Be Belgian and living in Belgium. Know nothing about English traditional manor houses (although you did buy an castle in Belgium a couple of years ago, probably the same thing, how hard can it be right?).
Buy Charlton House, a quaint old English manor house in the South of England. Spot the old mulberry tree at the front, seems to be taking a bit of looking after and people seem to be willing to give you money for it, so flog it at the earliest opportunity. The money will help you tidy up the drive that could have been better maintained. Spend the next few weeks telling the manager (who's been keeping the place running successfully for 2 years of recession) that you gave him 3 apple trees to replace it and he should get them planted. He keeps telling you they're no replacement for some reason (no-one wants to see them, he reckons) but clearly he's just being stubborn so you sack him and get someone in who spent a few weeks running your castle (before you sacked him for similar reasons).
Unbelievably after a few weeks he's moaning about the same bloody apple trees. He manages to turn things around (with just the loan of one or two historic heirlooms) but you don't forget he had the temerity to argue with you so bin him for a guy who once ran a B&B in Belarus. Oh, and you've now sourced some lovely fig trees, so he's got no excuse (he says they won't survive the English climate, but my mate says they grow in Israel and I want to believe him rather than agree with all the amateur gardeners here).
In the meantime, you redecorate every room with some materials you had left over from a previous job in Europe - ok it doesn't look like olde English anymore, but who cares what the customers think? You should also ignore that old rule of supply and demand and slap prohibitive pricing on for their use, and cream teas are just sooo old fashioned that you really must replace them with eels.
That bus service that brings 100 pensioners a week into the building costs you a little bit of money. It's probably outweighed by what they're spending in entrance fees, in the cafe and in getting little presents for their grandchildren, but you'll be damned if any small part of your business will lose money. Reduce the service and up the prices, that'll do it.
The B&B guy doesn't seem to be working out, but there's that guy that the villagers threw out of your old castle last year that you kept on gardening leave. He'll do, just make sure the customers don't realise any of this. Instruct your manor house CEO to tell them you've talked to every successful manor house manager in the country in a time that got Guinness checking their record books, including the chap that managed the boom times here and would love to do the same before he retires, but that managing a castle for a few months makes your guy the best man for the job. And maybe, just maybe, he'll get the new orange trees you've brought in from someone's home in Hungary fruiting before the frosts get to them.
Strangely the customers don't seem to like any of this, ungrateful bastards. It's your manor house, it's your money - they just have to accept the changes! Get your CEO to tell them to like it or lump it and put them back in their box, bloody cheek.
Oh, they lumped it. That was a surprise - bloody English. Still, at least the 'buy an English manor home, run it like a Belgian castle' theory was sound, even if the customers wouldn't make it work...
Comments
Be Belgian and living in Belgium. Know nothing about English traditional manor houses (although you did buy an castle in Belgium a couple of years ago, probably the same thing, how hard can it be right?).
Buy Charlton House, a quaint old English manor house in the South of England. Spot the old mulberry tree at the front, seems to be taking a bit of looking after and people seem to be willing to give you money for it, so flog it at the earliest opportunity. The money will help you tidy up the drive that could have been better maintained. Spend the next few weeks telling the manager (who's been keeping the place running successfully for 2 years of recession) that you gave him 3 apple trees to replace it and he should get them planted. He keeps telling you they're no replacement for some reason (no-one wants to see them, he reckons) but clearly he's just being stubborn so you sack him and get someone in who spent a few weeks running your castle (before you sacked him for similar reasons).
Unbelievably after a few weeks he's moaning about the same bloody apple trees. He manages to turn things around (with just the loan of one or two historic heirlooms) but you don't forget he had the temerity to argue with you so bin him for a guy who once ran a B&B in Belarus. Oh, and you've now sourced some lovely fig trees, so he's got no excuse (he says they won't survive the English climate, but my mate says they grow in Israel and I want to believe him rather than agree with all the amateur gardeners here).
In the meantime, you redecorate every room with some materials you had left over from a previous job in Europe - ok it doesn't look like olde English anymore, but who cares what the customers think? You should also ignore that old rule of supply and demand and slap prohibitive pricing on for their use, and cream teas are just sooo old fashioned that you really must replace them with eels.
That bus service that brings 100 pensioners a week into the building costs you a little bit of money. It's probably outweighed by what they're spending in entrance fees, in the cafe and in getting little presents for their grandchildren, but you'll be damned if any small part of your business will lose money. Reduce the service and up the prices, that'll do it.
The B&B guy doesn't seem to be working out, but there's that guy that the villagers threw out of your old castle last year that you kept on gardening leave. He'll do, just make sure the customers don't realise any of this. Instruct your manor house CEO to tell them you've talked to every successful manor house manager in the country in a time that got Guinness checking their record books, including the chap that managed the boom times here and would love to do the same before he retires, but that managing a castle for a few months makes your guy the best man for the job. And maybe, just maybe, he'll get the new orange trees you've brought in from someone's home in Hungary fruiting before the frosts get to them.
Strangely the customers don't seem to like any of this, ungrateful bastards. It's your manor house, it's your money - they just have to accept the changes! Get your CEO to tell them to like it or lump it and put them back in their box, bloody cheek.
Oh, they lumped it. That was a surprise - bloody English. Still, at least the 'buy an English manor home, run it like a Belgian castle' theory was sound, even if the customers wouldn't make it work...