Hello, everyone, and welcome to This Week In hospitality Marketing Show number two hundred and eighty four. With us, we have a special co-host, Tagil Patel. I got it. I got it right. I got it right.

[00:00:29.350] – Loren

OK, afterwards, it’s all downhill for me.

[00:00:34.150] – Loren

OK, so of course, also our wonderful guest, the co-host that we have the pleasure of always having with is a government from Aspire Reputation Marketing, Miss Stephanie Smith with Wheel Marketing, Mr. De Schmidt with Biddix Base Camp, Metasearch Marketing, and Stewart brother with some big companies, some somewhere based in the Carolinas. I forgive you. Fuel something, fuel travel.

[00:00:58.810] – Loren

But before I get to meet with you. Stephanie. You were so kind enough to get our co-host for us today, perhaps you would do the more formal introduction to her and then lead off the conversation.

[00:01:09.070] – Stephanie

Yeah, I’m excited for today’s co-host. Tejal, thanks for joining us. She is a third generation hotelier based out of Texas and the Houston area. She has a diverse background that we will get into the day before she started management company name hospitality. She’s super involved in women’s advocacy, which is one of the reasons that I felt so passionately about bringing inviting her to come on the show today. So I’m sure we’ll talk about that. But I think the other reason we brought her on is a lot of us on the vendor side, we’re working with management companies and our GMs, and we thought it was a good idea to bring in an ownership perspective.

[00:01:50.740] – Stephanie

And Tejal being on the newer generation, I think has some different thoughts about how the ownership slash operations relationship can change. So I’m looking forward to that as a discussion topic. But I’ll hand it over and you can fill in the gaps with anything that you know in terms of what you’ve, I guess, how you got to where you are today and then how the pandemic affected you. And then we can just go off on whatever standard it takes us.

[00:02:18.820] – Tejal

Yeah, sure.

[00:02:19.480] – Tejal

So I guess just to give a little bit more detail on my background, so born and raised in the industry, literally born into the industry, I say that because when I came home from the hospital, I didn’t come home anywhere. I came home to thirty from independent motel in like the smallest town in Georgia. So hospitality has been my blood. I worked in restaurants, I worked in bands, and ever since I was 16 years old and I never really thought that I would get into the ownership side as quickly as I did.

[00:02:51.460]

I just thought that, OK, I’m going to do my own thing and then maybe after I’m thirty, I’ll come back and that’s when I’ll take over the family business and really just get back to what my family has created for me. So I remember I went to a convention in Houston. It’s so funny. So I needed extra money when I was in school. So my professor emailed us and said, hey, what’s your registration? And you’ll get paid for like perfect.

[00:03:20.860]

And then after about a week I volunteered and I loved it. I was just so in love with, like, just seeing how total ownership is specifically in this community has evolved and how there’s another generation coming up and a younger generation.

[00:03:36.190]

I was also intrigued that there weren’t many females in the space either. And so I remember that week. I don’t remember. I skipped all my classes. I skipped and I went to that convention. And ever since then, I haven’t looked back. I decided to I still work outside of the family. So I did working for another hotel. I work for consulting.

[00:03:57.820]

And then I had when I had worked with my family before for the consulting gig, I hated it. I hated working with my parents. It was awful because it’s just it’s such there’s a generation gap to whatever my ideas were when it came to marketing or creating more leaner operations.

[00:04:20.020]

Like my dad was kind of like, oh, I don’t know what it is and I’ve done this forever. So then I to the consulting gig and then I come back. But this time I decided I’m going to come back. So I’m afraid I need your hospitality right before the pandemic messed everything up. And so that’s kind of delayed my plan a little bit. But I’m here now. I’ve been working through it. It’s been a little bit hard to get things going.

[00:04:47.830]

But so I think remember I was talking about how I was working on my first project and it was getting really difficult to break ground and all that. And we finally broke ground three weeks ago.

[00:04:58.750]

So, yeah, that’s all going in that aspect. And currently I am also still working with the family.

[00:05:07.000]

I do the marketing and public relations for a brand new area of property in Texas. I’m familiar with that property.

[00:05:19.590]

So one of the other shows you were talking about, you know, like getting into the Marriott ecosphere, and I guess I’m also just curious how that’s different than some of the other ventures that your your family is.

[00:05:32.590]

Sure. So we’ve been for a long time. We’ve done smaller properties like budget and economy level. And even if they were franchised, we did hotels that were like Super eight, for example. So I will always mention Super eight because that was literally like our bread and butter for about 20 plus years.

[00:05:49.980]

So working with a smaller brand, getting into the smaller brands, it’s not as hard as it is to get into a big brand. So we’re in with Marriott now, and it is it was all right. But then to just maintain their standards, like have a lot of brand standards. And even during this pandemic, they didn’t really cut loose on those, especially during the. So it’s it’s been a challenge. It’s nice to have that exposure, but I don’t know how if I don’t know if I would fall on if I were to have a portfolio like 20 hotels, I don’t think I would have them all be a big branded company.

[00:06:31.620]

I think it’s interesting you say that because, you know, you can learn the classic traditional, you know, all those custom forms from a big company that knows how to dot every I and cross every T, but from that basis, now you can be creative and create your own rules.

[00:06:55.510]

And it’s hard to do that when you haven’t been through a more traditional system first. Absolutely.

[00:07:02.770]

And I’m very grateful for my experiences before I, I before I decided to go off on this venture.

[00:07:08.890]

So I went to the Hilton College or hotel restaurant management. You have a mango codes. And I went there.

[00:07:16.510]

I had a very formal education on what is hotel management, which is great. And then I also worked for a Hilton managed property in the downtown Houston area. So like you said, I learned to like cross my T’s and dot my eyes.

[00:07:32.530]

And now I kind of have a more, I guess, a more creative idea on what I can do and what I can bring to the table in this industry.

[00:07:43.520]

Yeah, and actually, I think that’s where the magic is, where you can really fly. So anyway, well done to you on that. Thank you.

[00:07:56.990]

I think it’s really smart what you said about getting away from your family for a little while, because I’ve been involved in several family run hotel companies and it can be very challenging for a young person whose family has already established it to for them to believe that what in what you bring to the table instead of always being their little girl and knowing not in their minds, but in your own heart, that you have accomplished things where you weren’t the child of and you didn’t have special privilege, but you had to earn your promotions and the respect in that other company that makes you be able to walk into your family company and and be really confident.

[00:08:54.170]

And confidence is everything that you feel.

[00:08:57.530]

Absolutely. So, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I I’ll be very honest for a very long as I saw with imposter syndrome, I feel like I don’t deserve something that I don’t deserve. If I get any sort of recognition, I don’t feel I deserve it. If I feel sort of accomplishment, I don’t celebrate those wins, which I think is not that’s not OK. You’ve got to celebrate your wins. And so it’s just it’s always like, do better, be better, be confident yourself.

[00:09:26.690]

But sometimes it’s kind of hard to get that. And especially with. The way that I have been brought up, my family is very so we’re Indians and so my family is very in tune with the Roots. So there have been a lot of cultural elements that have come into play when they try to raise me and me being born and raised here like I’m all American. So I’m all about like just paving my own way and all that. But then to kind of have some cultural expectations, just always be hovering over me while I’m still trying to make a name for myself or do these other things.

[00:09:59.850]

It’s been hard to manage, but it gets easier, especially as you get to talk about it and meet like minded individuals. So it’s so challenging. Trust me, I still go at odds with my dad about like I told him. I like this new really cool thing we should do instead of staying in hotels. Like I said, hey, let’s go get an RV park, really put a hospitality twist to it. He’s like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:10:24.930]

You know, let’s just stay in our lane and just worry about getting married or whatever, because you’re supposed to get married soon, because I’m engaged right now.

[00:10:33.000]

So focus on you know, you mentioned earlier on about when you first went to a whorehouse how you saw there weren’t many females in the ownership or even upper management echelons of hospitality. You want one? Why do you think that is? And then because we talked about that a lot on the show recently. But you are you seeing a change, a marked improvement in a directional shift related to that?

[00:11:02.250]

I think that’s very. When it comes down to I just forget, it is like not just women in general being in this space, I think that the why why there hasn’t. In that space is probably because it either comes from education, sorry, hold on. Please excuse my mother when it comes to this is what I get for cooperating with my.

[00:11:35.620]

No, but it comes with a lot of shit, I think, and I think for a while there was a lack of awareness of. Women do have a can have a place here in the. And then also, I think it takes I think it takes the people who have a platform to elevate it, to bring women in.

[00:12:00.600]

Excellent ideas that I have seen with Tracy. She has a deal, right, and she created this. I don’t even. The list to really empower women and to bring younger women into it. I think when you see efforts like that, when you see organizations like the pasta. How they empowered. Woman, When you see the programs that college colleges are doing, I think that there is a shift that’s happening. It’s a little bit slower, but we’re going to get there.

[00:12:32.620]

Yeah. Do you feel like there’s still an ambivalence towards it? You know, there was this exchange on LinkedIn this week. Stephanie had posted something on LinkedIn related to asking people for advocacy groups and organizations that were trying to help, you know, some inequities that that appear in the hospitality industry. And anyone that’s trying to lift up underserved groups or minority groups in Max from haboobs chimed in after I reposted Stephanie thing, saying that, oh, we only need to do is just be colorblind in and not worry about it and it takes care of itself.

[00:13:09.450]

And he cited his his company that he had built and how diverse it was and claimed that 60 percent of his executives were female. And I pushed back on him and said, well, you know, well, Ed made the point, well, you’re in New York. So it’s a lot easier to have a diverse workforce in New York than it is in other places. But I think I think having that opinion kind of it almost negates the problems that do exist.

[00:13:34.920]

So you through education and talking about the inequities that exist, I think is the only way we can kind of push the industry forward. Pretending they don’t exist is not going to solve the problem. And pretending we live in a utopian society where everyone is, you know, living, working by the same rules is just I think it’s asinine personally. So I don’t know what you feel about that.

[00:13:56.550]

No, I absolutely agree. I think that I don’t really believe in I think hats off to people who actively look to promote diversity within their organizations.

[00:14:08.640]

I think what’s important, though, is that instead of just focusing on diversity now, we need to make sure we have the most diverse looking group of people working for you. But what about the people who are making decisions, those who have responsibilities? Hospitality is such a diverse industry. Right. But then when we actually look down at it and we look at the executives of major companies, we don’t really see that diversity there. And so I think the conversation kind of needs to be about inclusion as well, because we can always fit our little I guess they call it the token person.

[00:14:42.660]

We can fit those roles. But I also I think it’s a huge disservice, honestly, when you don’t have a group like your executive team that have diverse backgrounds and diverse ideologies, because that’s how we truly grow. And I find the best companies are those that actually have people who represent what the world looks like.

[00:15:04.150]

Yeah, the mentorship. Don’t you think that if the leader in the company is kind of nurturing the people that he may see in his mind are future leaders at that time and attention can be devoted to?

[00:15:30.840]

They can pick different people to focus on to culture, to to nurture out their leadership and to give them more of a broad knowledge of how the company works and and break down silos so that people are not in these information bubbles where they only know this is what I do.

[00:15:57.210]

This is what I do. This is what I do every day. I make sales calls, I make sales, I make sales calls. But they don’t really know about the rest of the operation. And I and I and I wonder how how you feel about that. I think that maybe because you were raised by hotelier’s, you understand is good from the beginning what it felt like to own.

[00:16:22.200]

You know, yeah, no, absolutely one is OK. No, no, no, no, go, please answer the question, I’ll be happy to go. Oh, I’ll just I’ll just keep the I one. I’ve always tried the mindset of always how other companies is that. I always feel like it was my own. Like I always treat like whenever I worked for the Doubletree in downtown Houston, I acted as if this is my. I was more passion about it, and so whenever there was a time if I had to make I mean, one time I made rooms because housekeeping was at on front desk.

[00:16:57.760]

But in the sense of just feeling passionate towards your your company and then also when your leaders promote that, it’s I feel it when you when you I’m trying to word this correctly. I apologize. I feel like the most wonderful investment you can make as an owner, as a manager is investing in the people who are either working for you. So if you have passionate individuals and work on them, told them to go into other positions in that company because that’s so much more valuable than just constantly bringing out people from the outside.

[00:17:36.070]

Oh, sorry. I went on a little rant there. My apologies.

[00:17:41.100]

Did your dad look too great? They just mentioned in it as well that more successful CEOs come from promotions from within. Then when you bring them in from the outside. So great. My question is more related to kind of the dichotomy that I represent compared to you, I’ve never said the only two. I’ve never sat in hospitality other than owning a restaurant is owning a hotel. And I’ve worked with owners that were two doors down. And I felt I understood from a daily basis what they were considering.

[00:18:15.350]

But at the end of the day, they had to decide if they were going to make payroll as to what decisions they make. And you’re in that seat. By the same token, when I go into a group of people, I’m tall, white, I’m a guy. I’m less challenged when it comes to protecting my ideas. You, on the other hand, are the antithesis in the stereotyping that we unfortunately do and everything in our society, let alone the levels that you’re attending as an ownership, where people look at you and they immediately try to classify you, you must be the person’s daughter or wife or somebody, but not the person I think you are, you know.

[00:18:52.430]

And so do you come in kind of with the defeat of, like, I’ve got to establish or do you let them all kind of ramble around themselves, stumble over themselves and then pick up the pieces that.

[00:19:04.370]

How do you approach that obvious feel of stereotypical Mysak that comes into when you dialogue with people that you have to quantify your knowledge and your capabilities and your responsibilities? Almost every time? I imagine for me, I kind of have that walk in the door with me. You walk in the door. By the same token, I go to talk to some people and they put me in that category and I don’t want to be in that category.

[00:19:25.670]

You have the ability to relate to people that most other people don’t get a chance relate to. You have that affinity. I can see just the way you’re talking now of I want you to be better with my team. I want you to be on my team. I want you to learn from our team. You know, for me, I can say them. They’re like, Yeah, yeah, sure. As long as you’re sitting on top and I’m sitting at the level that I met, you’re genuinely able to bridge that, which is amazing power to have.

[00:19:46.610]

But how do you go into the world where you’re at the disadvantage?

[00:19:49.760]

Like I said, going into a room full of older white guys that think they know everything we an older Indian owners at probably all. I really want to do things that I don’t even understand. I’m just up from the part of that I can relate to, which is the the old boys club thing that I know about. I don’t even imagine cultural variations and everything else you might have to contend with as well.

[00:20:11.390]

That’s a really great question. Honestly, I haven’t thought about that.

[00:20:14.960]

And what is actually, to be honest, because when I started going to a lot of these professional events, I was often the only female in the room and sometimes I’m the youngest person in the room. And so what I always did then was I look just like I. I was a huge believer in fake it till you make it so, I would just find the confidence I was always hungry to learn. So whenever I come across ignorance, I just kind of I don’t entertain it.

[00:20:42.920]

But what I do is I’ll ask them questions, know, so so they can tone down their ignorance and kind of like give it to themselves, you know, because a lot of times and I try I try to find empathy in this situation.

[00:20:55.580]

It’s like, OK, why am. I mean, why do all these men think that they know more than I do or that they are more entitled to be there than I am? So, I mean, I kind of just try to bring. I still put in boxes today. Absolutely. I can’t tell you how many times when I write an email to someone inquiring someone, even a vendor.

[00:21:17.010]

Right. One time, Mr. Patel, I’m like, what people want to know that Tagil is a funny name, that’s probably fine, but just automatically assume that if I’m right, that I am a mister hotel owner.

[00:21:36.200]

So I run into those things still, but I just kind of I just brush it off now. Honestly, I think it’s twenty, twenty one. I think we’re beyond that now.

[00:21:46.520]

To be fair, can I just say Lauren also gets the same, but he gets a mix of Mrs. Srinath.

[00:21:54.050]

If you ever want to see who the real popular Lauren Grey is just going to take.

[00:21:57.830]

I mean, she’s got five million followers and she’s funny. I was OK. I was trying to get off your website. Right to.

[00:22:07.450]

So I just like I’m doing great because I think you’re the first person who knows this beautiful blonde girl who was like, oh no, that’s not long after she’s along.

[00:22:19.470]

Feels like a beautiful blonde. Yeah, but as far as it goes, I say he was beloved. It’s more greyish now, isn’t it? I can relate. That was great. Yeah. Thank you figure.

[00:22:31.740]

And by the way, this crosses over across the pond.

[00:22:33.540]

He’s in London. He’s in England in lockdown right now. Yeah.

[00:22:37.610]

I got to get out and get a look at that.

[00:22:39.710]

Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, Miss Little Malcolm and these guys and to end was here earlier and then disappeared again. I guess it’s too to comment.

[00:22:52.080]

That’s the reason he probably didn’t come to another thing and another thing.

[00:22:57.330]

Yeah, but going back to a little bit of Max’s comment, because, you know, I know Max and I know he means well. And Max and I have always had our opinions and so forth. And he did have a great successful company and he did have some amazing talent people within it. But as I’ve come to appreciate more and especially and you’re contributing to that perception that I have, the diversification that we assume is what we have to tackle is a fraction of the real diversification that we’re not tackling.

[00:23:27.060]

It’s not just whether they’re female or male, but whether or not they’re compensated the same, whether they are being given the same opportunities. That’s just the gender aspect that you’re adding into ethnicity. You start talking about culture variations and now you get these amazing little like rainbows. Are you really tackling this or you just make yourself feel good that you think you are?

[00:23:48.090]

And I think my impression of what Max did was it made him feel that he had done that. But really and honestly, when you look at it, it was an effort towards it in the right direction. But it didn’t go anywhere far enough because it really was self fulfilling. New York, as pointed out by Ed, was a very diverse market for people to be hired from. And yes, if you look at the blind eye of the show, The Voice, we’re not seeing them, but you’re hearing them if you look at them for the merit of what they are.

[00:24:15.870]

But we all know we don’t hire from a piece of paper either. It’s to culturally fit cultural meaning your business culture, not culturally as in your city to be culturally fit. And you’re even saying is like, look, I want people from within. I want people that fit and feel like they’re having successful opportunities with me, not people that don’t know that they are or don’t want to be a part of what we’re having to do.

[00:24:35.550]

That to me is more that that to me is more attuned to what our industry has to tailor to then. Oh, hey, girl, you know, we don’t have enough of those or a ethnicity, X, Y or Z. We don’t have enough of those. That’s not the criteria variation. It’s just it’s a part of the process of understanding whether they would feel comfortable.

[00:24:53.760]

We’re trying to create as a business model, Trigonal just touched on this, but we’re talking about inclusion. And there’s a reason that the organizations have kind of coalesced around this diversity, equity and inclusion phrase. Right? They mean different things, but they’re all kind of tethered together. It’s we’re going through right now here for a DIY certification process for an agency organization that provides training. And it’s just revealing all kinds of blind spots. And we didn’t really consider before.

[00:25:26.520]

And we’re very inclusive. We try to let everyone come as they are and behave the way they want with specific about things that we don’t just don’t care about, like be who you are. But this things you don’t think about that may be discriminate against people or make people feel marginalized or not included in your company policy. You know, it might be related to your vacation days or your holidays that you pick. Right. Maybe the bias toward certain faiths.

[00:25:55.350]

Maybe your dress code is biased towards certain lifestyles. Maybe your your benefits package is catered towards, you know, heterosexual couples. There’s a lot of things that you may not realize. You know, that’s certainly not intentional and there’s no meaning or malice behind it. But the unconscious blind spot, the people don’t really unless you really stop and think about it and go through it. Another one might be a hiring process. You might say, well, we’re non-discriminatory when it comes to hiring.

[00:26:25.800]

I mean, maybe but maybe you look at names and you somehow unconsciously treat people differently. You hold people to different standards based on the difference of their name or where you think they come from or what their heritage is. Maybe you’re not even looking in the right places for the right types of candidate because certain cultures or groups of people may be on the website. They’re not looking for jobs on the websites that you’re posting on. So it’s a deep problem and it causes real reality checks for us.

[00:26:55.980]

And I don’t think this is why you see problems in the industry where there is a disparity between male and female ownership. And the Castile projects report on black. Representation in leadership positions in hospitality, will they be reviewed over 600 Web sites across management companies and hospitality industry and found only 60 of them have even a single black representation on their staff page? That’s that’s inequity right there. Regardless of what people’s intention is, there are massive inequities that exist in our industry that need to be addressed.

[00:27:31.490]

And that’s the problem with Max’s opinion. Like it comes from a good place and in a utopian world, I would agree with him. And probably a year or two ago I would have said the exact same thing. But it just it doesn’t help solve the problem that does exist. And you can’t argue with the data because it shows fundamentally there are problems within our industry.

[00:27:50.040]

I think I think to follow up on that point, though, Stuart, as well, is if you think that I will just make these decisions and I will recruit people and do that, that’s fine. But, you know, I can’t speak from for comment. I’m in the same bracket as Lauren, albeit he’s American and British. That’s about the only real difference between the two of us. But it must be incredibly difficult to get over even the first hurdle.

[00:28:13.850]

Why would I want to own a hotel if I was female and from a different cultural background than the norm, as you would expect in all of these? Why the hurdles that you would have to go through to actually get to the point to say, yeah, I’m going to go and do that are already far greater than if you were a white male.

[00:28:41.030]

I mean, I’ve never like I say, I can’t comment on that. And I’d love to get to Jal’s perspective on it. And it might be a bit different from the with with the whole family thing that that will help you with perhaps the support, I would assume. But it must be difficult because I’m worried about my two girls. I’ve got two daughters who are not. And certainly I I want them to grow up in a world where it’s equal when they have the same opportunities as me, where they get the same chance to earn the same amount as money as their male counterparts.

[00:29:14.180]

I don’t believe they going to at the moment. I think there’s so much that needs to change before they get that. So back to my original question. You know, it must be really difficult to get your thoughts on it.

[00:29:26.060]

Sure. So, yeah, I mean, it is difficult and I think it’s so funny. It’s so, you know, when you’re in our curriculum, like when you grow up in school and they tell you these things like men and women are equal like all people, it doesn’t matter what your background is or the color of your skin, like the fights have been fought already know. So you’re going to be fine. And then when you grow up and then I didn’t realize this until I was in college and I saw that there was truly equity.

[00:29:53.830]

I thought, hey, you got me are important that I was one of those people who was like, oh yeah, I think feminism is just bashing. I used to do that. And then later I realized like, no, that dialogue is completely different. But I realize that, no, there’s definitely racial inequity, especially amongst others as well. And that’s when I saw what happened to other people. That’s when I saw that, no, we’re not all equal.

[00:30:15.380]

And I think that in really and I mentioned this earlier, I was like my word of twenty twenty. And, you know, we cannot move the needle forward unless we have everyone collectively working together. And so you you say that you want your little girls to grow up and be paid equally as a male. I think that’s something great. But, you know, women can’t be the ones who fight that battle, need men to win that fight as well.

[00:30:44.000]

Do that.

[00:30:45.130]

And I apologize for not absolutely goes. Yeah. I mean, just wanted to get your perspective on it. And I agree. It’s it’s, you know, who whomever is in the position of responsibility in positions of power that can actually make those decisions need to make those decisions that she mentioned there that, you know, you don’t nobody thinks themselves is the bad guy. No, no one thinks that I’m a bad person. There’s very, very few people in the world that think that they are.

[00:31:12.230]

But you can buy ignorance or a lack of knowledge or lack of understanding, a lack of empathy actually be that to certain people at certain times in your life. And Stuart’s absolutely right. So I like to think that myself, that my our company, that we’re inclusive, that we that we give opportunities to anybody as they come along, and a similar sort of intimate, you know, the way that is talking. But I know that there will be areas that we could be better in.

[00:31:41.150]

And it’s a matter of that. We need to go out and do what we can to lift our own ignorance in those circumstances. And I’d be really interested to hear, even if it’s off large to I’d be really interested to hear what what type of things that you’re talking about there, because I can guarantee you, most people on this call will probably have something similar in their own organisations if a company like Feel has got the same problems. We got problems and I mean, it’s just areas to be focused on right from wrong.

[00:32:10.440]

It comes down to blindspots, just not even considering it, right?

[00:32:13.800]

Not exactly someone different. A new experience is the world in a different way. And so acknowledging that and understanding that and having empathy, to use your word for it, I think is important. In the only way I’ve really discovered that you can be effective at thinking that way is to have these kind of conversations. So hats off to Lauren, because she’s done a really good job over the last few months, bring on guests like Joe and Tracy and other folks that are shining a light on this conversation.

[00:32:43.950]

It’s a difficult conversation to have because people are split in the different points and it can become contentious in some areas. So hats off, Lauren, for having the courage to really shine a light on this type of conversation.

[00:32:57.420]

I like I like how you waited to Lauren wasn’t like I was going those. So there’s a prime example, right?

[00:33:06.660]

I’m visually impaired. I can’t see the screen. I didn’t know Lauren was here. Right. But everyone experiences the world slightly differently.

[00:33:14.370]

So and I think that’s a that’s an important thing that in every aspect of your life you should try to do is try to picture yourself in the other person’s shoes, try to understand why someone is saying what they’re saying or or thinking what they’re thinking. Because the thing we have to realize is you are you are your environment. You are what you came up in and you are that. And you need to understand that very, very few examples of anything can be boiled down to, you know, one or two options of what’s right.

[00:33:51.660]

Right. Everything falls in that gray area and it’s all experience. And like like my comment on your LinkedIn post against Max is if you stop and look at what Max was saying, it was his reality because his business was built in New York City. I built my business in Orlando. We had to work a bit to bring in the types of minds and points of view. And I imagine your being in Myrtle Beach, you have to work a bit more because when you’re trying to build an organization that has those different angles of thinking, those different backgrounds, and you’re you’re you’re actively looking to fill positions of certain types of people that maybe there aren’t a lot of in your area.

[00:34:38.490]

That’s when you have to start getting involved with your school and you have to start getting involved further down the funnel. And that’s where you can make a difference is by helping helping make it the situation that Max experienced, where Max experienced being able to just hire the best candidate and you end up with a diverse workforce. That’s not possible in a lot of regions of the world. You really can’t without putting effort into making that base of a person available.

[00:35:12.010]

And you missed this earlier today. Made a great point about the diversity is one dimension of it, that equity and inclusion part of it is equally as important. You may have representation, but they feel like they’re contributing. And they heard and they are they able to contribute to the same level as other people?

[00:35:28.860]

Well, and that’s something I fear when I see companies like put forth this policy is I fear that they’re just creating token positions versus actually having a workforce that is equal, you know. Yeah.

[00:35:45.450]

You know, that’s something that came up in our company, actually, because when all of this erupted, I’m like, you know, it’s a good opportunity for us to go back and relook. We feel like we’ve always had diverse hiring policies, but we want to make sure and turn a critical eye towards that. And our our percentages weren’t perhaps favorable being outside of the white community. But we also went back and looked at our applications. And those people that we had selected to interview were also probably 90 percent white applicants.

[00:36:20.130]

And so we couldn’t in certain ways hire because in the revenue management field, even, there’s not enough diversity within the available talent. So the root cause of it actually begins earlier. And so we thought about how can we like we work with the University of Houston very closely and they have larger Asian population in their students, for example. And so really being able to contribute to some of those programs, we feel like it’s a great way for us to step up our game because we can’t control who applies necessarily.

[00:36:58.110]

We can make sure that that application that’s broadly available to people. But we also need to make sure that the education that. I was able to qualify for those positions is equitably available well, and something to think about sorry, I just wanted to get this into Lilly’s point because we actually looked at this with my last company because we kind of did the same thing. I noticed that part. We were missing part of the kind of mix of culture that Orlando has to offer.

[00:37:25.460]

And I was wondering why. And so we went and looked at the applications and then we kind of step back and said, well, are we promoting our position to the places where everyone will see it and see it as an opportunity? And what we actually found was was two things. One, we were using now always try to hire someone that knows someone that works with your organization. That actually causes a challenge when you’re trying to make sure you’re including everyone because you tend to end up getting people that are just like the people.

[00:38:00.440]

So that was one thing we looked at and we looked at, hey, we were advertising on job boards that were really kind of not being looked at by everyone to we used recruiting firms for certain positions and we started looking at that. And the recruiting firms we were using were also kind of falling into the same trap where they were only looking in certain pools and weren’t really pushing out to the the diversity of the population. When we identified some of that, we actually instantly started getting more applications from a more diverse background of people and cultures and everything like that.

[00:38:41.060]

So some of it.

[00:38:42.080]

Yeah, like going through that tracing, but then asking why am I not getting applications? And like you identified, there may not be enough of a path of education. So how do I get involved in making that? But some of it also can just be like, where are you advertising? Where are you putting this out? How are you sourcing candidates? You may be completely unseen by a candidate pool that you’re very interested in having part of your organization.

[00:39:12.160]

Yeah, no, absolutely, I love about like wearing your applicants, and so, you know, companies love to put out a statement, right when something happens, like, for example, when the murder charge really happened. Right. All the companies come out of woodwork and they say, look, we support Black Lives Matter and we’re all about diversity, inclusion, whatever it may be. Right. That’s a great marketing ploy. Whatever. But then when I go look at your website, I don’t really see that diversity inclusion you’re talking about.

[00:39:38.980]

So then exactly as a company, are you doing to follow through on what you just posted on your social media platforms? You know, you can sit here and also tell me that, oh, I can’t we can’t help it if 90 percent of our applicants are white people. OK, well, then what are you going to do to market to people from different backgrounds? So we actually see your job offers anyone the most prime examples, at least like in our industry, like if you’re a hospitality company, the number one place to find people is from the school.

[00:40:09.250]

Like when I would say you the number one reason I would love it was because of the diversity of different people there so that the talent is there, the diversity is there. But as as a company, you have.

[00:40:23.890]

Oh. And that’s why we partner a lot with USATF can have all this U of H Love, just UCP is actually it’s a. Well, they actually focus on giving access to education to first generation students, meaning they would be the first generation of their family lineage to to graduate from school. And because of that, like the the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has done a lot of special stuff with UCSF because of that focus of giving access to education to those that have hurdles normally education.

[00:41:06.090]

I want to point out something that Stephanie is actively involved with, because you brought this to my attention out, the adjustment program that they’re both engage with right now.

[00:41:13.050]

And we have mirrors in our history that reflect the same dialogue we’re having right now. When women graduated at whatever level of education they were allowed generations past, they have certain pathways that could go down. That was it. Were you going to be a seamstress? We’re going to be a secretary. We’re going to there was just certain doors that were there and others that weren’t, period. Now, Stephanie, we could put in just a little bit of what you’re talking about, going further back to you.

[00:41:37.890]

I’m sorry. It’s not our fault. Only certain people apply with us. What are you doing about creating the base difference of this? Because even through the education process, you all are pointing out with when they’re looking for their jobs, they are looking at avenues that they have been shown and pointed to that they have opportunities in, whether it’s culturally related, whether it’s family, unrelated, whatever. Those are the doorways that are easier to go through than others.

[00:42:00.990]

You made your own door. You went through a different door. You said, I know I want to do this and go someplace that nobody else usually goes to. But Step, you’re putting together what I think is a critical thing, which is here’s a list that says what companies are doing what with whom, for what reasons, is there a faction of information for this culture to be able to be brought into hospitality or this genre or these people?

[00:42:23.640]

You know, we look at the fact and we were talking about just real quick last night when we’re getting coordinated for the thing, you know, what about Native Americans? What they own casinos? Is there a hospitality vertical for them other than the one that’s connected to their truck? There’s so many ways when you start looking at this that we’re not actually fixing the problem. We’re only saying we’re a piece of the reason why it exists the way it does.

[00:42:44.940]

We’re not actually changing it, which is why I’m doing what you’re doing, because it’s a matter of you’re able to inspire people from the very base level.

[00:42:53.370]

And I’m going to pull a little Mike sars-cov-2 quick. When I was running hotels and keys, I had amazing housekeeping staff, the brilliant housekeeping staff that only spoke Spanish, which my wife speak Spanish because I can handle English.

[00:43:05.610]

And I learned that a lot of them were from Cuba that were lawyers and doctors. And the only job they could get was housekeeping because of a language barrier. So we started teaching because it was good for customer service to teach them English so they can dialogue with our consumer or their customers. And as soon as we did that, they were able to go get jobs that were more related to their skill set and by ownership coming up, really mad at me for doing this, but then all of a sudden it turned out that wasn’t that.

[00:43:32.820]

That was the problem is like I didn’t inspire them to why they wanted to stay in hospitality, that they’re brilliant people that are limited to what opportunities they had to a point, but they didn’t want to give you the hospitality unless they showed them the reason why it was enjoyable to stay in the business. And that’s going back to a little deeper. You have that amazing ability, running a hotel, owning a hotel. So you can say, I’m going to take this person.

[00:43:52.800]

And hopefully they have the heart of the servant and they love making people happy. And I want to give them the opportunity so that they can learn what they need to learn to advance in the processes of being higher up in hospitality, maybe to eventually become an owner like yourself. So that’s amazing because I don’t have that ability anymore.

[00:44:07.530]

I mean, I provide service to the industry. I can’t make a hotel housekeeper into something different than they particularly don’t want to be or front desk person. But you still have that amazing ability to influence those kind of generational people. And it isn’t about age or anything else. It’s about opportunity. And you can control that. So it’s very impressive in that sense that you have that power so long.

[00:44:26.160]

And I would counter that you do that through this show, that you inspire people and give me the opportunity to understand that there are different avenues for them. But to also piggyback on your point with something that I didn’t really point out in in our process earlier is when we were doing this analysis. The other thing that I did, because I have a LinkedIn subscription that allows me to view people beyond just my own connections. And I started searching for just revenue managers in general and even in the overall LinkedIn population that I have access to, which goes up to about.

[00:45:02.790]

I think that level of connections is, you know, nonwhites were severely underrepresented in that population. So it’s the balance of, you know, as a business, I need somebody with experience. But now how can I help this problem at the root cause, which is not necessarily always about me and my company. Right. Because that’s almost making it a self centered thing. If it’s just about I’m going to bring in these token people so that my company looks good to your point, all that that marketing aspect of things, which is why we really wanted to focus on that root cost, like how can we work with educational institutions more to get people in the door so that when I do a search on LinkedIn.

[00:45:48.230]

All different types of people are equally represented there. So going beyond just the surface level of who’s getting paid by us and more so how can we help the industry on a broader level to be more inclusive? So selfishly, to Lauren’s point, if you know of any organization that support minorities in any capacity in the DEA capacity, let me know. I’m compiling this list. And I think, as you mentioned, education is a first place. And I can tell you, even in the short time I’ve taken on this project, I’ve learned a lot already, learning quite a bit.

[00:46:25.850]

So I look forward to sharing with you at some point in the near future. Secondarily, I know we mentioned having Tracy Pridmore from she has a deal on the show earlier in Tagil was a part of the pitch competition. So I don’t want to dampen any of the conversations, but I do want to hear you know, I feel like Tagil, before you join with Tracy and she has a deal, you had your own level of experience and you’re seeing the ownership side from a couple of different places.

[00:46:52.490]

But I think what would it be a true statement that she has a deal probably enlightened you in a few ways. And how did that how did that kind of change your perspective from an ownership standpoint?

[00:47:04.460]

Absolutely. I mean, I am so thankful that I purchased. She has the deal because I really learned the side, the ownership side, a more structured way.

[00:47:14.030]

And I don’t think I would have gone that education honestly anywhere like like they don’t no offense to my own daughter, but they don’t teach you this in school. They don’t teach you the functions of getting a hotel deal and forcing your hotel to learn how to actually execute and pitch on it. And so I think that now I’m a very more well aware owner, potential investor.

[00:47:37.940]

And if you guys in there doing the part to so they just started doing their second round of that. She has a deal. And it’s it’s phenomenal. Like, I would I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that program, honestly.

[00:47:48.620]

Have you talked to your school about that mindset to encourage them to to look into that? Because it is interesting that like because the Rosann school doesn’t have either.

[00:48:00.830]

I actually want to talk to the Hilton College about that. So I’m glad that we can talk about the Erich’s club, the distinguished alumni group.

[00:48:13.850]

So and actually, I’m going to be meeting after this with the communications director for that organization.

[00:48:22.400]

So I will definitely include you in that conversation in a way and see what we can do moving forward, because I think I’m willing to bet you one of these schools does a mix of having it part of a degree program, but also having it as a certificate course. They would see a substantial amount of interest in that.

[00:48:45.380]

Yeah, absolutely. I know that Cornell does like certificate programs like that to an advanced MBA. So I imagine they do that. But I think given what I’ve seen, like the structure of like she has, you’ll just have like an actual program based around that or even additional classes at my school, I took I took a little franchising with Dr. Taitz and that was great. But I would love to have seen more about the ownership side. And I think that’s something that would definitely incentivize younger people to stay in the industry.

[00:49:17.930]

The turnover is so ridiculous in hotels. So I think that by giving students different options that they’re not just limited to management and operations. There are other sides of it, like consulting or working in hospitality finance. I think that we’ll be able to retain our workforce a little bit more.

[00:49:36.050]

It also makes the programs more or the schools more, I guess, competitive. Yeah, I know. And the schools are open to this feedback. I mean, I’ve I’ve mentioned to the Rosens school multiple times that they need to do some cross pollination with their technology schools because UQP has amazing engineering school. You should be dropping some of your engineering students into the hospitality side so we can start attracting technical talent to this industry that has a base education in the U.S. How how does this work?

[00:50:09.140]

What is this? Right. They obviously are interested in engineering, but yeah, let’s get some of that engineering talent thinking to hospitality. If we want to try and get out of some of the vicious cycle, we have no technical problems at all.

[00:50:24.710]

And there’s none. None.

[00:50:26.150]

I mean, the idea that you would even question that the property management system isn’t the perfect epitome of integrated core technology is also right up there.

[00:50:39.890]

How can you keep a straight face?

[00:50:43.040]

You know, you’re worrying that the pair of you because, you know, listen, I mean, if you look at most of the technical side of the hospitality industry, it’s people that either we’re not technical but saw a problem in hospitality like myself or people who were technical and found out a little bit about hospitality but still don’t completely understand hospitality. And you can see that in the products. So and so. I’ve talked to the to the Rosell school multiple times about how I really think you need your huge university that has an engineering program and a hospitality program.

[00:51:23.690]

You need to get students kind of crossing and getting interest across the two.

[00:51:29.880]

I think we’ve got like an immediate shot of some Teja. So I think I’m sorry, you. I’m sorry you cut out what was your question? I’m sorry, sorry, I was just going to say, I think we’ve got an immediate short term problem as well, because obviously we Kovik, we know with a lot of the the clients that I’m speaking to, they’ve lost a lot of talent as well. And this is talent that may well have already been in the industry, that knows the hospitality industry has suddenly found themselves without a job.

[00:52:06.790]

And it’s I’m I’m genuinely concerned how many of them are going to come back.

[00:52:11.890]

The skills are going to be so, so much more important now, as if they weren’t already import enough to feed the next generation of hospitality. Staff owners know entrepreneurs to come in. Now, we need now we need to make them more than ever.

[00:52:27.820]

Yeah, interesting. You know, some people are choosing to leave because they kept their job, but they’re being worked like slaves and and required to work double hours and and multiple different tasks, which I actually think is a good thing that that they’re trying other departments in moderation.

[00:52:53.410]

And, yeah, you know, you have full time effort in five different silos and that equates to 18 hour days.

[00:53:04.520]

And heard general managers and assistant general managers, front desk manager is saying, you know, I’m working like crazy.

[00:53:14.560]

How do you relieve the pressure, hire more people? I mean, obviously, there are a lot of people that needed to work. They know how to do this. And you can’t exist like this. And it’s it doesn’t make any sense.

[00:53:30.700]

So, Tagil, from an owner’s perspective and you’re looking at your PNL and you’re just trying to survive, what’s your kind of. And I wanted to I know you’re on a podcast with Slick Talk the other day and you were talking about trying to find that balance between PNL and your people. So what do you say? When how do you find that balance as an owner?

[00:53:49.810]

It’s so hard, honestly, especially right now, to your point, about like when your hands are burnt out, like what do you do? You hire more people. But it’s so sad that unfortunately, the most expensive cost for any hotelier is the cost of labor. And the pandemic has not been very good on that. So we’ve been doing I mean, cross training helps a lot, but also giving genuine appreciation and recognition. But even besides that, like don’t not.

[00:54:25.220]

Borders, but actually being there and working with good, you’re stressed out and staff, I think, just to show that we are all in this together. Our Fairfield GM is amazing. She’s wonderful, she’s still home schooling her kids, but we make sure that she’s not alone like one of us from ownership’s their. Well, so I think that’s what’s important. I think that’s also one way to try to hold on to your stuff. They want to see you out there.

[00:54:52.170]

They don’t want to just see you the.

[00:54:54.910]

It’s about. Yeah, I apologize. I have to run, but I would love to continue this conversation if people want to find you.

[00:55:06.120]

What should they do? They can find me on fuel. Travel dot com would be the mothership where you can get our award winning podcast. And Lauren, when you dropped out. I said compliments about you will never happen again. And I’m ashamed to go back and watch that. But yeah, this is a great conversation. And I want to reiterate again, thank you for coming on to the show. And then, Lauren, keep these conversations going.

[00:55:29.790]

This is the type of conversation is going to move on and look how polite everyone is when we have these conversations.

[00:55:37.920]

That’s very true. But we still don’t disagree. Right. It’s OK.

[00:55:42.330]

Just just a way to change in that one. It’s OK to flip at this point that Stewart didn’t say nice things about you at all. They were all horrible. You should have. We were all shocked.

[00:55:53.670]

And you know how how crazy it was.

[00:55:58.170]

He waited for you to leave the part where they didn’t even have the guts to say to your face that he’s my buddy. All right, guys, take care. Bye, Stewart.

[00:56:13.770]

Thank you. Sorry you.

[00:56:16.360]

I’d like to ask a question actually about you’re probably one of the youngest hotel owners in the industry and maybe not necessarily the youngest, but you’re amongst a group of the youngest ones out there.

[00:56:26.610]

Tell me a little bit about how how that happens. Right. How do you I can’t even comprehend in my 20s or even 30s, for that matter, and one day waking up and saying, I’m going to own a hotel. Tell me a little bit about how you get to that spot and some of the things that you had to go through in order to get to where you are now.

[00:56:44.460]

Sure, I think it takes a lot of partnering with people, building the. Building trustworthy relationships, and I think that if you’re a young person and you have these dreams of becoming like an entrepreneur owner, it really helps to kind of cultivate those relationships from a very early point. Do I have a little bit of privilege? I’ll be honest. Yes, I do. The fact that I have two generations before me have when it comes down to getting financial help, I decide to kind of do that.

[00:57:21.360]

It has been awful. It is hard. I wish I could have been I wish I could. I think Donald Trump is like I took a small loan of a million dollars from my father.

[00:57:30.570]

I wish I could do that, but I can smell a little bit. Not just the financing aspect has been very hard. I’ll be very honest. Just having good relations with. Really trying to educate yourself. One thing I believe is that if you really want to be a hotel owner, know what the hospitality industry is.

[00:57:51.770]

Don’t look at it as if you really want to be successful, be passionate about the business that is going on inside. So I think that that’s one thing that. Very engaged and involved with political advocacy, so I’m very involved with the House. We are very engaged with government affairs, so be knowledgeable about affairs that affect the business and also be actively involved in other hospitality organizations even after college. Like, I think it’s a lifelong commitment. We put this in shoe.

[00:58:31.990]

We’re out of the discussion, you mentioned that you broke ground on on a new property, but we didn’t say what property that is. Can we can we tell everybody what that is? Oh, yeah.

[00:58:40.670]

It’s a it’s a small budget. Property is a Scottish. Oh, it’s my first. My first.

[00:58:45.200]

That’s where babies are super excited to like what my grandparents and parents did, because when my grandfather first came this country, they had a small independent motel.

[00:58:59.410]

A job brought me and my brother into this world like it was small, independent motel that catapulted. So I’m really excited for this, but. Greater escalation in Hitchcock, Texas, which is no one has ever heard of the torture, but really. What town is Hitchcock, it’s Hitchcock. Yes, it’s like it’s like on your way to Galveston, kind of go, right? It’s right.

[00:59:29.360]

Yeah, I used to live in Friendswood, so actually, Hitchcock is I’m. Oh, I don’t know.

[00:59:41.500]

I was running the Galveston the Galveston Hilton. The what was the big one there? Right next to the Galveston.

[00:59:48.420]

Up to be. Which one family resort? Yes, thank you. I was down there no matter where I was running, it doesn’t know what it was. But yeah, it was it was brief because I was there for six months and then it was like, oh, I don’t want to be in Texas anymore.

[01:00:07.440]

Welcome back home to Florida. So that kind of was like a very short duration.

[01:00:10.730]

So I went into food, beverage, and then they made me the ATM and then it was the AGM and then they were looking to change what they were doing. And that’s a turmoil.

[01:00:19.220]

And I’m like, I got to go. And then, by the way, he moved back to Texas.

[01:00:23.960]

Yeah, Texas. Oh, yeah.

[01:00:32.840]

Yeah, no, no, but from a Houston perspective, no matter where I lived in Houston, I always worked the farthest away, like when I was in Friendswood, I was always in hotels up in the airport. And then when I finally moved over to the west side of Houston, was now running hotels in Galveston, I was like, OK, so I never quite get the distances. I was like two and half hours, which was another reason why I was doing all that.

[01:00:55.730]

I mean, everything in Houston, two and a half hours.

[01:00:59.320]

So the traffic was really intense.

[01:01:04.400]

Even 17, if you want if you want marketing information for anything I can help you with, not from a business for just three. I’ll hand you everything I have because I’ve had I’ve had clients all around the world which was monitored stuff, and we’ve had everything tiered from high to low on it. And I still have clients in San Antonio. So feeder markets, transportation markets, drive markets, all that kind of stuff. Because you are in a very unique market right now.

[01:01:28.190]

You have huge asset value for people from a drive perspective. And you have that ancillary relationship where they don’t have to prime time someplace. Yet you’re conveniently located between point A and C as well.

[01:01:40.070]

So you got a lot of value proposition where you put it so well done and you don’t have to my. Sorry, sorry, go ahead, go ahead. As I say, in its be. You all know Houston is like literally oversaturated hotel markets, like I wouldn’t really I would not recommend anyone building anything. Export years, but we got lucky with the market that we found, so it’s not Houston, but it’s on the outside. So yeah, I mean, it’s a it’s a neat brand.

[01:02:13.710]

I had I haven’t heard of I hadn’t heard of Scottish in it’s pretty neat looking brand. I was looking at it while we were talking. Yeah, so the company ultimately internat. Well, they specialize in things like economy level hotels, and so that’s one of them. And so I’m really excited, especially from a design perspective, because I kind of have some leeway. So hopefully it’ll be great.

[01:02:39.780]

So are you are you aiming in that like 40, 50 rooms level?

[01:02:44.520]

We’re going to be like 30 rooms for that hotel. OK, nice. Three to get to the top 10 and maybe a bit hoggish as well for the pictures.

[01:02:52.830]

And I have got the wrong impression of Scotians over in the US at the store.

[01:03:04.380]

Yeah, well, I think Scotland is literally there for me, so it will take our Scottish and they probably won’t be anything that you would have expected, but I’m sure it will be fun.

[01:03:17.240]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, indeed. Yeah.

[01:03:20.100]

So, Tagil, you said this the financing was the hardest part to you. Is this the first project you’ve ever like, went to a bank and bid on from a financing perspective yourself? And did you did you have to get any backing or support or second sign or all that jazz? You don’t have to tell me if you signed over your children.

[01:03:41.550]

If I signed off my life. That’s basically what my life is, not mine anymore.

[01:03:48.460]

The Financial Times six.

[01:03:58.030]

No idea what my job is like a second signer and stuff.

[01:04:01.980]

And actually. So my fiancee. So we’re going to be doing the typical South Asian thing, living out of it, operating out of it. So, yeah, so we apply for. It was very it was just difficult, just I guess I don’t know, maybe if it’s just like being a young person thing, it’s hard to get access to capital and raise. Just given that a little bit more, I can tell you that and this is universal for anyone looking for financing, you can only get financing when you don’t need it.

[01:04:38.800]

Other than that, it’s incredibly difficult.

[01:04:40.810]

That’s the truth. Yes. Yes, I have a prediction.

[01:04:45.580]

Honestly, I think you’re going to look back and five years ago when we started that little dinky hotel in the middle of you, I think from what you’re seeing, what everything I’m hearing, what you’re saying about like this is just going to be an amazing stepping stone because again, I think this is why I think I met you, because I spoke for a home in Houston and it was a big and I was that dude. And I got to meet a bunch of people.

[01:05:06.790]

And you lose track real fast with me with names. I’m like, oh, hi. You know, but for some reason, I think you start because everyone kind of clusters differently at the at the meetings as to whom they know and what a generational relationship and everything else. There’s kind of this mixing of peoples and so forth. And the best questions came from the audience that was hungry to actually move forward, not the ones that have established themselves and have done well and are doing well and so forth.

[01:05:32.800]

They feel like they have a certain I know what I’m doing and this is either confirmation or challenge to that. But the ones that were willing to question everything had the best questions to whatever was being discussed, because they were the ones that were like, yeah, well, that’s how you did it. But is it always that way? Why does it have to always be that way, even if they were told that’s why you have to do it?

[01:05:53.440]

Yeah, but does it always have to be that way?

[01:05:56.980]

And I think in that sense, what you’re talking about, what you’re doing already, you’re not talking about it being a Scottish. And if you were doing it the way everybody else does it, here’s Brand. Here’s Box. Here’s Place. Here’s strategy. Here’s your conformity. Here’s this. We’ve said it’s like financial debt. We build the business. We build the equity. We reinvest, we create, we grow. That’s how you win. You smile about what you’re doing.

[01:06:18.730]

I don’t think there’s any doubt about this.

[01:06:19.870]

Got us to be honest with you.

[01:06:20.890]

I think it’s about my place, my house, and it’s going to be the first one to have ownership if you have a hotel. Right. You were taking ownership in your property long before you owned one. And that’s why that’s part of why I want to know where your hotel was, because I don’t know if I’ll get to that neighborhood in the near future, but if I do, I know where I want to go.

[01:06:40.450]

I have a feeling we’re going to host a live a life affirming kind of show, the Scottish end. I mean, I think that’s the thing that’s driving the ship.

[01:06:49.270]

I think we should we just be like, yeah, give me that.

[01:06:55.700]

And no flights at the moment.

[01:06:58.540]

Well, you also have to not be on the the lists. Yeah, that’s got nothing to do with covid.

[01:07:04.540]

I’m just going to lay the menu up and down to six a few no fly list first and get on the list.

[01:07:11.380]

He hasn’t burned out yet.

[01:07:13.150]

I left the green light through Alaska and then drive through Canada again. Probably.

[01:07:17.230]

Well, you were on that shrimper boat for three months at one time, so guess for the bank now he’s joking.

[01:07:24.910]

Oh, no. Yeah, it was a tuna boat. You’re right. Well, we just had breaking news here in the UK.

[01:07:30.910]

We’re about to close all travel corridors from Monday to protect against the risk of the yet unidentified new Kovik strain. Our prime minister days.

[01:07:40.390]

I think they’re just using weekly to keep us all in those that we go doing in the UK. I’m just I’m just kidding. We have no one to talk here in Texas.

[01:07:51.130]

I don’t know. I think we enjoyed Christmas and it just went bonkers from that. Everything was.

[01:07:57.040]

Well, I want to apologize that we refer to the News Stream as the UK stream. Y’all didn’t make it up, but it seems to be since you were the first to find it. So don’t find any new ones because be the UK to the UK that it needs to be the Cockney rhyming string.

[01:08:12.810]

Can I just say that the manufacturing industry in the UK is as diminished, but at least we can export Kovik to the rest of it.

[01:08:20.470]

Now, that’s not I don’t think that’s a great accomplishment. No, is it not? At least we’re taking the heat of China for a while yet. It’s not. Appreciate you.

[01:08:32.490]

And I think the other benefit that you have to where you’re opening up is and we’ve talked about on the show before, people are going to look for the less beaten path in places. They’re not going to say, I got to be. I mean, you still will go to the ultimate resources to go to the ultimate destination. I mean, people are going to go to Paris, they’re going to go to New York. They will have those people.

[01:08:51.130]

But there’s going to be a lot more people going, what else is there? And it’s not about where they stay as to what they do is it is where they stay is what they want to do around it. You are in a rocking location for that because you can enjoy Houston without being like, oh, gosh, well, everything’s a distance, but it’s like you can enjoy Galveston. Hop down there, you can go interior, you can actually make a road trip to somebody places and still make it back to the hotel without feeling you got to do this hopscotch thing.

[01:09:16.270]

You got some really cool marketing variations that were you going to be sitting is going to be pretty prominent. So it’ll be interesting to see how the.

[01:09:27.210]

Sorry to tell you, no, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

[01:09:32.050]

I have been interested to see how the new travel patterns happen with everybody not flying and going abroad or going where their normal holiday destination is. Will have been the drive market becoming a lot bigger, not just in the USA, but also from the UK and Europe as well. It’s very, very interesting to see how many of those trends stick. You know, you’ve got people that would always go at one destination, will always fly, especially in the U.K., will always fly.

[01:10:03.240]

We’ll go we’ll go to Spain. You know, I will go to France. So the Portugal, there’s always those destinations that we will we will typically go to. Most people that I’m speaking to now are not doing that because we have very few people I know that actually go on vacation this year since same as in many places around the world. And people have then have to try and do different things. That would be very interesting to see how many of those actually sticks or a property in the location that you’re talking about.

[01:10:32.640]

There could could end up being an even bigger goldmine than it would have been recovered, perhaps with an article in Skaife talking about people trying to go to more out of the way off the beaten path, not going to the hotspots and and destinations. And they were also talking another article was I think I’m trying to remember what did something like Global Travel Writers Association or something.

[01:11:06.150]

And they said six percent would go to places that they’ve never been before. And the only thing that shocked and they were saying it like, wow, that’s a lot of people. Only thirty seven percent said they were going to go to the same place again and again.

[01:11:21.100]

But why wouldn’t a hundred percent of travelers want to go to some place they haven’t been before?

[01:11:26.970]

If you have a point, I don’t know. Growing up my family, we would go to Myrtle Beach, where every single year for like the first 15 years of my life, I would stay in a different hotel, though, because that, you know, you did the same every year, I think is interesting is I think what we’ve seen in the last few years, even in the industry, is that now the traveler wants something of more of an experience.

[01:11:57.690]

Right. And so, yeah, you’re going to have those people who are going to go to their usual spots and those look like Paris or London or whatever, but they’re not I think now, especially Dankova, that you have found this new segment of traveler that is really into going, like you said, off the beaten path.

[01:12:13.710]

Go. What’s really going to and if they go back to that same spot, they’re willing to go to other hotels in that area. And I think this is a very unique opportunity for hotels to really market themselves in. In a way to be like we are the place for you to stay while you have your experience in our city, and I think that whether you’re branded or not, there’s ways to add little. To your property to drive business. So that’s in the next hour or so.

[01:12:42.650]

So I actually have a question for you since we’ve got you early in your ownership career, since you’re an actual hotelier, not just a real estate investor. Do you have any desire at any point to start at some point in your progression going with an independent hotel and having it be truly yours? Or are you in your vision wanting to stay within Brandes? So. Great question. I the way I envision my career and my future portfolio, I want hotels from all across the spectrum, my.

[01:13:21.440]

Is actually a independent boutique style hotel that would be in the Houston area, that is all about what he has to offer, because this is my city and I love the city, so. I have all these ideas and concepts, so I don’t mind staying with brands at all. Now what? I have an entire portfolio. I don’t think so, but I’m looking I would love to do mixed use concepts, words like apartment buildings, hotel rooms. So, no, I’m not going to stay in this one little bubble.

[01:13:49.350]

I’m going to do a lot more. Very cool. Oh, so I think that’s really cool that you are kind of like the trump card to most conversations when it comes to the advocacy.

[01:14:02.470]

Let’s not let’s not use the word Trump. I was waiting for you to finish it.

[01:14:10.690]

I was really wondering where you were going with, you know, Donald Trump.

[01:14:14.480]

OK, how is that?

[01:14:17.280]

Is that because really you’re more of that person than when people go and see? Yeah, but I can only get to this level. Can this you can walk in and say, no, you can’t. Why limit yourself to that? Why go over and create that limitation? You can be more than that. Look at me. I am doing more than you thought you could do yourself. I mean, you really do everything to trace do and everybody else.

[01:14:41.480]

We talk about that is trying to make it awareness and perpetual awareness that we need to look at this from the core up, not just the servicing of the terminology or that the flag should look at us a little bit towards Max sars-cov-2 statement instead to go over and say, look, there really is an origin point to this. It really is. There is no limit to this capability. You are that person. And whether you’re really into the ownership now as you keep doing it successfully, which I honestly believe you will be, you know, as you do more and more with this stuff, you will be more of a beacon to that.

[01:15:11.620]

People will be drawn to the fact of how did you why what what was your thought process? Our questions are easy right now. You’re going to be you know, you’re going to be looking at people’s faces going on. Want to be you.

[01:15:20.260]

You’re going to be, like, really sweet and kind.

[01:15:25.870]

Thank you. Yeah. Well, you are unique. You are unique.

[01:15:31.160]

I mean, honestly, I’ve never met someone that fits all what you would look at you and say, oh yeah, she’s probably very successful in the industry, but never to say, wow, you’re an owner, you know, and you know all the trouble you went up to and you started the whole show by saying, well, I feel like I get this this fake thing going on that maybe I don’t deserve this or whatever.

[01:15:49.000]

I’m pretending hardly. I mean, I can see from just how you been answering. You have earned and gained what you’re doing now and going through all this stories you now because you refuse to say there’s a limit to what you think you can do.

[01:16:02.320]

This is just a process.

[01:16:03.880]

So I’m really going to be really, really fascinating to see how it times go forward, be like I remember when I talk to her, you know, I’m never going to have the parade with the pompoms.

[01:16:13.620]

You know, the part about the I miss the part about the imposter syndrome. But I mean, all of us here are business owners, right? So can we all just raise our hand if we have ever experienced imposter syndrome?

[01:16:27.950]

And you know that until experience tells you that everyone who was above you in the food chain.

[01:16:39.040]

Yeah. Also just makes it up as they go along.

[01:16:42.430]

Yeah. I would be authentic about it. Exactly.

[01:16:47.830]

I mean you’re because I guess to raise their hands if you ever walked in the room expecting people would be really brilliant and realize that you were the one that was actually like they’re really not doing what they know, you know, they’re not that smart. And they’re going, wait a minute, I’m just as qualified to be here as these guys. And sometimes you’re looking at some people going, how did you get that position?

[01:17:11.320]

I look phenomenal. All the time, yeah, and it’s I call it career momentum, where the person stopped growing years ago. And yet the momentum they built up leading up to that point has just continued to push them forward is really the way the only way I can explain when. Because of the title. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s career momentum.

[01:17:39.760]

And and, you know, I listen, I’m excited for you. I, I know a lot of what you’re going through. I started my first company when I was twenty two and many times when I was walking in a door, people were waiting to see who I was holding the door for, for, for who it was they were meeting with.

[01:18:01.510]

And don’t don’t let that at all stop you from being open and showing your passion.

[01:18:09.670]

Because what I quickly learned at that young age is old people like us actually love the youthful enthusiasm and the the, you know, the positivity and all of that. It’s addicting. We want to be around it.

[01:18:26.110]

So show that I don’t think that you have to present yourself as something different than what you’re actually feeling because you’d be amazed how many people will want to help you because they want to be around it.

[01:18:42.400]

They want to be they want to witness it.

[01:18:44.890]

I could have a small amount to I would I would I would rather have a team of younger, hungry killing people who want to prove themselves.

[01:18:58.990]

I’m not because I think I’ll get my work out of them, not because they won’t be problematic, but because it’s so much fun being around that myself, because it just infuses you just energizes you.

[01:19:09.190]

It makes you remember being that way and yourself. And you still want to be that way. I still want to be so I want to feel young. I still want to feel hungry. I still feel, you know, I don’t want to work and think, yeah, I’ve made it. We go whatever. I want to go and live on and do the next project to do whatever the next thing is. So having people around you is just so vitally important.

[01:19:30.460]

Absolutely.

[01:19:31.390]

Yeah. And so remember, that’s an asset you have and you shouldn’t you shouldn’t shield it because I’m sure you have already felt times where you’ve gone into meetings where you’ve wanted to come off as older and more traditional. That actually doesn’t help. Let it fly, let them see it, because the right people, the people who would actually help you anyways will be attracted to it.

[01:19:57.630]

And you have to ask me you ask me at the very beginning, did I have to how do I have to act early on? Right. When I walked into the room and I said, I just have to take it. So I made it. And I for me, I don’t know. I can’t talk for a while. I just can’t I’m not a very professional person. I’m very informal. I just I just I just find so much I’m so much more comfortable.

[01:20:23.320]

I can just myself. And so I think the one thing that’s really helped me along with this is what I tell anyone and everyone at is just take it. Just don’t be afraid to tell your story what you want to say.

[01:20:33.960]

And I think that that was authentic and it’s not fake it till you make it self fanaticism. And that is, you know, you’ve got a team. But she did not have an empathy and being authentic at probably the two biggest things that I’ve learned that I should have done when I was younger, if I had done that when I was younger, I’d have been a lot more successful then than than I’ve ever been seen.

[01:20:59.350]

That you’ve that already is just amazing to me.

[01:21:02.590]

And what I was talking about earlier, the fact that you took ownership in hotels before you had ownership in hotels. Right. And I think that would be a message that I would convey to every young person getting out of there. By the way, as Ed refers to us as us old folks, guess what? We are getting old and there’s got to be people coming in to take these places and to re revitalize the industry and to do these things.

[01:21:25.240]

So any young person watching whatever position it is that you’re in a hotel, do that position to the best of your ability and own it. Right. And own the things around you, because there’s a big difference between that that person that has the ownership. And what if I’m the guy that’s or girl or whatever it may be, the person who is scrubbing the floors, the scrub that floor to the best of your ability, but be the best at what you do and be the best at something else, be the best thing that comes next and keep on doing that and progressing through that to say refined person.

[01:22:00.280]

So you don’t have to worry that you’re going to get out of line or come off wrong. I don’t think because you were you were however you were raised, you have it all baked into the cake you can express. Yourself, really. I really I believe out of a commonality and I’ll say this for having been in the room with Lily and my staff meeting Adele, and there is a certain and you possess that same thing that I think I’m going to give them all compliment for.

[01:22:29.470]

You will be attentive. Each of you will do it differently.

[01:22:33.880]

I’ve watched Lily listen to stupidity and quietly correct them with the authority to please challenge me because I want to make you look more stupid.

[01:22:48.130]

I’ve seen Adele smile and astutely excuse the expression castrate the person for being totally inept at what they were talking about. I’ve watched Stephanie take questions, were purposely to down discredit her comments and her slam the door so hard on them.

[01:23:04.240]

I actually felt their nose crunch and we were all just single phone conversations.

[01:23:13.240]

I thought I’ve seen them and they’ve been speaking to large audiences. I’ve seen them in small groups. I’ve seen them when there’s this this I wouldn’t say swagger because I don’t know if that’s a justification of it. But the authority and the authority that, you know what you know, to be going back to a trusted authority, the authenticity of what you know and not to tell them to talk or, you know, I come off on the weird ways if I go tell people that they’re silly or they’re stupid or I spend a lifetime and they hit the button and show me that, you know, that you’re wrong, I know you’re wrong.

[01:23:44.500]

But and so I can assure you that you’re wrong. Ed does it by intimidation and threats and intimidating.

[01:23:54.220]

And you look at something going that’s nice, but, you know, just hand you appear and then we get you drunk enough because you have to tell you are it was really well.

[01:24:06.860]

But but the idea of it is that the caliber of what you have and what you’re doing, you don’t walk in, which is part of the reason why I ask that question. You don’t walk in and look at me. I’m an owner. Be quiet. I deserve to be. You don’t come in with that that bravado that you could do.

[01:24:26.050]

Excuse me.

[01:24:30.160]

You know, look at me. Look at me. You don’t you you’ve demonstrated this over and over in our conversation today, which is why I was asking, like, so how do you walk? Because I went and wanted to see if you’re going to say, well, you know, I feel I earned it because of what I’ve done.

[01:24:41.680]

You didn’t come over that you come home and say, hey, look, I don’t want to know, you know, and I relate to the people that I’m talking to and I try to make sure I can contribute to it. I can add to that conversation or learn from somebody. You’re very open to both ends of it to go back and flow kind of thing, which I say to every person that’s on the on the show here, that’s a treat that they all share, is I know what I know, but I’m open to listen to what I don’t either.

[01:25:02.710]

I mean, in all fairness to Ed, as much as I love dogging on, it is like and it’s changed my mind and stuff, but I probably had go back at least he says I do and says I thought about it differently, but he’s maybe he’s just being nice to me.

[01:25:13.240]

I’m not sure if you don’t think it’s to play with you, you have to let them feel like they win every now and then.

[01:25:19.720]

And that’s why I love them.

[01:25:22.810]

So I will give you a sense you’re young enough to take advantage of this secret sauce. I will give you my secret sauce to how I grew and scaled successfully.

[01:25:34.240]

Yeah, I learned. So they said black male five. It’s actually better than that. Give everyone around you the help they need.

[01:25:46.410]

When it’s really tough for you to do, because if you can do that, if you can give everyone around you the help they need, eventually what ends up happening is as you develop a group of people who are all interested in seeing you be successful and and so, like put it out as much as you can to the world, always have time for people, because if you give someone your time when it’s so important to them, they will remember that.

[01:26:17.340]

And I could give you thousands of examples of the different ways that come back to me, where I’ll hear from someone like man, when you were like doing this, this and this, you gave me like six hours in a conversation when I know you were busy.

[01:26:33.240]

And it’s like, yeah, but you need to help do that. That is I honestly think that’s why I’m successful. Was that not any of the other stuff?

[01:26:45.030]

It was. If you need me for something, I always have time for you. I don’t care who you are, what the ask is, I have time for you. And one more thing to that, because I think that’s very important. I love what you said. I think it’s also important that when you do help someone like you, don’t do it with the expectation that you’re going to get something back. Right.

[01:27:08.900]

And if you’re helping someone to reach a certain stepping stone in their life, don’t be the person who’s trying to take credit for it.

[01:27:15.170]

Never like that. That’s what a lot of times people I mean, I’ve seen it so much and it’s so. Like the only help you, because they want to take credit for whatever they help you with and no, that’s not that’s not how that’s not how it works. That’s not how your relationship grew.

[01:27:33.240]

No, that’s not how karma works, it’s a success through karma, you know, so I think everybody that I know from that joins us with the show and what have you.

[01:27:44.840]

I think that’s a coming. When we went through when we first started really having the impact it did on our industry, everybody helped everybody. And it wasn’t about you will only later you’ll you know, this is a debt. This is a scale. This is a bank account kind of relationship.

[01:27:59.440]

It’s like, how can I help? And I think, again, in your unique position that you are in the authority that you can wield. Yes. Is one hotel.

[01:28:09.760]

But yes, you are a beacon to a lot of other people by sharing the just enthusiasm, what you’ve done, just even though that not really the practicalities of how to balance being or whether or not you have to get finance all the mechanics of the logistics, just the inspiration of knowing that the potential has a tangible representation of you is very powerful. And you’re going to be that person. And and I know you’re very much without HOA, who is an amazing organization, but it’s one organization.

[01:28:37.720]

You have a broader representation capability by far than just all the amazing stuff you’re doing with a whole know. And I’m not just talking about HLL or HSM. I those are just other organizations. It’s the inspiration of kind of what inspired Stephanie to start saying where is this list that tells people how to help people with certain categories and other people that are beginning to question the depth of what we have to do to be successful at this rather than just taking credit for.

[01:29:04.540]

Oh, I bounced out my my staff by hiring women person the guys. OK, well, did you pay them the same?

[01:29:10.600]

I mean, you may have hired them, but because that’s a whole nother scale of conversation.

[01:29:16.040]

And what were their ethnic backgrounds, their cultural backgrounds, what were their educational background. Did you really diversify or did you just pick the cream of the crop, as you point out, from a database of people that had good talent and they just happened to be whether they were one gender or another, there’s levels of this and you represent a depth of levels. And whether it’s age, whether it’s gender, whether it’s an ethnicity or any, you going on the verifications of what you done and you’re going to be a draw to a lot of people has begun to realize that you’re one of those people that have done what they would like to think they could do.

[01:29:49.780]

Oh, yeah, I can’t because I’m tan, but I’m like my.

[01:29:54.640]

Now, the other real important thing is after this show, don’t let any of that go to your head.

[01:30:01.500]

Yeah. I’m sorry.

[01:30:11.470]

Can I say something about something that Ed said about helping people? I think that in the hotel business and I know also in other businesses, I’ve been researching a lot into health care situations, for example.

[01:30:25.330]

And the same thing exists there where people go to leaders to ask a question or to bounce an idea off of as how to solve a problem and how unbelievably common it is to see people say that they don’t have time to answer the question. And how soul crushing is that if the person doesn’t care enough to help you just answer a question to so that they can be successful in what you’ve asked them to do. It’s it’s it’s painful. We have to make more time for people.

[01:31:08.890]

And this is help us.

[01:31:10.360]

And this isn’t just your people. This is anyone who approaches you, you know, I mean, it’s it’s you know, and it listen, it takes a lot of energy. But I’ve also found that it has pushed me in directions thinking through problem solving. Someone else’s problem has has done a lot in in my time. I’m I build software just so you know who I like, what I do. And there’s lots of times where someone has approached me with their problem that they need help solving that had set me on a path going, oh, wait a sec, that’s very similar to this problem.

[01:31:48.520]

And that solve actually could be turned into product. And and it’s and so it’s not all like it. You’re doing it as the I want to give to the world. I want to put goodness out there. But sometimes you do get instant gratification of it opens your mind to something you weren’t processing on and you find an opportunity through it.

[01:32:10.540]

And so it’s it’s like forty six ideas and you only have the time and resources to execute it.

[01:32:19.040]

Yeah, I got to tap the valve back on that one because I’ll bore everybody. But I got another idea.

[01:32:25.150]

But I have to say this Ed statement is all of us here in some way if you want to look. At intangibly compete with each other in some aspects of Patris, he’s amazingly better than me and I really don’t try to compete with them so much.

[01:32:43.040]

But the idea of it is, is that through this entire process, anything what has happened the past 10 months is that we all realize the ocean is a very large one and that we all can have our part to play with. We all do things differently, even though they may be similar to this. But I can honestly say I’ve never felt whenever I see something that maybe is better for staff, it’s like, Hey, Stephanie, see this or whatever.

[01:33:02.930]

And I also can see from her or anybody, it’s about sharing what we know and know that it’s going to come back in some way. So and even to that point, but at its numbers, it’s not about a competition.

[01:33:13.220]

There’s no filter to that process.

[01:33:15.800]

But you have to understand, your direct competitor is likely the same exact person who could be your best friend, because they’re more like you than anyone else, you know, because they chose the same path as you. So there’s a lot of interest in there. And I had that with my last company. You know, it was a very competitive space. I was incredibly close with my three biggest competitors, owners, because I just liked them. They thought the same way.

[01:33:43.580]

They had kind of the same idea. They took a different angle. Just because someone competes with you doesn’t mean they’re the enemy. They’re just like you.

[01:33:54.380]

But in the world, who do you really feel you have competitors? I mean, obviously they’re I mean, I guess there’s pieces of it and maybe different people are looking at it, but I don’t really like. Do you feel like there is direct competition in the space or. You know, I let’s take a question we hear all the time, right, so in the hotel space, honestly, me personally, I don’t find anyone to be in direct competition with me like something.

[01:34:22.180]

You become a hotel owner. I’m not going to see competition. We’re in the same space, we’re doing our own thing like we’re in our own lane. It’s the only time where we say there’s competition in the hotel industry. Your hotel is right next to mine and we’re trying to get the same piece of business.

[01:34:41.110]

But otherwise, like just when it comes to having the best version of it, I don’t think there’s anything direct competition between hoteliers and if there is than I. It’s a place of insecurity. We need to make it a point, though, to make to be friends with the owners at the hotel, like across the street from the freckleton. Yeah, absolutely, and I work with the owner.

[01:35:05.900]

I mean, he’s my neighbor, he lives like four doors down for me, like, you know, he’s come over really good.

[01:35:13.370]

There is a competition between those two particular properties. Absolutely. But I mean, we still work together. We’re on the our local CBB advisory board together. He chairs it. I’m a member on it. And we discuss ideas on how to build up this region that benefits everyone, you know. So, yeah, I don’t I don’t believe in being pitted against other people, especially in this space. So, yeah, it’s fun to entertain them as an example, because one of my clients, they’re their brand hotel, they’re around other brand hotels within a certain area, but they’re the only ones that have a restaurant.

[01:35:47.360]

And there’s a new brand hotel that’s opening next them that’s not theirs. They actually show the same parking lot as they often go. And I was trying to tell them and they’re like they’re thinking they’re competitors. They’re not really wanting to dialogue with them and so forth.

[01:36:00.620]

That says, why don’t you, given the circumstances that we’re going through now with Kobe, why don’t you reach out to them and offer the employee meal rate with your restaurant to their staff as a token of, hey, we’re all in this together, you don’t have a restaurant, come on over and they can buy meals like our employees buy meals from our restaurant at the employee rate. Open up the floodgates and all of a sudden it’s how can you collaborate?

[01:36:25.060]

How can we get people to show up at our hotel, our hotels? I mean, all of a sudden there’s mutual ownership, our hotels. And I get this piece of business. I know this. Can you do it? Yeah. You know, it turns into this. What can we do? I mean, yes, you are looking for people to walk into the door to the left of the door to the right. But as I’m concerned with marketing, you’re competing with all the other markets are trying to take your market business, not the business.

[01:36:49.470]

What are you even know there is a box, not just you think outside the box.

[01:36:55.210]

You’re oblivious to all boxes, although although it does make carrying stuff really exhausting, I have to agree with Lauren as well, because, you know, you all know the previous employment, the better.

[01:37:14.810]

My co-founder and I worked and we were we were taught it was very much in the hospitality. Know, this is this is this is your room. You don’t speak with the competition. You don’t collaborate that way. If there’s something that they were going to try and build it internally and it was all like, yeah, you’re never going to build it with a million great ideas. She said, Stephanie, no one is actually interested in actually building anything good, doing anything new and pushing the industry forward until we actually left.

[01:37:43.480]

And it wasn’t until we started speaking with, you know, with the likes of Lauren Edge, Dean, everybody else. It’s not until we start speaking. Those people realize there is so much collaboration that we can do.

[01:37:54.490]

There’s so much we can help each other, even if it’s just morally, you know, moral support or, you know, someone chat to us that we’re saying that’s kind of in the same shoes as you, but doing them differently, really. You know, we can also say, yeah, my God, I’ve got a nightmare customer. Yeah, I had one of them as well. This is what you need to do. You know, this is how we got through it.

[01:38:16.240]

Brilliant. I’ll go try that.

[01:38:18.210]

Yeah, I. Right there where you can be. Someone else, and that’s fine, that is what competition is the way just comes down to business, to business people. There isn’t really need to think of that person as your enemy. You know, I think that there’s always more value.

[01:38:38.960]

It’s a very you understand, it’s a very baby boomer concept.

[01:38:43.040]

Yeah, I’m sorry. No, no, no, no.

[01:38:47.420]

It’s true because it is it’s better me or any better than me or I’m better than that. It also played to and this is the part that I think is brilliant based on. And I don’t mean any disrespect by age or anything, but I get people that are older than me that don’t understand what you’ve already accepted. And that is I don’t want to tear my competitor down to make me better. If I’m competing with somebody, I’m chosen because I’m better and I’m already talking about what I’m better at.

[01:39:11.870]

I’m not pointing it well. You know, their rooms only have half to be two of our air conditioners. And it’s summertime in Texas. So which do you want? You don’t play those games of I’m this and tear down that. It’s like, look, this is what I have. I know their assets and their value, you know, let me present them to you and you can make your own assessments of other people without having to be, you know, step on their head to get to it.

[01:39:34.790]

That’s that’s radical to think that you’re already familiar with that in such a way that you put that into your process. Because I’m constantly dealing with people my age older, anything they don’t review and everything.

[01:39:44.510]

But it probably Ted’s point is, whereas the people my age group, like the other, there are some younger hotel owners and they’re in the same way they look at you like as if you’re above, they have to crush. And it’s like, why? Like we’re not even to have the same goals like we can. We can definitely we’re stronger through collaboration. We can actually move further when we just work together. And so it just doesn’t make any sense to me.

[01:40:09.620]

It usually comes from either fear.

[01:40:11.690]

They’re afraid that you’re going to be like a true problem for them. That’s definitely one or ignorance. Maybe they don’t know what they’re doing.

[01:40:22.850]

And so I try to take one in there as well. And this I’ve seen that before. Whether there’s a jealousy where, you know, I’ve seen certain senior level people in organizations look at all the competitors that with the toughest competitors. But, you know, down the line, that’s an employee that thinks like it. They’ve they’ve grown bigger than all.

[01:40:48.710]

They’ve done more or like discovery. I think the latest envy was that they had a mobile booking engine, a mobile responsive booking engine.

[01:41:01.500]

So I just discovered your ex employer doesn’t ask you a question. And you mentioned, I think, goals. I think that was what I was wondering. Do you have your vision, mission goals?

[01:41:24.440]

What’s going to make you different from any other hotel for your new upcoming hotel?

[01:41:33.470]

I have like a rough draft. It’s not complete yet, but I’m still working. I have a rough draft. I’m very picky and indecisive. So I need throughout.

[01:41:42.920]

But yeah, no anxiety. Just thinking about it now.

[01:41:49.100]

No, just go with bagpipes.

[01:41:53.720]

Whatever happens grandstander. It’s if it’s not for the grandstanders, I don’t think I can put them in. I think if you want to have a conversation with Lauren about how to do that, I was going to offer the same.

[01:42:11.050]

If you want to have a conversation about it, has somebody to bounce off ideas, I’m sure all of us would be very happy to contribute to you.

[01:42:20.900]

We’ll get you back by coming up. Include your ownership mindset in terms of like how ownership and employees should engage together like that. I mean, I’m sure there are other people that do it and you’ll find some way to continue to differentiate yourself. But I think there’s a there’s a certainly an old school and new school mentality that you can capitalize upon that component of it.

[01:42:43.310]

Yeah, I mean, that’s exactly what I plan to do now. Just this property to any future property I will hopefully oversee is to just really bridge the gap between I mean, there is when we talk about old school mentality, there is some words of wisdom there.

[01:42:57.890]

Right. So I don’t want to completely discount that. But there is also thinking outside the box. So I want to combine those two concepts together. And hopefully it’s something that my future guests will appreciate and my employees as well.

[01:43:09.790]

And that is definitely wisdom that comes from the beatings you take in life. So so you don’t have to answer this directly, but more indirectly. So between you and your fiance, say working together, this is work like love. Everything’s in one big pot for you guys, right? I mean, that’s a lot of coordinated time and so forth. Is there is it do you share this from a perspective of what he’s better at, he’s in charge of and where you’re better at, you’re in charge?

[01:43:39.990]

Or is there like, look, this is the hierarchy. We have to think it’s a business thing. I mean, how do you define that? That that segmentation? We’ve had conversations, actually multiple conversations on what our strengths, the. What our weaknesses are and where we feel we can bring the most amount of value to the business, and so we’ve had those conversations and he’s very good. Stuff like that, I’m pretty good at marketing and just being out there in the community and stuff like PR, so.

[01:44:10.320]

And he hates that kind of stuff.

[01:44:13.530]

We heard authorities, but we balance each other very well in terms of what our responsibilities are, does seeing him and working with them twenty four seven on me.

[01:44:22.710]

Yes, but that’s all I have to have still. So that’s why you just open open more properties and it’s put.

[01:44:34.120]

You take. Oh, sorry, go ahead. It’s just going to say there’s a book I would recommend for you in this scenario called Lifestyle Builders, written by a good friend of mine, actually, and his wife who set a goal to retire, I think it was five, 30 years old or something like that. And they were able to achieve it.

[01:44:56.080]

But they also built several businesses together because the challenges and excitements of that and when you read that book, understand, get yourself to where you could retire at 30 years old, but don’t try and do it because you quickly realize you can’t retire at 30 years old from this generation of people.

[01:45:20.830]

Well, not at all.

[01:45:21.580]

Financially, you can, but you will quickly get to I lasted six months. I thought I done. Yeah, I lasted six months. I actually started just sitting at Starbucks, eavesdropping on people, talking about their businesses so I could pick my nose in it and think and give advice.

[01:45:39.570]

So so work towards the financial freedom of that possibility by 30. But don’t don’t retire.

[01:45:48.550]

I think more so for the relationship aspect. Yes. Yes.

[01:45:52.240]

And then I also, because of the dynamic you’re in, I also highly recommend you document it and put it on YouTube and how it beyond. Tick tock. Tick tock.

[01:46:04.510]

No, no, no.

[01:46:05.230]

Because the money that you would get from the viewership from you as well as well to monetize now. But just ask going on. I do need a new side hustle.

[01:46:17.950]

So I think we need kind of video documentary of the craziness that you have of everything that you’re tackling at such a young age would get a pretty big following and you can make some good money.

[01:46:35.900]

Just need to that as well.

[01:46:39.640]

You’ll be fine when you retire. Don’t worry.

[01:46:45.820]

Don’t have to because people love to see before and after, before and after.

[01:46:51.940]

You know that this is me in twenty, twenty one and this is how it started, how it’s going now.

[01:46:59.350]

I mean come on, you know. No but seriously, like if you, if you’re marketing inclined you should figure out an angle to documenting what you’re doing. The value on that would be even if it didn’t turn into something other people cared about, you would you would like watching it later.

[01:47:19.330]

It’s strange that you bring it up. I mean. Yes, from what I think it would be. But I would actually say it because I never believed in doing like journals and things. I was like I had no time to even do what I have to do during that a little right back down what I did or rerecord myself. But right now you’re hearing all these ideas and what I envision and everything else are there. And as you begin to solidify the path, the other options become thinner or not as defined.

[01:47:46.840]

They’re not not in front of you as they’re onto the side. And there’s going to be a point in forward thinking, this probably old man talk, that you would look back and say, what was I so inspired about that for what kept me going for that or what was that I was thinking that was going to do if I didn’t do what I ended up doing, what was my other choice to it? And you’re going to find inspiration like it’s as if he was Starbucks for a year.

[01:48:07.620]

You know, he he wouldn’t look for another direction or something. But you might want to think that once you feel that you have accomplished or feel comfortable with what you’ve done and you want to continue variations, you may have forgotten some of them. This is the time to chronicle that. And like I told a different man when he started this company, you end up selling it for many, many millions of dollars is when he first started. He was working in one of those little side offices in Kinko’s.

[01:48:30.100]

When he started his job, I was client number one for him. And he hustled by walking down to Kinko’s and taking one of the little office cubes there and did the work. And I said, please take a picture that it’s like it’s just take a picture of it. So he took a picture of it and it was on his phone forever and a day. Now he’s in charge of a company. He sold over sixty million, still running with the two and some odd employees and everything that’s like this huge company now.

[01:48:53.740]

And that picture is on his wall because that every time he gets losing track of what he was excited about, what got him up and ready to go and drinking coffee at Starbucks while Ed was listening to him, you know, he looks at picture, remembers that he went to a cubicle and Kinko’s to start his job. You’re going to look at your Scottish in five years ago, member member.

[01:49:16.480]

You know, you’ve always still own it or whatever.

[01:49:19.840]

But, you know, that’s the fire of inspirations and you’re going to be giving that to other people, too. So having your own anchor to that is powerful. So keep track your stuff. I mean, and honestly and not just the casual pictures and stuff like this, but hey, you know what? I’ve got to think long term. What what what am I going to look back on to remember their first lobby? I mean, I. Still to this day, remember the smell of my first love when I was a kid, you know, it’s like you miss those things that you don’t do anymore, you know, you miss that that excitement that they can create.

[01:49:49.020]

So if you like getting out of bed without, like, something akin or creaking, yet you’ve forgotten that you will also find a job.

[01:50:00.120]

If I can give you one piece of advice, you’ll find the old people love giving you people the pieces of advice.

[01:50:06.170]

You know, I what they say.

[01:50:09.390]

I could be sitting in a rocking chair. I could do even better. Yeah, I like you. Oh, I remember one.

[01:50:18.660]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[01:50:23.950]

If Robert was here you could talk to you about the time you overbooked Bethlehem. I’m just saying I was there during the war. During the war.

[01:50:35.330]

But any who.

[01:50:37.860]

Well, we went through almost two hours of keeping you engaged with conversation if we didn’t take too much of your time away. We asked for a half hour time.

[01:50:48.930]

Oh, good stuff. I’m sorry. You to me. I thought you did. I’m sorry. No, I don’t know if I did. Already forgot it.

[01:50:57.570]

So something Adel asked you earlier.

[01:51:01.420]

But what is your German timeline of what you’re thinking you want to accomplish, or is this just let’s get this done and then I can know what it is I want to do next. How do you how are you approaching your next iterations of what you’re thinking? So I did have a timeline last year before they kind of ruined everything, and now I realize the beauty in the power of pivoting. So so right now, this this project, it took a lot of time to get going.

[01:51:28.230]

Even so, my focus is on this for now. Keep it going. I’m still working with our Fairfield. I especially see how the landscape looks in the next few years, and then hopefully that’s when I can start working on another project.

[01:51:42.820]

I’m keeping. Of course, but I would love to have something else going within five years possible seeing how everything goes right now.

[01:51:53.350]

Now, the hotel that you’re making right now, is it the latest iteration of the Scottish end? I mean, I’m sure they’ve always done it for the improvement over their branding requirements and so forth with what you’re building. This is the latest of what they’re saying they want instrumented into a new building, is that correct?

[01:52:10.860]

Yes, yep, so I’m going to see if I can add some really cool elements, hopefully they’ll say yes, but see. What, what, what the reason why I’m asking is, and this is just the geek in me is right now it’s a budding industry or budding interest, but eventually it’s going to be a mainstay of how people engage. If you did three sixty pictures of everything you’re doing and give it to the Scottish in branding, you’re going to turn into the benchmark of what they want to show the people, because it’s not just the images which you have, but it’s the ability to interact with it or engage with it.

[01:52:45.920]

Because that’s the thing that I’m noticing now with a lot of people that are building hotels is they have no reference point except for stylized renderings and what have you. And then they have some instances of imagery of things, something that just a Renault in the lobby or reneau in a room. But if you’re brand shiny, shiny, new what they want, you can anamur yourself potentially with them by giving them that research, say, hey, look, here’s here’s all you can do for free for yourself.

[01:53:11.300]

Just walk around, take pictures and give that to say, hey, here, this is because then you’re going to be getting the value, as you know from our perspective of being that hotel that you now are different than the Scottish in any at all. You’re that person that everybody looks to say that’s what it looks like. So I’m just it’s just a weird little geeky little thought. As I wrote that down.

[01:53:33.450]

This is going to be the best effort, definitely in each and every every everything that you serve from FNB needs to be deep fried if it’s going to be traditional Scottish so that know that you’ve dodged a bullet there, because I’m thinking that we should get to to to fly over, get tested, fly over and be your greeter.

[01:54:03.110]

No know and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You name it. Absolutely.

[01:54:13.000]

And I think. Yeah. Welcome to this. Yeah.

[01:54:17.160]

I didn’t look good in a kilt. That’s all I’m going to say. It’s not even worth out of the kilt.

[01:54:23.730]

We won’t go there day in, day out and I have to leave everybody. I think it’s been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. Tejal, same as everybody else. It’s been it’s been good to to catch.

[01:54:40.610]

We all do good everything. I think it just ask you that before everything.

[01:54:45.120]

But as well as we could be in lockdown 3.0. So, yeah, everything is fine over here. Safe and well.

[01:54:52.710]

That’s the that’s the main the family safe and healthy and all good for now. Yeah.

[01:54:57.870]

You can probably hear them screaming upstairs to, to kill each other I think. Just widen the dug up one of the two.

[01:55:06.420]

Everything’s fine. Everything’s about home schooling. Yay.

[01:55:10.800]

Fantastic. Well, it’s been a pleasure. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

[01:55:15.690]

Three to six. Tell me about real quick before we run.

[01:55:18.180]

Yeah. Hospitality, digital marketing specialists, anything that you need to get your hotel in front of direct consumers. We can help you out. If you could get me it’s Crystal Haywood. It’s three and six dot agency. And that’s all.

[01:55:31.830]

I’ll let us know who’s the better looking between the two partners then it’s OK.

[01:55:36.750]

But yeah, we set out to Ben when I’m not here, to be fair. Thanks, everybody. Have a great weekend.

[01:55:44.910]

Very good to see you. I also have to run. So I just want to say, Tagil, thank you so much for agreeing to come on the show and subjecting yourself to us and all of our questions. And I appreciate your transparency. I think that’s why we’ve connected over the last few months is just being able to have some honest conversations. I appreciate you bringing that aspect to the show. And on a future show, I’m going to bring my new puppy, Coqui, because she has to go the bathroom right now before my next call.

[01:56:17.500]

So the marketing marketing target, marketing dot com.

[01:56:25.440]

So thank you, guys. And Tagil, we’ll catch up soon. OK, thank you.

[01:56:29.340]

Thank you. With that in mind, we should be seeing our happy hellos and so forth.

[01:56:34.110]

So with that in mind, Addo, to this room to throw everything and then we’ll say goodbye to Salvado for you where we can people find you, follow my podcast, the hospitality reputation marketing podcast, get great reviews. You do not have to be a five star hotel to deliver five star hospitality and get five bucks. So follow me there. It’s on Spotify, Apple and and on my website Aspire Reputation Marketing dot com.

[01:57:09.720]

And I’m going to be loading up the six episodes we’ve already made on on YouTube over the weekend. So I hope you’ll be there to do so.

[01:57:21.180]

And great podcast. I know. I know. I know. We’re well.

[01:57:23.760]

It’s a very great budget deal.

[01:57:27.810]

If you want to hear what you were thinking goes certainly both on our website and on LinkedIn. So we have Basecamp, MEDCOM and metasearch marketing dot com. I opted to go into a field focused on metasearch, working both with educational aspects of that to help people understand what it’s all about, how to run them.

[01:57:45.570]

And also small videos actually search can be it can be challenging with a small result because you have the challenge of the big vendors, the like, working with the Sheraton’s and Marriotts don’t always like working with the small properties. And so we help even a ten one bed and breakfast get live on Google Meetup. We can talk to you more about that. Miss Muckerman, and it’s also wonderful to see you, I know you’ve been busy as heck these past few weeks, we had the chance to always talk, but good to see you as well.

[01:58:16.240]

It feels like forever since I’ve been on the show, so I’m glad to be back. And in the meantime, in the background, we have relaunched our website, so I would encourage everybody to check that out on the T CRM site, t CRM services dot com and would love your feedback. So feel free to email me. I dropped those into the chat because I don’t have to try and t as in Tom, you all the way through that name and you can also find us setting up enterprises dot com and on the hospitality podcast which is hosted Unthink Up Enterprises and Deaconesses podcast to you about that i o u episode.

[01:58:56.890]

Yes you do. And our wonderful thank you for going through the entire time with us. Honestly, I mean, and so that, you know, you’re now a member of the super exclusive secret handshake club that you can join whatever you like if you want to. I always send you a little note saying, hey, please show up your decoder ring soon.

[01:59:19.450]

If I need a coffee mug that has a logo on it, you have to have without handlers and stuff. But that’s just. Yeah, that’s that’s the garb you get to wear. But no one could always join us forever. It just if you ever want to just come in and you see what we do, we just we enjoy each other’s company. Wait probably more than we should. And the chance to talk to intelligent people really is my purpose is like, wow, they’re smart people, we talk to them.

[01:59:41.620]

So thank you so much for joining. If they want to orbit your hotel, know about you and maybe to reach out to you or whatever way you would like people to communicate with you, how can they find you? Sure.

[01:59:50.780]

So I’m all about being on LinkedIn, if you so you can definitely find me on there. And I am more than happy to drop my dead people here. You me to thank you.

[02:00:01.690]

Please. Yeah, I got one in the show notes as well. So people have that. If you’re OK with that, I’ll put that in the charts as well. Awesome. Awesome. And speaking of shirts, if you want to replay this show or any previous two or maybe three of our shows, you can go to hospitality, digital marketing, dot com forward slash live there. You’ll find a link to the show. We also have our podcast, which will do a quick little recap of the show today on it as well.

[02:00:23.800]

So you can just listen to it from that perspective as well. But show notes, links, all that kind of fun stuff we will definitely have on it. And again, sincerely, thank you for spending the time. And to Stephanie’s point, your transparency, your honesty, your candor. And I can only imagine that we will have the privilege of saying that we knew you back when you started your first hotel, because so far you’ll be one of those people going, yeah, yeah.

[02:00:48.820]

So all good stuff. So thank you again. And thank you, everyone, for joining us both on the show and those who joined us on all the multiple platforms. We will be simulcasting this in the city time eleven thirty Wednesday morning and also eleven thirty London. Time for our new friends as well. You know, we love cats to the already in those markets, so thank you. And we look forward to seeing you next week and you’re more than welcome to join us whenever I make sure you get a link.

[02:01:11.710]

So if you ever get a chance. Thank you. We’ll see everyone next week. Thank you. Thank you.

Loren Gray

Founder / CEO of Hospitality Digital Marketing

aahoa, ahla, hospitality, hospitalitybroadcast, hospitalitymarketing, hsmai

About us and this blog

We are a digital marketing company with a focus on helping our customers achieve great results across several key areas.