assigned area. In Detroit, the annual wage is $57,840; in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula it’s $37,880. Gaming Managers earn more.
Gaming Cage Workers: $11.97 per hour (the mean wage in 2008). They work in the central depository for money and gaming chips.
Gaming Surveillance Officers/Investigators: $33,020. They observe casino operations for irregular activities such as cheating or theft by either employees or patrons. In Detroit, the annual wage is $37,710.
Slot key persons: $25,460. They coordinate and supervise the slot machine department at its workers.”
A $245 million American Indian casino in downtown Lansing could create about 2,200 jobs and help fund scholarships for area students, backers of the plan announced Monday. ….. The 125,000-square-foot casino would offer up to 3,000 slot machines and 48 gambling tables. Bernero said he hopes construction could start in 12-24 months, and estimates it would take 14-18 months.
2010 house construction data for Lansing was “Ave Cost per SF: $88.02″ (of course this is for houses so not a fair comparison but only data I could find)
Another comparison I am familiar with is the company I work for. From publicly announced press releases we know that for a fully equipped, state-of-the-art, data center the cost is:
In the 2011 Google Shareholders meeting question and answer section, Eric Schmidt dropped a hint about a new google feature they are working on that would allow instant voice translation. Incredible…
“The good news from your perspective is that we’re building bilateral voice translation phone to phone, so you will be able to call your friends in Ukrainian, speak in English, and it will come out Ukranian on the other side.” Here is a link to the time in the video where it was said.
If we eliminated language barriers, how would the world radically change? If we eliminated language barriers, how many wars would be prevented?
I tried to rent a house on Lake Lansing for 2 weeks in August and had an absolutely terrible experience with the owner. Here is my Lake Lansing rental house nightmare:
Julia, the renter, can not be trusted. I worked with Julia via email for more than a week. We agreed on pricing, dates, and all details. I came out to tour the cabin to make final arrangements. At the end of the tour, Julia agreed to send the contract over that night or the following morning. When I awake the next morning I have an email from Julia saying “unfortunately this home will not be available for your time i am sorry for any inconvience. julia” (notice the misspelling?) — No explanation. Nothing. Now my group has to scramble to find another cabin at the last minute. Julia cannot be trusted. Let this be a warning to others.
Beware of this Lake Lansing rental house and owner:
6383 east Reynolds road
Haslett, Michigan
Amidsts all of the talk about unemployment I thought I should point out something. At the company I work for - by far - our largest challenge at the moment is finding qualified people to hire.
We have built an amazing team but it is incredibly hard to find people.
I just thought I should point that out since all the talk today seems to be about people unable to find jobs.
My Opinion: Lansing City Council denied tax incentives to Gillespie group for two new projects in Lansing. To be very clear, I think Mr. Gillespie is one of the most important visionary developers in our town and I support his plans for these two projects. However, I hate group think. So I had to speak up.
I want to be clear on one thing. City council did NOT deny Mr. Gillespie’s plans for these two projects, as many have suggested. What they _did do_ is refused to give millions of dollars in loans and tax abatements to the project.* As I understand it, Mr. Gillespie is still completely within his rights to continue each of the projects. He would just have to do it without millions in forms of Government money. (Sure he’d still have to do the normal permitting, zoning and whatnot, but every single development has that requirement.)
I am NOT in favor of Government mandating the use of Union labor. That is deplorable.
HOWEVER, the real problem here is the tax incentive system and tax abatement system in the first place!
Most people have absolutely no idea what is involved in receiving a tax abatement. I’ll let you in on a secret, the Government has MANY strings attached to every single tax abatement/incentive. (Food for thought: Why do most Lansing companies walk away from MEGA Fund tax incentives?)
I just wanted to clarify this issue because there is far too much group think going on and too many people commenting on a process they know little about.
—-
Summary:
- I am in favor of Mr. Gillespie. I think he is a fantastic developer and an asset to our community.
- I am NOT in favor of mandating union labor.
- I am NOT in favor of making a “prevailing wage law”.
- But Most Importantly: I am NOT in favor of tax incentives and abatements. This is exactly what happens when you put government in between progress and business development. The answer is NOT finding creative ways to change the minds of the city council. The answer is addressing the completely terrible things that happen when Government is allowed to “pick-winners”.
*Jeff Hicks correctly pointed out that 100% union work was off the table at this point and was only proposed. I was incorrect in an earlier post. My apologies.
Jevons paradox - More efficiency doesn’t always mean less usage. The Mythical Man-Month - “adding manpower to a late software project makes it later” Dunbar’s number* -It is hard to maintain stable social relationships in groups over 150. Diminishing returns - The point at which an additional unit of input doesn’t produce the expected unit of output and output progressively decreases over time. Opportunity Cost - When presented with mutually exclusive choices, choosing one means sacrificing the other. “The basic relationship between scarcity and choice.” Correlation does not imply causation - Pretty self explanatory. If you think “correlation proves causation” - you’re an idiot.
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