no, its low ROI. Check out YEXT for the price they cross list your brand all over in a big way. Big time saver.

I would take a way different angle. I believe your employer already knows you are due additional compensation and that is why it is getting put off. Maybe they don't have current resources to give you what they deserve so he is kicking the can down the road. What I would do is walk up to him/her and say "Name, I want you to know that I am really excited about how I have grown and developed here and hope that as part of our next step we can sit down together and plan a long career path so I can continue to be a bigger asset for you. I know your very busy but this is a priority to me, would it be possible to set a firm time/date we can stick to right now? Don't let the employer stave off having the conversation with you, its a poor leadership tactic and doesn't show respect for the work you have performed or the amount you have grown. I am sure he isn't avoiding conversations with you about other things...

I wouldn't push for anything I would simply reach out to them to understand their timeline and process that they would use should they want to merge/buyout, etc. Pretty reasonable question to ask and that way you know the whole play from front to back. I recently met with a merger candidate who was eager and wanted to meet but when I communicated that a possible merger might take 2 years to implement because of licensing, geography, office leases, employment redundancy, etc they were immediately turned off. In order for a deal to work the deal has to make sense AND the timing has to be there for both parties. You should feel comfortable asking these questions of the other party or they aren't taking you seriously. Buyers or merger candidates expect due diligence and questions throughout the process. Not asking would be a big red flag to me that the other party didn't know what they were doing or were timid communicators. Both of which would turn me off.

Without understanding the product better it is a little difficult to figure out how to market it. I would develop a thorough marketing plan based on the demographics of your very specific target buyer. Make sure you understand where and when they make the purchase decision. Is it only online? Store? Where would they learn and read about it? What is your marketing budget? If you want a real answer to this question that addresses your needs and gets you moving, I think there are 20-30 questions to be answered first. Marketing is multi faceted and there are over 30 viable marketing medians you could actively consider or try to estimate ROI on. Should be a combination of online/traditional marketing.

Absolutely. I would focus as much as possible at raising the least amount of money possible while still optimizing your businesses ability to execute on its strategy. Money isn't free, the cost is the equity, interest, etc.

I think communication is going to be key. Most of the time based on what you are saying you are dealing with an A personality who is more focused on results rather than the office politics. Since control is the issue you may consider defining the employees job role better so he/she understands what they should be delegating. If they can't delegate properly without being overbearing then you need to work with them to help them understand the issue. Begin by asking if they trust the other employees at the company. This question will be alarming to the employee to the extent they will know something is wrong, and that is GOOD because it provides an opportunity to open up communication issues to help solve the identified problem. The A personalities tend to be so results driven that they don't even notice their controlling nature. I would follow that up by coaching the employee weekly and sitting in silently on meetings with the employee and their subordinates so you can see first hand what is going on. Then hold debriefing meetings with gentle nudges in the right direction. On the side burner, develop a company mission statement with input from employees but make sure collaboration and positive team synergy hit the list as top priorities over bottom line results. If the employee continues to ignore the signs being sent out and is resistant to your coaching meetings, I would consider actively managing them out or even asking what their career goals are to see if they align with your companies' needs any longer. Having a key player being a control freak can easily demotivate the rest of the team and also lead to turnover issues, so I would avoid sitting on the problem just because they are "vital" to the organization. Don't forget, everyone is replaceable. Just a matter of how much time it takes to properly plan a transition.. I would be happy to hop on a call to discuss further and see if there are other strategies that may work based on a more detailed description of what the employee is controlling about and what kinds of ripples that is causing.

Happy to help with this and can probably bring lots of ideas to the table. Also, since LOCAL is the focus, you can't just use digital. Most of your bookings are going to come from local non digital marketing, but they will coincide with the digital marketing you do. The efforts need to be combined for effectiveness. If you are interested in a call please send me link to hotel's site so I can research before hand. OTA might not be the way to go. Happy to hop on a 10 minute free call to discuss further to see if there is a fit.

You need to develop and implement a thorough marketing plan then implement, test, revise. Creating a good program takes a lot of time and should be done with the help of a sales or marketing consultant. I have tons of B2B selling and marketing experience and would love to connect. I believe in a multi faceted marketing approach that hits and TESTS all medians for effectiveness. First you need to develop a very specific target market based on your product sales and current experience selling to different types of businesses. I would be happy to hop on a short free call to discuss further and help you expand on the ideas.

Mandrill, mailchimp, constant contact, ACT!, Salesforce...

The firsts thing to try to do is reach out the employee and see if there are issues with communication or expectations that can be resolved to help the employee be a better fit. From there if the problem isn't solvable I would start to slowly isolate the employee and manage them out. If they do anything that impacts the integrity of the business or are preventing you from properly moving forward, terminate.