100th Post Published!

Would you consider that an achievement?

Do you celebrate milestones in your career and life?

Acknowledging milestones are key to consistent achievement.

They galvanize you, keep the fire burning.

You need milestones to egg you on.

I will lay out a strong case for milestones in this May 2023 update.

I will begin with a milestone very close!

This post is my 100th post on my blog!!!🎉 🎊 👏🥂

I thank all of you, my readers, from the bottom of my heart for the support over these 100 posts.

I am so elated at this milestone.

It is what you could call a labor of love.

And I know it could not have happened without you, my reader's support.

Let me share how it all began.

Perhaps you may find some inspiration from it.

Or be reminded of your own milestones.

The journey from 1 to the 100th post is quite an amazing one.

This infographic encapsulates that experience.

This Blog Post will cover

Journey from 1 to 100th Post

Where, when and how did this journey to the 100th post begin?

Watch this quick (less than 1 minute) video for the journey to the 100th post.

Well, it was sometime during the summer of 2020 (rise of covid-19).

Rampant daily infections were triggering lockdowns.

My New York University semester classes were turning into Zoom sessions.

It was during being home bound one day that I remembered what my late father had told me always.

He said I was privileged to have had good education in my life.

However, he insisted that I should not waste it.

I must share knowledge so that others benefited from it.

And so began my crusade to this milestone - my 100th post.

The Mission & Journey to the 100th Post

My mission was, not surprisingly, to Share Knowledge that will Benefit Others.

I was after all executing my late father’s wish.

I had already invested 26 years of my career and life in the hospitality industry.

I decided to focus on Hotel Middle Manager Professional Development.

More specifically:

• Helping You Understand Hotel Financial Statements in a Non-Technical, Usable way.
• Building Financial Skills, Knowledge & Ability in You.
• Cover topics on
  • Hotel Financial Statements,
  • Revenue Management,
  • Restaurant Profitability,
  • Leadership & Productivity Practices

Why hotel middle manager?

Because for one reason, I had been in that industry for a quarter of a century.

I needed to share those years of experience to benefit my colleagues.

Second, often, at the early stage of a career, hotel middle managers needed guidance.

You, as a hotel middle manager need to be committed to your own professional development.

Ask yourself regularly whether you are doing. that.

I decided that I would use blogging as my medium to share knowledge.

My passion for writing was I thought a good fit.

To be honest, I had no idea this amazing journey would lead me to my 100th post in less than 3 years.

It once again reinforced to me the power of determination and persistence.

It was in July 2020 that I purchased a self hosted WordPress website.

Financial Skills Academy is born!

I published my very first blog post on July 28, 2020.

It was a thrilling experience to say the least.

Publishing your first creation to the world at large is an experience unlike any other.

The internet was of course the magic catalyst.

It was like picking up a megaphone and literally announcing yourself to the world!

Handling all the set up and maintenance of the new website myself meant however that I was not posting regularly.

So, 2020 saw me publish only 4 posts.

Yet it was a great beginning.

Remember the saying: Rome was not built in a day.

And I was determined.

With more familiarity with the website, I stepped up the pace.

The year 2021 saw me publish 26 posts.

This was roughly once in two weeks for the year.

I was on my way.

All this while I was doing some voracious reading.

Reading is another interest that I had cultivated right from childhood.

I was learning tons about the blogging practice.

It was in 2021 that I also ran into the Notion software.

In the past I had been using different software for task management (OmniFocus), journaling (Day One) etc.

After using the Notion software, understanding it’s versatility and power, I shifted my entire operation into Notion.

I use it for business and personally as well.

Content Management & Certification

During all this, I was absorbing some major strategies of content management.

I got myself a Certification in Content Management from Hubspot Academy.

Hubspot Academy is an awesome online resource to learn content related stuff.

Many of their courses are free too!

If you are into blogging or writing, try them out.

The year 2022 saw me publish 30 posts.

Now, I was ready to step on the accelerator.

Road to 100th Post - 2023 Target of One Post Every Week

With me becoming more familiar with Notion, I set my 2023 target to 52 posts.

One post every week.

This meant that I had to organize myself to:

• conceptualize
• research
• topic chunk
• write and
• publish

each week.

I made Friday (like Today) my deadline for weekly publishing.

It meant putting in place a system to regularly prepare, write and publish posts.

This was the time I set up a milestone in my Notion system for the 100th post.

I then began the countdown to that milestone.

I kept subtracting from the 100th post every time I published in the year 2023 (yes, this year).

I am thrilled to tell you that until this 100th post in June 2023.

I have already published 38 posts in 2023.

Or 1.8 posts per week.

Way above the 1.0 weekly post target.

In my posts, I have used multiple media like:

• courses
• blog posts,
• videos,
• podcasts,
• infographics,
• ultimate guides etc.

100th Post & Some Amazing Statistics

For me, it is not just a milestone of publishing my 100th post, though I am proud of it.

I discovered that I had written:

More than 350,000 words in the 100 Posts.

That is equivalent to roughly three full fledged printed books!

Averaged more than 3,500 words per post.

I am thrilled at how my mission to share knowledge is turning out.

In the meanwhile, I had set other targets for myself apart from the 100th post.

I had set a goal for myself to rank high on Google in organic search.

This means:

• when somebody searches for,
• say, hotel balance sheet basics topic,
• my blog post Ultimate Guide on Hotel Balance Sheet Basics
• would appear on Google Page #1 as the 5th item.

Take a moment to digest that.

When you typed hotel balance sheet basics into the search box, Google gave you twenty three million four hundred thousand results.

Among those twenty three million four hundred thousand results, my blog post on the balance sheet features:

As the 5th Result on Page #1 of Google Search!

That is, 5th out of 23,400,000 Results!

Boy oh Boy, my head swam when I first came across this.

Similarly, based on keywords that I had targeted, I have a few others which rank on Page #1 in Google.

3 to 5 keywords rank on pages 1 to 3.

Organic search is critical for my readers to find my posts without any paid advertising.

I took it as one of the fulfilling accomplishments of the value of my posts.

In March 2023, I partnered with www.4hoteliers.com to publish one exclusive guest post on their website each month.

Among the 100 posts, let me pick the best ten.

My Top 10 Blog Posts

Click below for my best performing 10 blog posts:

Content Focus in May 2023 Update

This May 2023 update to assist in professional development of hotel middle managers covered topics like:

• Leadership & Productivity Practices
• Hotel Financial Statements
• Hotel Revenue Management
• Ultimate Guides

Leadership & Productivity Practices

I continued my 3 part series of posts on leadership and productivity practices that I was following.

In the month of May, I published Parts 2 & 3 of the series.

Click for OKR - Your Guiding Force for Consistent Achievement

Click for OKR Review - Your Litmus Test for Measuring Achievement

Hotel Financial Statements

As part of my non-technical, action based topics on finance basics, I published a video post specifically for hotel middle managers.

Click for Financial Statement Defects Hotel Middle Managers Miss

Hotel Revenue Management

Continuing my 7 Part Series on Hotel Revenue Management Strategies, I published Part 1 on Room Inventory.

Click for Room Inventory - a Hotel Asset Management Challenge

Ultimate Guides

Continuing my behind the scenes posts, I laid out the philosophy of ultimate guides.

In particular, I made the case for comprehensive discussion on hotel finance topics.

Ultimate Guides play a big role in the forthcoming Financial Skills Academy Membership roll out.

These guides also emphasize why the membership is called the Ultimate Learning Hub for Hotel Finance Training.

Click for Ultimate Guides - Topics In Depth Critical for Professional Development

Your Professional Development Partner

Want to know how you can achieve professional development with Your Success Partner?

Next Week...Yield and Revenue

Next Week, we will continue my 7 Part Series on Hotel Revenue Management Strategies, with Part 2 on Yield and Revenue.

I will see you next Friday.