Neil Castaldi – Hospitality Tricks: Good Management

Doing well in the hospitality industry, according to Robert Rauch, President of RAR Hospitality is partially achieved by being able to have an effective management team. Leadership plays an important role in any industry, but is especially important to hospitality because it sets the tempo and feel of a resort or hotel, which often determines a guest’s experience. A good leader and manager will show their team of employees better ways to interact with customers, handle their complaints and concerns, as well as work on their own personal flaws. In fact, part of being a good leader and manager is about being able to admit flaws and weaknesses. This demonstrates to the employees that if the management still needs improvement, they are likely to need it as well.

A good leader and manager is someone that demonstrates, not demands. Robert Rauch says that you have to, “walk the talk” to be a good leader. This just means that a manager can’t just tell their employees what to do, they need to show them. One good example to improve overall quality of a resort is to establish good connections with the guests. Managers should take a personal and vested interest in each guest. This will make a guest feel valued and welcome, which improves the overall quality of their experience. A good manager will also be patient and share their knowledge of the facility with the guests. Anything to improve a guest’s experience is likely to be good for business.

The Nottoway Plantation of Neil Castaldi is a historical resort that has a great team of managers.

Aldo Read: Neil Castaldi – Trends in Hospitality : Mobile Social Media

Neil Castaldi: Skills to Develop to be Successful in the Hospitality Industry

The hospitality industry includes all hotels and inns. If you want to get into the fast-paced and challenging hotel industry for a career, you have to develop a few skills that will pay dividends throughout your entire career in the hospitality industry.

These skills will also play in your everyday life as well:

• Ensuring customer satisfaction is a commitment that all hospitality staff has to master quickly to build a successful career in the industry. Even the corporate executives who run hotels have long since committed to helping customers get what they want at their hotels.

• Communication skills. Communicating is a useful skill to have in any industry, but in the hospitality industry, it is even more important to communicate with co-workers, those below you in the company organization, and with customers to ensure excellent service.

• How to use a computer. Knowing basic functions using software is a key skill that many hotel managers value in their workers because of the new emphasis on using Information Technology to manage hotel operations and key in on customer’s needs at all times.

• Not so much a skill as a state of mind, you have to go into the hospitality industry with enthusiasm and a work ethic that will get you noticed. If you can’t get excited about doing your work well and helping people, you’re in the wrong business.

Neil Castaldi has enjoyed 35 years working in the hospitality industry. He is the General Manager of the Nottoway Plantation, in southern Louisiana.

Recommended Read: Neil Castaldi: Three Skills Every Hospitality Professional Has to Possess

Neil Castaldi: Three Skills Every Hospitality Professional Has to Possess

Working in the hospitality industry provides people with a rewarding career and, if they are skilled and they stick with it, a nice living. In order to make it to the big bucks, however, you have to be willing to be an excellent customer service representative, and cater to all guests’ needs.

Many people think that they care about customers and that they provide them with excellent care, but when the going gets tough, they fold. If you want to succeed in the hospitality business, you have to come in with enthusiasm for helping people, and these three skills:

• Interpersonal skills. No guest wants to try to pierce through your hard outer shell to get to the real you. You have to present understanding and friendliness to all customers, and be able and willing to work with your coworkers.

• The best hospitality workers—and the ones that get promotions—are those who can step up and command projects. This skill allows you to contribute to the company’s overall success.

• As a hospitality employee, you’ll have to stay on top of all of the many tasks and duties you’ll be asked to perform. You have to work on multiple projects at once and stay ahead of all of them.

Neil Castaldi has over 35 years of experience in the hospitality sector. He has owned several hotels and restaurants in his career, and today works as the General Manager and Vice President of Operations for the Nottoway Plantation, a beautiful antebellum-era resort in southern Louisiana.

Recommended Read: Neil Castaldi : How to Manage Effectively

The Nottoway Mansion: The Largest Intact Antebellum Mansion

The Nottoway Mansion, located between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana, is the South’s largest fully intact antebellum-era plantation. Recently renovated to restore the property to its former glory, the Nottoway is an excellent venue for weddings and other special events. It also offers historical tours in which guests can walk the grounds and learn the history of the family that lived in the mansion for hundreds of years. It also features forty rooms for guests to stay in overnight, two honeymoon suites, two grand ballrooms that hosted some of the most famous Southern luminaries of the past hundred and fifty years, a Grand Pavilion, and a restaurant.

The recent renovation of the Nottoway Mansion added many guest amenities for corporate and social events, in addition to restoring the historic grounds. Now with more luxury rooms and full event facilities, the Nottoway Mansion remains one of the most popular stops between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The Nottoway has long been an attraction for all ages, with tours gliding through the sprawling grounds seven days a week and featuring incredible stories of the old South amidst one of its largest and most magnificent properties in southern Louisiana.

Neil Castaldi is the Vice President of Operations for the Nottoway Mansion, as well as Managing Partner. His diligence when planning the budget and handling profit and loss duties for the company allowed Nottoway to undergo a $35 million renovation to make the grounds and the facilities more enjoyable and open to more people in the area.

Neil Castaldi – P and L Management: Allocating Resources

P and L Managers have a large influence in how their company allocates their resources. Profit and Loss Managers have to analyze the benefits and costs of every project their companies take on. These professionals are usually executive leaders on the corporate level who have the skills to analyze each expense line by line to determine whether they are worth what their companies pay. P and L Managers are in every industry; their companies pay them to ensure that their budgets are being used efficiently. For every company, every small expense matters, especially companies that provide specialized services to the public.

Hospitality companies, for example, usually have high overhead costs. These companies often hire P and L Managers to help them comb through their rolling expenses to find ways to improve profits and cut costs. Restaurants have to continually buy more food for their kitchens, hire new staff when needed, and improve their facilities from time to time. Depending on their clientele, these businesses have to invest smartly in their infrastructure to attract their target audience. For them, creating the best individualized atmosphere is what matters most. They need their budgets to go into creating this atmosphere for their target customers.

Neil Castaldi is a P and L Manager working for Nottoway Plantation, a large property in southern Louisiana that acts as a hotel and special events venue for the people of that area. Castaldi presided over a huge renovation project on the Nottoway grounds that cost over $35 million.

Also Read: Nottoway Plantation of Neil Castaldi : Core Concepts

Neil Castaldi : How to Manage Effectively

Managers are the heart and soul of a company. Mid-level or higher management drives companies to greatness if managers are effective at motivating their workers to complete the tasks that upper-level executives lay out for them. Managers ensure that the vision of the CEO and the business owner gets realized.

To find consistent success as a manager, you have to be at once tough and fair. Getting your workers to operate at their highest efficiency and potential sometimes takes years to achieve, but managers who can consistently get excellent work and productivity out of their workers are highly rewarded.

Recommended Read: Neil Castaldi: Three Skills All Managers Must Master

Managing effectively means that you have to communicate well and be willing to adapt your management style to individual workers. It’s important to have consistent expectations, but workers also need you to be aware of their individual strengths, weaknesses, and preferences so that they can be as productive as possible for you. Your team works for you, and you have a responsibility to them to manage them well so that they can get the rewards from upper management that you crave as well. Be open and caring with your workers, but remind them that they have a duty and a job to perform as well. Be strict but always take mercy whenever possible.

Neil Castaldi has been a manager for 35 years. He is the General Manager, Managing Partner, and VP of Operations for Nottoway Plantation, a large antebellum-style resort in southern Louisiana designed for special events and for luxury getaways for the whole family.

Neil Castaldi – A Great Manager & a Savvy Businessman

Neil Castaldi of the Nottoway Plantation is not just a great manager and a savvy businessman, but a lover of food as well. He enjoys many different cuisines, cooking them as much as eating them. There is a lot of culture and identity in food, many feelings that can be shared simply by giving each other a taste of what we are eating.

Three Skills That Will Make You Successful in Hospitality

The hospitality industry is one of the few in the United States that is relatively recession-proof. In certain areas of the country, people will still take vacations and need places to stay. This is where you come in.

Traveling and staying in unfamiliar places can be hard on individuals and families. Your job as a hospitality professional is to make people feel at home. Here are three skills that you will need to develop to perform your duties and rise quickly in the hospitality industry.

• Deep knowledge of hygiene standards. Study your state’s hygiene standards for food and hospitality employees. The better you know the standards before you apply for jobs at food-serving establishments and hotels, the better prepared you will be if hired.

• Working in small groups. Teamwork is essential to providing people with excellent customer service. You should develop the skills necessary to handle work and issues that inevitably come up so that you become a better teammate and a more effective worker.

• Attention to detail. Being thorough in all of your projects and duties is a key skill that all hospitality managers look for in workers they want to promote. Take the extra time at first to thoroughly master your tasks and duties before you try to complete them as well as your superiors.

Neil Castaldi has worked in the hospitality industry for 35 years in a wide range of capacities. He has owned restaurants and hotel chains, and today he works for the Nottoway Plantation, a scenic old South plantation open for overnight stays and tours in southern Louisiana.

Also Read: Neil Castaldi: Three Skills All Managers Must Master

Neil Castaldi: Executive with P and L Management Experience

In his 35 years of work in the hospitality industry, Neil Castaldi has developed excellent profit and loss management skills. These skills are invaluable at his General Management position at the Nottoway Plantation in southern Louisiana. He presided over the Nottoway’s largest renovation project since the mid-nineteenth century, with the company investing over $35 million in the project.

Castaldi was happy to help with the project. He loves the Nottoway Plantation, and has been there since he took over as the General Manager. Since then, he has helped manage the property well and keep the business booming and bringing in new customers from all over the world.

The Nottoway Plantation is located between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. It has hosted many international dignitaries over the years, as well as several United States Presidents. The beautiful, sprawling grounds are the perfect setting for weddings or large social or corporate events. Neil Castaldi helped expand the Plantation’s operations as a resort as well, renovating over forty new rooms for overnight guests, and creating more amenities for guests staying at the resort. For day visitors, Castaldi and the management team provide a restaurant featuring excellent Creole food, a lounge, and a full service hair and nail salon. Castaldi and his team at Nottoway have succeeded in presenting the resort as an authentic Southern experience with all the amenities to keep people coming back for more.

Neil Castaldi is an experienced hotel management professional, and an experienced restaurant owner and manager. He is known for his meticulous attention to detail. His weekly treatment of the budget features a line-by-line accounting of everything on the budget and a thorough understanding of how each item contributes to more profits and more visitors learning about the history of the South at Nottoway Plantation. Castaldi sees teaching people about the history of the area as one of the most important facets of the business. That is why the plantation features tours seven days a week, so that anyone stopping by can tour the beautiful grounds, see all the antebellum style architecture, and learn about the property.

Neil Castaldi has built a reputation as a manager who is fair and tough. He keeps his workers on task but he also works to understand his staff and help them succeed. He knows that happy employees make happy customers. Castaldi has spent his life making guests feel at home, and his experience has shown in his work with Nottoway Plantation.

Neil Castaldi: Three Skills All Managers Must Master

Managers in all companies have to help their workers provide solutions for the company and its customers. It is the manager’s job to motivate his or her workers and help them succeed. When managers can run their departments and their teams well, the company as a whole succeeds.

When managers are good at their jobs, everyone wins. Here are three skills that all managers must master to be successful in any company in any industry.

• Relating to people with a positive attitude and being open to all of their workers’ concerns is a skill that, sadly, many managers never master. It’s easy to focus on team metrics and overlook the human aspect of a team. Never forget that your workers are people, too.
• Managers have to relate to their workers. When workers come to them for support on one problem or issue or another, managers have to relate to their struggles in order to help them and build trust. Managers can’t do this without empathy.
• Managers have to rise to meet challenges and help the company succeed, not simply complete all the work on time. Accountability causes managers to think outside the box and do whatever it takes to complete their projects for the company.

Neil Castaldi has decades of managerial experience in the hospitality industry. He is the General Manager for the Nottoway Plantation, a resort and special event venue located between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana. Castaldi has successfully managed many teams over his career.

Also Read: Managing Expenses: Corporate Executives