How do I plan my career path to become a CEO of a Fortune 500 hotel chain?

Wrong question.

If you insist, you'd have to ask Marriott, Hilton or Hyatt -- those are the only hotel chains on the Fortune 500. (Actually there are four, but Starwood has been bought out by Marriott.) Accor didn't make it. Somehow, IHG, the owner of Holiday Inns, didn't, either. (Of course, I could learn more about Fortune’s methodology, but I don’t bother because I don’t pay that much attention to the Fortune 500.) Companies like Las Vegas Sands and MGM Resorts made it, but they're in the casino business, not the hotel business.

A better question would be, what would you do as CEO of one of those companies if you had the job? It’s a question that every applicant for any accountability in my company, especially that of a hotel manager, gets asked and I’d better like their answer — what would you do with this job if I gave it to you? What would you do with this hotel if I put you in as g.m.?

Because once you've settled on a good answer to the question, what would you do as CEO of one of those companies if you had the job? (and of course, will they like your answer? — don’t forget that part), two things happen.

Can I work in hospitality without a hotel degree?

I do, and I don’t have a hotel degree. (Mine’s in architectural technology, from a two-year comm-tech program. I’m a drafter by trade. When I completed the program, none of the area architects were hiring, so I ended up with a job as a night auditor in a hotel at the then-not-much-more-than-minimum-wage of $4.00 per hour, but it all worked out . . . )

If you want to run a really upscale, specialized, or complex property — a big box Hilton or Marriott with food, beverage and meeting space; a luxury property or resort — a degree in hotel administration or a specialized hospitality field is very helpful.

But much of it is going to be wasted on a select service or economy property, and that is where most people who are employed in hotels work.

It’s also the only kind of hotel we manage. We have, in one location, a Hotel RL in development. (We like the concept, so if it performs well, and running it and having it bring in enough revenue to keep the bills paid doesn’t drive us nuts, we may do more, because it looks like something that would be a particularly fun hotel to run). That one hotel will have about the most complexity — the food and beverage operation, ‘The Living Stage’, the meeting space — that we have any plans to deal with in the foreseeable future in any of our hotels.

Michael Forrest Jones' answer to How do you get into hotel management?

Michael Forrest Jones' answer to What is a smart answer to "Why should I choose you over the other candidates"?

Originally appeared on Quora

What's the best way to show my appreciation for a hotel desk clerk that routinely upgrades me to a suite, free of charge? (I stay at a specific hotel regularly and the desk has the option to upgrade my room. They do it almost every time at no charge. I don't think it's a corporate policy to upgrade regulars; the clerks pick and choose the upgrades based on personal discretion. What's a good way to "tip" them?)

Whatever you feel might be a fair amount of severance pay for the clerk, if it happens in my barn and I find out about it later. Or at least enough to compensate him or her for the written warning and the several days off he or she is going to get -- if the clerk is new and inexperienced, and I think he or she might be salvageable with a better understanding of how the business works and the occasional issues of ethics involved, and he or she still has a job there at all.

Upgraded and upscale rooms are priced a little higher for a reason.

We give out upgrades (Shoot, we do that more often than we rent the rooms at the full, upgraded rate.) We give out discounts. (Sometimes, I wonder why we even bother having a regular rate: see Michael Forrest Jones' answer to What is and why do hotels have a rack rate? ). But when we do, that's always done for a reason: it has to benefit the hotel in some way. An upgrade or a discount is, when given, the hotel's gift to give, not the clerk's. The clerk is only - or at least only supposed to be - acting on behalf of and in the interests of the hotel.

As a newly appointed manager at a store with mainly college students as employees (I myself am 22), how do I assert my new authority without the transition being too harsh or uncomfortable for all involved?

Don't worry about your authority. Your only concern is getting the job done. Okay, you have this store to run, you have these (however many) people to help . . .



Stay focused on objectives, not your 'position'. Everyone can buy into objectives. No one cares, or wants to care, about anyone's position. You can walk on water without getting your feet wet and still have people not wanting to buy into your 'position' . . .

Originally appeared on Quora

Entrepreneurs: Can I make it without business school?

Probably, but if you're at that age and you have the option, go. 

I wish I'd had the option. In my current line of work, my biggest weakness is my lack of ability to raise capital (Michael Forrest Jones' answer to Is there back and forth when you put company profile on AngelList or Gust? ). 



But it's not just about me building hotels . . . I could have produced movies, built shopping centers, built sports arenas . . . but whatever great thing you want to achieve (even finding a cure for AIDS, or implementing a plan for making E-85 fuel mainstream in America and using sugar cane-based alcohol and decreasing our dependence on oil); if you don't have the money in your pocket, you have to get it financed. And you have to know how.  

Even if you didn't know how to carry out the AIDS research, or mix up the fuel, you can always find someone who does and bankroll the project. Business and finance can get you into everything else.

If I were putting a kid through school who wasn't sure what to do with his life (and who had no particular STEM talent), I'd encourage business school over liberal arts any day of the week.

Originally appeared on Quora

Do employers take the University of Phoenix seriously when considering an applicant's resume?

I do and I don't.

I think the University of Phoenix is one step above a scam, its courses are overpriced (I'm assuming here that they're roughly equivalent to accredited college courses available at your local comm-tech, and not 'courses' of questionable value), its accreditation certainly didn't come from the same regional accreditation agency that accredited Harvard and MIT, and I automatically question the value of any product that is far and away too reliant on aggressive sales and marketing done the way the University of Phoenix does it. (Like many sellers of big-ticket items which some might wonder if they're worth what you're being asked to spend; if they get your e-mail address, plan on some daily spam in your inbox; if they get your phone number, plan on getting repeated calls until you scream at them to not call you again, or -- more likely -- block them...)

On the other hand, I think even reputable, accredited, conventional colleges and universities have for the last 50 or so years become such a money racket that, if the Mob isn't mixed up in it, it's only because they missed what could have been the biggest opportunity for themselves since Prohibition and the illegallization of drugs. Higher education is something people have to have, and conventional, accredited colleges and universities abuse the privilege. Tuition is high (there's no way you're going to convince me that it bears any relation to the institution's actual costs, and that there isn't a lot of waste built in), the fees never end, the price of the textbooks is exorbitant - and this was all true when I was in college thirty years ago.

Now it's much worse, and the prevailing student debt burden is now a national scandal. Why shouldn't it be? The institutions know you have to have higher education, so they can name their price, have you fill out a financial aid form, clean out your pockets, clean out your parents' bank accounts, pocket the proceeds from a second mortgage on Mom and Dad's house, load you down with more student debt than would pay for a new home of your own regardless of your eventual income after you graduate - and bill the government for the rest. I wish I could rent hotel rooms to people at such prices and on such terms.

When hiring for your startup, how much does not having a college degree play into your decision?

Zip. For someone who can deliver the goods, the degree (or lack of one) is irrelevant. For someone who can't, it amounts to nothing more than a degree in "you owe me a chance because I went to college".  (Michael Forrest Jones' answer to Do employers take the University of Phoenix seriously when considering an applicant's resume? | Michael Forrest Jones' answer to What is it like to be a high school dropout?   )



Oh, you've "proven yourself"?  Maybe you have -- to someone else. My hiring decisions are about my needs, not your pedigree or credentials.

Originally appeared on Quora

What book should I read to learn about hotel management?

Hopefully, more than one book. 

No single person, not even I, knows enough about it to tell you everything you'd want to know. It's like asking what book you'd read to become a good automobile mechanic. Or what book would you read to beat the stock market (I picked up one a few months back about just how impossible it is to do that, or for anyone in government to regulate it without doing more harm than good, for that matter, because while everyone has little bits and pieces of information and understanding of it, no one knows enough about the whole of it to do it successfully: The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street: Justin Fox: 9780060599034: Amazon.com: Books   ).

And if hotel management is something you want to get in to, you'll want to be the kind of guy who'll add something, make a contribution, of your own if you're going to build something that'll stand out from the general lot of them - otherwise, at best, you can hope to be just another guy running just another Hampton Inn. You'll also want to be the kind of person who'll walk around, see things, watch things, read through printouts of numbers that most other people would consider quite dry and boring, ask questions (and over time learn to ask the right questions), and make best possible use of the answers. Believe it or not, watching Hotel Impossible on The Travel Channel (http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-... ), and learning to make like Anthony Melchiorri, can help here. I'm a fan of the show, and I'm not ashamed even to admit that I learn things from it.



That said . . . let's start with the basics.  Get the latest copy (or the next-to-the-latest: it's a college text and priced accordingly, and I don't like the margins that college bookstores, and publishers and other retailers of college texts, make on required texts . . .) of  Check-In Check-Out: Managing Hotel Operations (8th Edition): Gary K. Vallen, Jerome J. Vallen: 9780132059671: Amazon.com: Books (there's a 9th edition that was released in 2012, vs. 2008, but it's $110, and the only thing of serious importance that's happened since is a mortgage crisis and real estate crash that affected hotels as badly as residential mortgages; but is irrelevant to operations and management, the topics in which you show an interest and in which no major advances have occurred.)