Transcript: Episode 190: Handshake Deal Robbery

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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is Top Floor episode 190. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/190. 

[00:00:14] Narrator: Welcome to Top Floor with Susan Barry. This weekly podcast ride up to the top floor features tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. And now your host and elevator operator, Susan Barry.

[00:00:32] Susan Barry: Welcome to the show. Donte Johnson has been in hospitality since 2001 and became a first time general manager at just 29. He's led seven properties from his start at Kimpton's Topaz to repositioning iconic hotels in Miami and DC. Most recently, he brought a purpose-driven vision to life as GM of Revival Baltimore, and now heads the Thompson Atlanta Buckhead. Throughout his career, Dante has championed embedding hotels in their communities, blending business acumen with cultural impact. 

Jason Bass brings a rich background across finance, tech, spirits, and fashion. A serial entrepreneur. He ran a travel accessories brand backed by Under Armour, which eventually led him into hospitality. Through creative collaborations with Revival Baltimore, there, he and Dante began a partnership that evolved into a unique role, director of Culture and impact in which Jason continues to shape hotel experiences that blend art, culture, and community. Dante and Jason have written a book about their experience, the Impact Hospitality Handbook. Today we're gonna talk about that book and why doing good can also mean doing well. But before we jump in, we need to answer the call button. 

Call button rings 

The emergency call button is our hotline for hospitality professionals and basically anyone with burning questions. If you would like to submit a question, you can call or text me at 850-404-9630. Today's question was submitted by Carol. Here's what Carol asks. I think this is such a funny question for y'all. What is the purpose of uniforms and dress codes in hotels? Why does it matter? 

[[00:02:44] Donte Johnson: It's a great question, Carol. Well, I think part of why it matters is that people wanna feel like they're a part of something. And I think the same way that uniforms function on sports teams and, you know, really any team environment, the visual identity, I feel like connects and brings people together. Now with that, I think, you know, there's been a lot of opportunity around how we can improve uniform programming, how we can make sure that the functionality of the uniform matches the demands of the position. And we actually cover some of this in the book because we had an opportunity through one of our community partners, who was a instructor and also a brand ambassador for LuluLemon to get discount products from the store. 

[00:03:37] Susan Barry: Oh, nice. 

[00:03:38] Donte Johnson: And, you know, we had an incredible but very small Mighty Valet team at the hotel and the garage at Revival was maybe three blocks away from the property. So in July, you know, you've got Walter standing out front who's got a run three blocks to grab somebody's car every time he brings it around. And, you know, the sort of polyester polo shirt and khakis just wasn't an ideal situation for him. And so, you know, we had the idea of, well, what if we tapped into relationships, went down to the Lululemon store. And let him pick the uniform for him and his colleagues. And so, you know, it was a great way to spend an afternoon. I ended up actually buying the exact same uniform that he still wears. And I love it. I mean, I wear it as an outfit.

[00:04:28] Susan Barry: You wear the uniform. 

[00:04:31] Donte Johnson: I love it. It was a great look. It was a great look. 

[00:04:33] Susan Barry: You know, I think there's, I used to kind of be the dress code cops when I worked on property in hotels, and I deeply regret that now. But I do think that there is an added element. I don't know if safety's the right word, but from the guest perspective that you feel confident that the person that you're working with either is supposed to be in your room or in the space or has enough authority in the building to to solve your problem. Having said that, I think that there are some standards that should go by the wayside. What do you think? 

[00:05:13] Donte Johnson: Yeah. I mean, and I would add to that, you know, you're absolutely right with respect to the safety piece, right? You should know that the person you're handing your keys to actually is a valet at the hotel.

[00:05:22] Susan Barry: Exactly.

[00:05:23] Donte Johnson: Not just a person standing out front. You know that the person knocking on your door is there to fix your television and not just a person standing in the corridor. And I think part of how we solve for this is, you know, we created. I mean a wide sort of set of guardrails with respect to style guidance, but also encouraged people to express themselves and really blew up the entire uniform program for everyone who wasn't either standing out front or entering a guest room.

[00:05:52] Susan Barry: Hmm. 

[00:05:52] Donte Johnson: You got to wear what you wanted and we created pins and there was signage all over the hotel. You know, we've intentionally created space for people to express themselves through their attire and wear what they love to work. But if you see this pen, then you know the person works here and any of us would love to help you. And then at the same time, we were launching merch. For hotel guests to purchase. That was hotel branded, t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts. And what we came to realize was eventually those two ideas started to merge into the same thing. Our best customer were the colleagues at the hotel.

[00:06:29] Susan Barry: Okay. 

[00:06:30] Donte Johnson: And so they would end up wearing the merch that we were encouraging guests to buy. And so they ended up uniforming themselves in things that, you know, we thought it was stylish enough to be interesting, a guest. And you know, certainly it was interesting as well. Then it started to function as a recruitment tool. So people would go, Hey, some guy walked up to me on the bus and said, you know, Hotel Revival, I've heard of that place that you work there. And I brought him here to interview. And so it was a really cool thing that came together really organically. 

[00:07:00] Susan Barry: That is cool. 

[00:07:01] Jason Bass: Just to just share a little bit of my experience, and I'm usually the outlier in most of these examples because I have my own, I'm allowed to express my identity mostly.

[00:07:12] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:12] Jason Bass: You know, through, without having to be asked to wear uniform or adhere to like traditional dress codes within the spaces, which, you know, I truly recognize a privilege. I've had thousands upon thousands of guest interactions, you know, wearing what I normally wear, just maybe a pen, sometimes I'll forget the pen. But I never, there was never an experience where the guest wasn't certain that I was there to help them. 

[00:07:43] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:44] Jason Bass: Right. It was just something about, I think it's just about the nature of how I was seeking to solve a problem for them, you know, deal with whatever discomfort that they were receiving and doing it with some form of like deep consideration and with a tone ability to actually solve this problem. So I think that, like, I think there's parts of that, those interactions that can be dealt with by creating a solid uniform program where people can identify, but it's, you know, who's supposed to be doing what, but there has to be, you know, they have to project the ability to actually be helpful as well. Like those two need to go together. And it's like one of those things where like, it's the person that wears the clothes, not the clothes that wears the person. Kind of conversations that can be explored here. You know, because you could put a lot of people in suits and it can look like they have some ability to do something and they could turn out to be absolutely not helpful.

[00:08:54] Susan Barry: Yeah, it's like your attitude is your uniform. We could probably talk about this topic for the entire hour, but I wanna learn a lot more about the two of you. So Dante, what drew you to hospitality in the first place, and how did you become a GM so young? 

[00:09:12] Donte Johnson: Yeah. It's a great question, and I think, you know, if you ask a hundred people in the industry, you get a hundred different answers. But like many of us, I fell into it. So I actually studied journalism in school. I'm supposed to be a beat writer right now covering local sports in Jersey City. As I was nearing graduation, which was a big deal, not many people in my family had gone to college. I was talking to one of my aunts about coming up and she goes, great, when do you get back home? And I go, oh, never. I'm gonna stay here and write and cover local sports. And essentially she said, no, you're not. You've been gone for four years. You've got brothers and sisters and cousins and a family that needs you, so it's time for you to come home. And so I went home with no prospects for work and she goes, great. You can stay with me for six months. Until you figure it out. And I interviewed for every type of job under the sun. She worked at a hotel and said, well, listen, I mean, you're smart enough, people like you, why don't you get a job at the front desk so that you can move out my house and then you'll figure it out from there I'm sure.

So I got a job at the front desk of the Topaz, which is the first Kempton Hotel east of Chicago. And the rest is history. With respect to moving up so quickly, I've always been very ambitious and so from day one, I remember going up to my supervisor and I was the 3 to 11 front desk guy. That was my main shift. I would work any shift anytime someone called out. I was the person that you called who came in and covered, but I held down the 3 to 11 shift five days a week. And I asked my supervisor, well, what can you teach me today? And he goes, well, you know, you've got your checklist, you've got your things you're supposed to do. And I go, yeah, but every day you need to teach me something different.

[00:10:54] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:10:54] Donte Johnson: Until I know everything that you know. And so it was, you know, it was weird at first, and I think he didn't take me seriously. And then every day I came in and said, all right, what's the thing today? 

[00:11:03] Susan Barry: Nice. 

[00:11:03] Donte Johnson: And after six months of that, he was like, I have nothing else for you. I was like, great, you've been doing this for eight years. I've just made up eight years in six months. And then I moved on to the next person, and this wasn't the coolest thing to say, looking back on it, but then I just started working my way through people in the building. Well, what do you do? And so I was very much a sponge and I happened to start my career in the industry as Kimpton was starting a growth spurt in DC. They essentially opened a hotel every six months for the next few years. 

[00:11:33] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:11:34] Donte Johnson: So I had the opportunity to bounce around without having to relocate, to move up in an environment that felt very comfortable and felt like home, and eventually made my way back to Topaz, as GM. And there was so much that I didn't know. But half of the team were the same people who were there on my first day when I was asking what a folio was. 

[00:11:55] Susan Barry: Oh, wow. 

[00:11:56] Donte Johnson: So they very much looked after me and stopped me from making any nuclear mistakes while I kind of, you know, did a what amounted to an on the job sort of bootcamp training process and filled in the gaps.

[00:12:10] Susan Barry: Do you think that the hotel business has gotten better about this, like on the job training thing? I've never met a person who says, oh yeah, I was perfect, really adequately trained before I took on x, y, z role. Everyone's like, yeah, they just dropped me in and I figured it out. 

[00:12:29] Donte Johnson: That's right. I think it's still very much an environment where I don't wanna say it's sink or swim. But at some point it boils down to you get out of it what you put into it, and you will have to close adequacy gaps with smarts and tenacity, and ambition. I think we've gotten incrementally better at it than we were 25 years ago, but not so much so that I would say we're great at it or that we're as many other industries. And I would also add to that, onboarding talent into the industry. It's still very much an industry where we struggle to onboard talent at, call it the mid-management level, which I think is, it's a survival problem now. 

[00:13:16] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:13:16] Donte Johnson: 'Cause our talent force has been so diluted still, you know, by the pandemic that if I can't take a store manager from retail. And pull them into hospitality without them having to start as a supervisor at the front desk. Then we're going to struggle to close gaps. 

[00:13:34] Susan Barry: I, this, I swear, I think every question I ask is gonna end up evolving into a whole other show because there is this tension in hotels between the idea that it's an apprenticeship business and you have to learn by doing. The idea that hospitality programs across the country are growing by leaps and bounds and offering master's degrees and having people take out $60,000 worth of student loans to pay for a degree, that then gets them a $7 an hour job. Like there's such a tension and your point about being able to convert someone with similar skillset into this industry. We can't do it. It's so interesting. Let's write another book about that. 

[00:14:21] Donte Johnson: Listen, I think to your point, every one of these questions could be an episode, but this was something that we identified as we came out of the pandemic in Baltimore and one of our sales managers, Emily came to me and said, listen, I've got a lady who doesn't work in hotels. From a cultural perspective, she's one of us and I don't know what we do with that. And so she brings Sarah in, we meet her and we go, yeah, she's absolutely from a values perspective, aligned with what we're doing and how we're approaching it. But she's not going to start out at the entry level when she's, when she's a manager. 

[00:14:58] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:59] Donte Johnson: You know, at Target. So she, so we ended up sort of framing a management trainee program around her experience and the gaps that she had. And it was the messiest, sloppiest, onboarding into an industry that a person can have early days coming out of the pandemic. It's just she and I and candidly, neither one of us know what we're supposed to be doing. 'Cause I haven't checked a person in on a consistent basis in years. And it was just, you know, we'll pull together and we'll figure it out. There's nothing that we can, that can't be, it'll be okay. And we got through it and she did amazing work for us and is still in the industry today.

[00:15:40] Susan Barry: So Jason, I wanna turn it over to you and talk about the through lines in your career that you think have ultimately made the hotel business a good fit. Because you've done a lot of different really interesting things and it fascinates me to this point that Dante was just making about how do we bring people in from the outside? How did we successfully catch you? 

[00:16:09] Jason Bass: I, no, I gratefully, I really appreciate this question and as you guys were, you know, talking a little bit about those, the challenges and, you know, how do we onboard talent into different spaces the whole time I'm thinking like of the differences between my experiences in different industries and you know, what I see and have experienced over the five years that I've been in hospitality, like one thing I would even point out is, even though every department is like extremely interdependent on each other, they still operate dependently and more, in some ways kind of ad hoc. Like you can't have any part of the hotel kind of operations not do a thing.

[00:16:52] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:16:52] Jason Bass: Or it is felt. Immediately, which is very different from like if when I owned the company that manufacture travel bags and accessories. Right. I can, if whatever phase we're in, I could just focus on that. Like if it's production and we're looking to produce a bunch of different accessories, but we can't sell them so much yet, or like actively sell them. We can have some early sales going, but if we had to do a lot of in-person sales, you know, we would require the actual product in hand to do some of these things, sort of fulfill the product.

So like one, it would kind of like, it would take one of a journey process than anything. So some things can kind of like go to the side. And I think mostly how I've been able to go into the industry. Adapt is through the support that Dante has given me over the years. You know, he has a very entrepreneurial mindset, right? And he, I think because of his experience and what he pointed out earlier in this discussion is like he had to take the initiative, he had to figure things out. So in some ways. He'll clear the space and say, Hey, if you don't know a thing, anybody in this room ask the question? 

[00:18:02] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:02] Jason Bass: Right. It's okay, it's a safe space. Or let me host this meeting a little differently where we're gonna go through, we're gonna offer from micro to macro on all of this and walk through it so everybody has a general understanding of what's happening and why they're doing a thing. And immediately I think, it gave me the opportunity to not only get a better picture of how things were. The inputs, the processes, and outputs. But it gave me an opportunity to say like, Hey, here's how I would've solved this as an entrepreneur. Or Here's how we might have had a very similar thing when I was an IT project manager. Or like, Hey, here's how we sold and marketed, you know, a spirit brand to a Target consumer. Is there any value in us taking from this story and applying it to this? And then being able to go back and forth with him and maybe a few others, other colleagues, they could take that and maybe reframe it and adjust it, and then we could figure out a game plan and go forward with it. So, you know, you have to have that kind of environment to do it. 

[00:19:07] Susan Barry: It sounds too like you were being received in a very different way than a lot of outsiders to hospitality would be received, making those same kinds of suggestions that it wasn't like, no, that's not how we do it. It was more like, huh, let's see. 

[00:19:27] Jason Bass: No, there were definitely, and it still continues to be a lot of pushback that demonstrates that a lot of our, you know, everything that we do is, is deeply steeped in tradition. 

[00:19:40] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:19:40] Jason Bass: Right. Or, procedures. Right. And there isn't a lot of, there isn't a ton of creative thinking happening, you know? So even when it comes to servicing, recovering things from issues with guests, it's like, step one, do this, step two, do that. And it's good to have those kind of things, but this is an industry of feelings and people and it's not always very scripted. So I think that I've earned a bit with Don kind of clear in. I gave space for certain things. So when people did kind of oppose the ideas, I hadn't then prove it. 

[00:20:16] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:17] Jason Bass: And that was always what you pointed back to like, Hey, alright, prove it, show it in the numbers, show it in like this or that, whatever the KPI was in order for us to like convince people, 'cause you gotta get buy-in, you know, no matter what you're doing.

[00:20:29] Susan Barry: Something that you guys talk about is running a hotel as though you don't know how it's supposed to be run. And it sounds like Jason was practicing that from the very beginning. Can you say a little bit more about that and what that means, and maybe give an example of how that's played out? 

[00:20:48] Donte Johnson: Yeah, I'll jump in on that. I think to me, and this especially true. Lifestyle hotels, boutique hotels in the a hundred to 250 room space, one or two restaurants and bars is you gotta run 'em like a startup. And I think if we were truly in a startup, we would say, all right, well what are the talents that exist around, around the table? We would blur lines between positions, wherever it made sense. And you know, I think to a ridiculous degree, we would sit in a room full of really talented, really smart people. And Jason might be really great at spreadsheets, but if that belongs to the finance person as a responsibility. There's no space for the two of these people to come together and create a better outcome because everybody's siloed into their departments and never between shall they meet. Right. So I think from just sort of embedding the idea that we're gonna be scrappy, we're gonna be tenacious, we're gonna be creative, we're gonna be dynamic and entrepreneurial in everything that we do. We start these conversations with the question of, well, if nobody ever told us how we were supposed to do it, with all of the information, tools, technology and challenges that we have. Is how would we approach this? Because the reality is I learned how to do this from someone. I learned how to run hotels from someone who learned from a person who was doing it before the internet. 

[00:22:23] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:24] Donte Johnson: So, I'm two generations out of hard keys an red cards. And so if I'm not leaving behind the chunks of those processes that no longer serve us, then we don't move quickly enough to adapt to modern problems. And it's not just that, like when you think about a thing like email as an example that, you know. Organically should make us more efficient, but the volume of emails that we might get is overwhelming in and of itself. If I'm still also bringing forward the processes that aren't meant to fit into a modern environment, then I'm gonna be spread too thin to be affected.

[00:23:04] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:05] Donte Johnson: So I think we, to me that's the spirit of how we approach challenges. And I think if we can get the entire team thinking through an entrepreneurial lens, if everybody's dynamic, then we're outmaneuvering the people who we compete with. And I think that's really where you start to see some tangible results.

[00:23:21] Susan Barry: Can you think of an example maybe from revival or from Thompson where you sort of face down one of these like pre-internet traditional practices and had to turn it on its head? I know I'm putting you on the spot, so no pressure, lots of pressure.

[00:23:41] Donte Johnson: I would, I would say look at org chart. What was the last position that sort of en masse was created across the industry? Like maybe it's digital marketing. 

[00:23:52] Susan Barry: Yeah. Social media, definitely digital marketing, revenue management. 

[00:23:57] Donte Johnson: And, and all of those evolutions came out of were sort of born out of necessity. We didn't necessarily sort of proactively do a thing and listen, I've been as guilty of this as anybody else. I said Twitter was a fad and.

[00:24:12] Susan Barry: You are probably on the other end of my sales call when I started my company trying to get hotels to buy my services in the wild, wild west days of Facebook and Twitter. 

[00:24:23] Donte Johnson: And so I think what we just, the creation of of Jason's role is an example of a space where we had a gap. And the first conversation that he and I ever had, what I said to him is, I feel like we have an opportunity with the design, the location, the positioning of this asset to create a three dimensional brand. That when you walk in, you feel that something different, fundamentally different is going on here than other hotels and the market. And that's gotta be a hundred intentional decisions that we can point to every day. How do you squeeze that into the existing org chart? So the front office manager has to do a slice of that. The F and B director has to pick the DJs, even though she might not have relationships with DJs. 

[00:25:09] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:25:10] Donte Johnson: You know, the director of sales and marketing is doing art things even though she's not into art. And so I think, really what we did was sort of took a gap that we had. And then you took this sort of unique player with all these really interesting skills and backgrounds and interests and said, all right, there's a connection here where we can do a thing. And I think that was, in my opinion, a modern problem. A modern solution to a modern problem. 

[00:25:33] Susan Barry: That's a good start to the answer to my next question, which is about how Revival became more embedded in the local community and what that looked like on the ground. So I heard you say DJs art program, maybe a few other things. And I think people can understand that as a list of like, oh, we had events, but I know that it was more than that. Jason, can you talk a little bit about what you were doing there? 

[00:26:01] Jason Bass: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Even before I started this role, and this is a role that was essentially created by Dante, again, like I was very active in the community doing summer lunch programs, just figuring out ways to make a positive impact around Baltimore city, building relationships with politicians with different, local food banks and so on. It was great that I felt really, really, you know, just I would say I was excited to always work with Revival. I love the hotel itself. I think it was incredibly designed and people there were fantastic and they allowed me to throw all types of cool events, right? Like, hear me out, kind of things. All kinds of weird concepts to be hosted in a hotel. So, I think what he saw was like, let's marry these two. You know, let's figure out how to bring this all together. Teach me the how to work with the systems within the hotel, food and beverage, sign operation rooms and all of that. And then ultimately also determine what those goals needed to be, those business objectives. And then we'll align these things.

And when we think about how to bring the community into space, first, we gotta make it a welcoming space. We've gotta let people know and as soon as they walk into the building, like this is commerce free, right? We're not, if you sit down and just pull up your laptop, you're not gonna be asked, Hey, what are you doing here? What do you need? Or anything like that? Or do you have a room? Right? So it starts very simply with that kind of stuff, you know? 

[00:27:28] Susan Barry: I mean, that sounds, and some of that simple, but it's not simple. It's not universal. I had an experience a week ago where I walked into a hotel, 'cause I was early for a dinner reservation and they had a really cool spot. So I went and poked my head in and the man at the front desk said, you're not allowed to be in here unless you're a guest. Can you show me your key? Like, yeah, that was the first sentence. No, like, Hey, can I help you with something?

[00:27:56] Jason Bass: How you doing? I'm so and so. 

[00:27:58] Susan Barry: I'll literally never spend a dime at that place ever. 

[00:28:02] Jason Bass: I had a very similar experience while in Baltimore at a hotel that will go unnamed and it'll stay with me forever. Just like that one will for you Susan, right? Like, and the thing is you'll share that, right? 

[00:28:14] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:28:14] Jason Bass: Offline, you'll tell your friends and that word of mouth negative marketing will ripple as far as it can go. And I think that's what we forget as an industry is that those are also very important moments too. Those are touch points where, you know, we can have a negative, a real negative influence on our ability to attract new individuals, new potential guests, and customers of the outlets. But like, you know, if we start there people won't naturally start to come in. They'll even share out with their friends themselves. Right? Their network. That this is a great place to potentially work or hang out, get inspired, and connect with other people, right? And also, hey, why not? They have good food. They have great drinks, right? There's a little bit of that, and it goes deeper as we were looking to figure out, well, none of the community is here. Like, what do you guys need? Like what's happening around the community? Right? Are people looking for jobs or during covid, like a lot of people were laid off from this, from the service industry, from the hospitality industry. Like how do we figure out the best ways to help them?

Alright, if they need food and they need this or that. Let's reach out to some of the contexts we have, convert this, some of the spaces that we have here into the things that need them to be. And then let's package and wrap this food up and distribute it, you know, on a frequency that best serves the community, not through assumptions, right? And creating those dialogues and those moments allowed us to shape programming that was directly aligned with their interests. So, we weren't going around thinking, and we learned very early on and changed our approach to this, that we don't have all the answers. We can't assume that we know what's best for the people that are around this place and surround the building. So we essentially theoretically turned, took the walls away. We pulled the walls down, right? Open the doors, and that's, and it all starts there. So there's a ton of stories in the book. 

[00:30:23] Susan Barry: Yes. 

[00:30:23] Jason Bass: Illustrate that.

[00:30:25] Donte Johnson: Yeah. And I would add to that, and this is something that I've said a lot and the most important things that we created were space and intersection. There were, to Jason's point, we're not here to solve all the world's problems. We are running a for-profit business, but what we can do is create a safe and welcoming environment for people to come together. And I think in most of these communities, there's people doing really incredible work who may not have access to or trust with or relationship to us being able to just bring those two groups together, created some really meaningful outcomes. So we hosted small business pitch competitions where it's a prize for the winner. We brought in instructors to do the teaching, teaching things that we can't teach. And we've got meeting space that there's no week that goes by where we can't find space for 15 people to get together. 

[00:31:24] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:24] Donte Johnson: Or we can do it virtually. And then what we provided on the other side of that was, well, now you can work with the hotel. So the company that won it was an organic tea company. Well, great. We serve organic tea all the time, so now we can provide an incentive, we can provide an outcome, we can provide space for people to come together, and that was really the spirit with which we approach the work is before we start ideating, let's ask people what they want and what they need. Before we start problem solving, let's identify well, who's already halfway downstream. Solutions that we can bring in partner with, pour into and amplify in order to expedite those outcomes because we owe it to the people that we're here to serve, to get to the outcome as quickly as possible. Not in the best possible way to feel like we're the heroes.

[00:32:10] Susan Barry: You have both said that this cultural and community impact work, programming, et cetera, is not just for fuel. Good. And Dante, you even just said it, we're a for profit business. What kind of data do you use to measure the idea that this isn't just for like the feels? It's good business produces results for the entity.

[00:32:36] Donte Johnson: Yeah, it's a great question. And as you might imagine the question we get asked most often and I wasn't joking earlier when I said, Jason is like hell with a spreadsheet. So, we track everything meticulously and going into it sort of year one at Revival, we didn't really know what would be impacted. So we had to track everything. You know, year one here was year five for us on the journey together. Right. So when you talk about KPIs, which Jason mentioned earlier, we track the time to fill open positions and you know, not just when things are calm and everybody's got a job, but coming out of the pandemic when no one could get people to come back to work. We were fully staffed, we were filling positions before the person leaving the position for a promotion was gone. And so people were able to train their replacements because we had built such a reputation in the city and in the adjacent markets that people actively wanted to work there, which was great. We tracked things like impact to group production and looking and the great thing about the time there was that we had sort of two years of time before we started down this path.

And two an organic ramp would happen over time, or a new leader comes in and there's a bump that comes along with that. But there was nothing that we measured that wasn't dramatically improved. The hotel was more profitable, the colleague experience scores went up. Morale was better. I mean there was literally nothing that we measured that over time wasn't impacted. But some of those things ramped more quickly than others. And so if we put a DJ in the lobby and then start welcoming people in and deploy a cocktail program against that. Well that can track the revenue that it does today, tomorrow. But impact on group production is gonna require the sales manager to have that conversation with the client to care, understand, book that thing. And then when those contracts convert, then you see those outcomes. I think the most striking data point out of all of it to me was media hits. And so. 

[00:34:51] Susan Barry: Oh, that's good. That's smart. 

[00:34:53] Donte Johnson: The hotel got over 3 billion media impressions over a two year period from July, 2020 to July, 2022. And so, we know there's what, 8 billion people in the world. So, just like the gravity of that is astounding. And when you put that up next to entire brands in our industry, this one hotel in a cultural hub in Baltimore, that me growing up 45 minutes away had never heard of before I worked there, garnered that kind of attention is incredible and we've got all sorts of algorithms for how you quantify the financial value of that to the brand. And you know, and it's incredible. 

[00:35:42] Susan Barry: We like to make sure that our listeners come away from every single episode of Top Floor with specific practical tips, ideas, suggestions that they can try either in their businesses or in their day-to-day lives. So for someone who is listening to this running a hotel and is like 3 billion media impressions, dramatic in increase in every possible metric, sign me up. Where should they start? 

[00:36:10] Donte Johnson: So the place you should start are the places that are most natural and organic to you. And what we said at the beginning is, our intention is not to twist and contort the business in unnatural ways to try to achieve outcomes, to drive positive social impact.

[00:36:27] Susan Barry: Hmm. 

[00:36:27] Donte Johnson: So, the listening tour part of it to me was, was the best place to possibly start because I think many of the assumptions that we carried about Baltimore and what Baltimore needed and where we could be helpful weren't necessarily true when we actually listened to people in Baltimore. 

[00:36:44] Susan Barry: Ooh. Like what?

[00:36:45] Donte Johnson: And we took, so as an example, Jason brought up the example earlier of like, oh, people just need jobs. 

[00:36:50] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:36:51] Donte Johnson: And it's like there's truth to that for sure. But that's not all they need. So we partnered with the city to create a workforce development framework for disconnected young people in the city. And what we found was like, yes, of course you need a job, but the money that you can make as a be attendant or you know, a front desk person or a house person at the hotel, many of these young people had the entrepreneurial spirit to make that money outside anyway. 

[00:37:17] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:37:18] Donte Johnson: They weren't in for money. And what we, when actually sitting down and having conversations with them every day is, I need legal support. I need support just getting the documents that I need to get a job. I don't have a primary care physician. And so like when you think about all of the different things that they would encounter between their door and our door and a given day, their paycheck being correct was the of their worries.

[00:37:44] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. 

[00:37:45] Donte Johnson: And so we started to really sort of issues upstream. From a lot of just the raw data that we were consuming when we were trying to figure out what our strategy and what our lanes would be, our impact lanes would be. We started to realize, oh, okay, this goes a little deeper than we thought. But also I'm not qualified to give somebody legal advice, but I know a lawyer. So let's bring that. 

[00:38:08] Susan Barry: Got it. That I was gonna ask you to clarify that when you said about twisting and contorting the business, that in other words, don't provide a legal clinic if you're not a lawyer, kind of deal. 

[00:38:19] Donte Johnson: That's right. But you can provide meeting space and you can have an expungement fair that's supported and driven by a professional. So for us, where we landed was, okay, we can provide mentorship to young people because we've got great leaders on our team and we can provide support of local businesses. So the first thing we did was looked at the entire check register and said, great. Who have we cut checks to? Who could we swap out for someone that's local or for someone that's underrepresented? That's the thing that any hotel can do. And so I would say start with the ideas that any of us can get behind the more sort of universally appealing ideas. And then do the crazy stuff after you've had success with the stuff 

[00:39:01] Susan Barry: After you have a track record, right? 

[00:39:04] Donte Johnson: That's right. 

[00:39:04] Susan Barry: So Jason, what advice do you have for like vendors, artists? Local entrepreneurs, DJs who are looking to partner for hotels, are there sort of some keys to success for that? 

[00:39:19] Jason Bass: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. First, just make sure you have everything in order, right? And what I mean by that is, you know, try to have like some type of business structure behind whatever you're doing, LLC, you know, sole proprietorship, whatever, you know, formation that is. 

[00:39:40] Susan Barry: So you are allowed to pay them, right?

[00:39:42] Jason Bass: Right, exactly. Know what an invoice is and how they work and honestly, they're super easy these days. Like there's all types of, I mean, you could download a Word document. You can, it is just that easy. There's templates on Google, right? But the part that I'm explaining is just ask AI what the steps are, you know, to getting your things together right? To be looked at seriously and also be being able to be engaged with and from a real commercial, corporate standpoint. A lot of artists, a lot of creative creatives, you know, they don't get a lot of opportunity to work with bigger organizations. So, I know that knowledge isn't also shared commonly amongst that community.

[00:40:29] Susan Barry: I'm sorry to interrupt you, but as someone who's married to an artist, I can tell you their brains don't work like that. Their brains don't work like that. 

[00:40:35] Jason Bass: It's not, yeah. 

[00:40:36] Susan Barry: They need this guidance 

[00:40:37] Jason Bass: And it shouldn't, right? 

[00:40:38] Susan Barry: Yeah. 

[00:40:39] Jason Bass: Yeah. And there's a lot of like, and I hate to point people, there's tons of resources online, right? Everywhere. Right. But you don't wanna overconsume either, right? So just try to find the basics of what you need to operate as a legitimate business from that perspective. Also be aware that hotels aren't made of money. You know, there's not an unlimited checkbook. They are still operating like very much like an independent, small local business, even though they might be kind of institutional in some ways. So, don't assume that whatever you charge them, they're gonna pay, you know, understand the market, understand what their needs are. And then lastly, there are so many different entry points into the hotel. Don't give up on the first one that you try, right? If it's, you wanna be targeted, of course, right? So if you wanna deal with something that's in one of the outlets. Talk to somebody, one of the general managers or managers, that run that outlet. You know, if you wanna provide a service that ultimately, or a product that ultimately benefits the sales department, you know, go and talk to the director of sales and marketing. This is something in public spaces, this is front office, that kind of thing. Anybody from that area. But just be smart about it.

Those are the three things that'll get you somewhere for the most part. And don't give up because. It's a difficult thing to figure out, even for people that work in the industry, like who do you talk to to sell this thing and what is that and when can I get an answer up on it? Right? So, there's that. And last, actually one final caveat here is that some products can't be brought in. 'Cause they might not fit brand standards. So, that's not like a denial, like they don't like what you have, they just have to adhere to a certain requirement. So don't take it personal, learn from it and then try to go onto the next one with some competence.

[00:42:42] Donte Johnson: I know we're, I know time is of the essence, but can I get you to quickly turn that question inside out and just give a couple of pointers to the hotel side of that to just be a great partner? 

[00:42:57] Jason Bass: Yeah, yeah. No, thank you for that question. Dante. Susan, you got a co-host? I dunno if you. 

[00:43:02] Susan Barry: Lucky me. He's a great co-host.

[00:43:07] Jason Bass: That question comes from experience. And, you know, quite often, we in the beginning, we handle those relationships the most, right? Because again, it takes an entrepreneurial mindset, but it also takes a deep understanding of how the business operates, how they buy things, the relationships that they have with suppliers, the demand, all of that, right? So we were able to onboard a lot of these, at least local businesses, small businesses. Let's say like a toilet paper company, by asking the right questions, right? Like can you meet the demand? What are your price points? If we order more, can we get it for less than it fits within what we're currently paying by, you know, plus or minus 20% or whatever that needs to be doesn't get us in the ballpark.

Where are you getting it from? So we have a good sense of like how it's being produced, manufactured. What does your supply chain look like? So we're sitting down, this is not a part of our job at all, going through all of those details, but when you have to hand off that relationship to somebody in another department, and then they have to go through their version of it because it's so easy for that person to order things currently, right. They go to see their levels, you know, what do they have on hand? What do they need? They hit a button and most of the time it's kind of automated. They move on with their day. But when we're like, Hey, check out this other company that's selling this, you know, we have space for it. We think it'd be a great story. Let's support the local people that can actually do a thing and then expect that they're gonna go through those questions. To make sure that they can, you know, we can buy from them. It is tough. And, and also at the same time, like our payment terms and the way we pay things doesn't always work for small businesses, right? Like net terms could really destroy the cash flow for a small business that needs to pay their employees or bills tomorrow. Right. 

[00:45:00] Susan Barry: Or mortgage. 

[00:45:03] Jason Bass: Or mortgage. Right. And that's how it is when you're a DJ, right? And then we get upset on our end, like, oh, why is this, you know, DJ calling me to pay, they're harassing me. It's like they get paid when they walk out of whatever gig that they did that night. So to tell them that they don't get paid for 30, 60, 90 days. Is not acceptable for that relationship. And we have to know that we have to go, that go into that understanding that they don't know our world. So let's be a little bit more understanding of what their world is like. And we could easily meet in the middle, meet somewhere or accommodate. But again, this is a part of the listening, the knowledge you get from a listening tour, right? Not just with the community, but also your vendor relationships. 

[00:45:49] Susan Barry: We have reached the fortune telling portion of the show, so now you have to predict the future and then we'll come back and see if you got it right. What is a prediction you have about the future of community-based hospitality? 

[00:46:05] Donte Johnson: I think this is our generation's ecotourism and you know, I happened to be around early days in my career when hotels started saying, well, what if we compost it? And, and I saw that become a revolution of doing well by doing good.

[00:46:24] Susan Barry: Beehives on the rooftop.

[00:46:26] Donte Johnson: Beehives on the rooftop, you know, chefs at farmer's markets. I mean, all of those things that I think were born out of the spirit of maybe we should just be a little less toxic to the environment around, like maybe we shouldn't just be terrible when we can avoid it. Right. And I think when you look at that it rose counter to the spirit of hospitality for us to be the people people, but destroy the planet with how we operate. And I think it rose in deep alignment with hospitality for us to be the people people and look after the communities within which we operate. So I think this is 10, 20 years from now, we'll look back and go, Hey, I remember I was listening to the Top Floor podcast. I know those guys were talking about early Days Impact Hospitality. And now it's an entire lane within the industry and there are certificate programs and the people you were talking about who are paying tens of thousands of dollars to study the industry will be able to graduate with this already on their mind as they enter the industry and are the leaders of tomorrow.

[00:47:31] Susan Barry: If you could wave your magic wand and change one thing about the hospitality industry, what would it be? 

[00:47:39] Donte Johnson: Oh, I'm interested in Jason's answer to this question. 

[00:47:40] Susan Barry: Me too. 

[00:47:41] Jason Bass: Wait, wait, wait. Actually, can I go back to the, to, to his last question? 

[00:47:45] Susan Barry: Sure.

[00:47:45] Jason Bass: Can I go back to that? 

[00:47:46] Susan Barry: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:47:47] Jason Bass: Okay. Here's what I'd like to add to that, because I'm in agreement with him and I didn't go through the equal certification stuff for hotels. But ultimately I think that I'm gonna predict that, what we've been talking about and what we've been doing is gonna help to count counterbalance the introduction of AI. Right. I think that there's, I think that we are demonstrating a deeper connection with the community and the customer that currently exists, that ultimately AI won't be able to do. So at certain points it might replace parts of like the transactions that occur within the business. But ultimately it's gonna put people that used to have those jobs and those roles in a space where they can get put more time into building like legitimate relationships and connectivity.

So I think there's that, and I think that that also, when we talk about artists and DJs and all these different talents, creation is the ability to create is cheap, but what's gonna become more valued is creativity is like how you use the tools that have made people have given everybody the ability to be a graphic artist now. Right? Or you know, write a prompt and get a photorealistic image of a thing. If you aren't creative, that product or whatever you create won't be great. So it'll show. And I think if we layer these two things together, that's a prediction, that's a big prediction. Ultimately what I like to see change about the industry is, I think we have to make it acceptable for people to understand that there's different variations of luxury. I think we have to better define that. I think in order for us to understand what lifestyle really is, we have to accept identity as a part of what a lifestyle is, right? And if we are targeting a certain customer or consumer to sell things to then we have to learn about who they are, their psychographics, not just like.

[00:49:56] Susan Barry: And also like them, you know.

[00:49:57] Jason Bass: The, the demographics and like them, right? So, it's crazy that we have to say that in hospitality, but that's what needs to change as a core of it. We need to change those things immediately or we will suffer. And like I am in it for the long run, I've decided I don't wanna change a whole bunch of lanes, you know, I really enjoy what's been happening. If I've been given opportunity to that led us to this book and actually make an impact, not just on the communities, but ultimately in the industry and contribute wherever possible like I'm in. So, let's hope that these predictions ultimately do come true. 

[00:50:42] Susan Barry: Okay folks, before we tell Dante and Jason goodbye, we're going to take them to the loading dock and see what crazy stories they're gonna tell each other.

Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”

[00:50:58] Susan Barry: Dante or Jason, or both. What is a story you would only tell on the loading dock? 

[00:51:05] Donte Johnson: Okay, so I've got one for this. So Jason first started working in the industry and at Revival, on a handshake. And part of that was because we needed to get work done immediately and the process for creating an agreement. For a consultant to perform a function that doesn't exist in the industry takes about as long as you would imagine just by practice. And so I said to him, listen, we'll get that part figured out. Let's just get to work. And, you know, didn't really know me that well, but we go down the path. But first meeting that we have, first team meeting is an offsite meeting in DC which is where I'm from. So, you know, I'm bringing the team down to DC. We're having a 10 hour marathon meeting, and it was really just creative brainstorming for commercial strategy for the following year, and we did it every year subsequent to that.

So, you know, the team is fully exhausted, but also excited to just go get some dinner, have some cocktails, experience a little bit in DC. I'm excited to show them my city and everyone throws their bags into the back of my car, which is parked in front of the hotel where the meeting is meant to take place. And one of the managers was leaving early. Her husband had come, they were gonna go off and do their own thing and have dinner. She's like, Hey, I just need to get my bag outta your car. So I come back from where me, Jason, and a couple other people get out of my car. And realized that I had left my keys in my laptop bag in the trunk. So the car was unlocked and all the laptops were stolen. 

[00:52:41] Susan Barry: Oh, no. 

[00:52:43] Donte Johnson: So Jason, at this point. Isn't even under contract as a vendor. 

[00:52:47] Susan Barry: Oh, it's not a hotel laptop. 

[00:52:49] Donte Johnson: It's not a hotel laptop. 

[00:52:50] Susan Barry: Oh my God. 

[00:52:51] Donte Johnson: It's his personal MacBook. So his is the only one that's not going to be replaced. And so on this handshake deal where I go, trust me, this is all gonna work out. You're gonna be really, you did this, 

[00:53:02] Susan Barry: Or I'll rob you. 

[00:53:03] Donte Johnson: The first thing, right? The first thing that happens is I take him to my home city, to my hometown, get him robbed. And there was this moment where like, we see this guy walking up the street. He looks a little suspicious. And we're like, Hey, you know, what's going on? And then we both had a moment where we looked at each other and said, okay, look, we're not gonna roll around in the alley with strangers over maybe having our laptops. Maybe not. I feel really terrible about this, but if what I'm betting on in creating this consultancy relationship comes true. Then we'll look back on this down the road and this will be a funny story that we'll tell, and we'll be happy that we did this, and I'm just thankful that that turned out to be true. 

[00:53:44] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh. Me too. Did, how did you? 

[00:53:48] Donte Johnson: Yeah, I was gonna say, Jason got a really, really warm welcome into the industry. 

[00:53:51] Susan Barry: Oh my God. God, that is heartbreaking. Well, Donte Johnson and Jason Bass, thank you so much for being here. I feel like I could sit here and talk to you guys for the rest of my life. So the fact that we have to cut this short is disappointing. I really hope our listeners buy the Impact Hospitality Handbook and more importantly read it. And I really appreciate you writing up to the top floor. 

[00:54:21] Donte Johnson: Thank you so much. Thanks for having us. 

[00:54:22] Jason Bass: Thanks for having us. 

[00:21:00] Susan Barry: Thank you for listening. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/190. Jonathan Albano is our editor, producer, and all around genius. He even wrote and performed our theme song with vocals by Cameron Albano. You can subscribe to Top Floor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. And your rating or review will go a long way in helping us give you more of what you like.

[00:21:38] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Top Floor Podcast at www.topfloorpodcast.com. Have a hospitality marketing question? Reach us at 850-404-9630 to be featured in a future episode.