Transcript: Episode 205: New Year, New Pillow

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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is Top Floor episode 205. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/205 

[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, Wil Slickers has taken a non-traditional but highly intentional path through hospitality, tech, and media. After beginning his career as a front desk agent and later manager in boutique hotels, he started the Slick Talk podcast in 2018 as a side project to learn more about the industry. That curiosity, which we share, quickly turned into a full-time pursuit with Wil exiting his hotel job by the end of 2019 and diving headfirst into hospitality media. Wil built hospitality.FM to a podcast network with more than 30 shows, which he recently sold to Skift, and he has been behind several entrepreneurial ventures as well. Today we are going to talk about podcasting as a business, media and hospitality, and the future of industry storytelling. But before we jump in, we need to answer the call button.

The emergency call button is our hotline for hospitality professionals 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 Amy. And Wil, I think you may find this to be a familiar question, we'll see. Amy says, “Why do I need to wear headphones on a recording if I have an expensive microphone?” The number of times I have been asked this question, but I just am not gonna poison the well. How would you respond?

[00:02:20] Wil Slickers: Great question Susan, and thanks for having me on the podcast. I would say the reason why you need to have headphones when you have an expensive microphone is because that expensive microphone is so good, it picks up all the audio everywhere around you. So if you're in a room with an echo or just a small condensed space and your, your laptop or computer speaker is right next to the microphone, guess what your guests and your listeners are all hearing? It's echo. So yeah, echo is the issue and even though you spent 300 bucks or 500 bucks for a mic, you gotta get those $20 pair of headphones. 

[00:02:55] Susan Barry: It's so true. I have fought with so many people about this question. Like, it doesn't matter how fancy your mic is, buddy, you gotta wear headphones. So Wil, you started your hospitality career at the front desk of a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel. What hooked you about the industry? 

[00:03:16] Wil Slickers: So I have a two part answer for this, and the first part was honestly, I needed a job and the ambiance and the outside of the building was sexy and cool and fun. I was a young, young guy who was attracted to it but when I walked in and I got the job position, the moment I walked in, I was in love with the people. The people I was working with were so fun behind the front desk. We had many great laughs. I got to meet a lot of our regular guests and actually break that kind of fourth wall barrier of guest and staff where you're like, oh, Mr. Wall, how are you? Oh, I have to pretend that I'm scripted and not really caring about your day. But it was it was honestly the people were awesome and I just kind of didn't realize that I could have a job where I get to talk to people all day and enjoy it. So it was awesome. 

[00:04:13] Susan Barry: I mean, it's a textbook case of people and a perfect personality match. You definitely have had a unique trajectory. You were a Bible college dropout and now a podcast network founder. What do you think ties those experiences together? Or does anything tie those experiences together besides the fact that they all happen to you? 

[00:04:39] Wil Slickers: Yeah, I was gonna say the only common factor I would say that ties 'em together I think is, again, it comes back to people. So originally when I was going into Bible college, I wanted to be a preacher. I wanted to be in front of people preaching the good word.

[00:04:53] Susan Barry: You just wanted to talk! 

[00:04:54] Wil Slickers: I wanted to talk. So I had five sisters growing up and I was blessed with a gift of gab from them. So thankfully my mom and my sisters have all gotten me to be the open and in touch with his feelings son. So that was a lot of that growing up. But I would say going into to the podcast piece and the Bible College route is honestly, I think the main thread that is connecting them outside of the people and talking would be, it was a lot of discovery of what I wanted to do. I had no idea what I was gonna be in high school. I was always debating on do I become a, a counselor? Do I go become a firefighter? Do I do police? Do I do the military? Do I do this? Do I do that? Right? Like there were so many things that I was just kind of, yeah, I'm interested, but I don't know what to do with my life. And it just kept happening. And my faith was a big part of it. But through that experience I also realized like, yeah, I actually don't wanna do this. This is a extreme role that I don't think I'm made for. But through that process, it led me into the hotel, it led me into hospitality. It led me into where we are today with being acquired by Skift and getting to run media. So like, at the end of the day, the common thread is curiosity and people. Now that I'm talking out loud, I'm like, yeah, those are the two, I would say would be the common threads. 

[00:06:19] Susan Barry: It's interesting. My dad is pretty religious and he has a theory that the hospitality industry is its own sort of ministry. That making people feel like they belong and hosting them is a way to live a faith their live a religion, which I think is kind of interesting to think about or interesting to explore, especially given what you said. 

[00:06:45] Wil Slickers: Oh, a hundred percent. 

[00:06:46] Susan Barry: I know you started Slick Talk, it was sort of like a side project. Was there a moment when you were like, okay, this is no longer my side hustle? This is the hustle? Like when did you know that it was more than a sort of a passion project? 

[00:07:03] Wil Slickers: Yeah, great question. It was, I would believe the summer of 2019. So that summer I remember I was getting a bunch of emails for people to be on the show, so I was like, all right, people wanna be on. That's great. And there's a lot of cool names, like David Lund, who I was a big fan of at the time.

[00:07:23] Susan Barry: Yes. He's so great. I've had him on. 

[00:07:24] Wil Slickers: He's awesome. Yeah. And so it's just like, okay, you get the traction in the industry. Obviously I was running a hotel, so I was like super busy, super crazy. Barely able to keep up with the schedule and and whatnot. But there was a moment where I didn't even think about monetizing the show. It really was a passion project just to learn to grow and to advance my career. But I mentioned a short-term rental company called Stay Alfred at the time, that was in Spokane, Washington, in the same town that I got my first hotel job. And so I was like, oh, of course I could talk about them. I know the brand, I know what they did. And I brought it up. And this sponsor of a technology company emailed me and said, Hey, love the podcast. We heard you talking about Stay Alfred and one of our clients, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We'd love to sponsor the show. Do you have any openings? And that was when I was like, oh. 

[00:08:16] Susan Barry: Hold on a minute. 

[00:08:18] Wil Slickers: Yeah, like,I didn't think about making money. The show was also ran very lik, janky. It was on Skype. I was recording on Skype with no video, no microphone, no headphones, nothing. So it was pretty bad. It was like, okay. I don't know how I got there, but I got there. 

[00:08:37] Susan Barry: Are those early episodes still in your feed? 

[00:08:40] Wil Slickers: Oh yeah. I've left them intentionally for everybody. It's like, go to episode one, you can hear how bad and then to like, where we are today.

[00:08:47] Susan Barry: That's like your naked at baby photos? 

[00:08:50] Wil Slickers: Yes, yes. It's like my mom being like, look at his little tushy.  

[00:08:55] Susan Barry: That's so funny. You, I know, started sort of as a way to satisfy your curiosity. Did it surprise you that it ended up going a different way? Like, did you ever imagine immediate — were you ever sitting in your studio like, one of these days, I will take over the world and get bought out by a media conglomerate? You know what I mean? Like what? I don't know. What was surprising about all of it? 

[00:09:23] Wil Slickers: I think the surprising part was honestly that how long I could do it for full time. ‘Cause when I started making money from the podcast, I honestly thought, okay, this is just a season, right? Like, I'll do 10 episodes with this sponsor. And it was a couple other sponsors that joined the kind of like package we created at that time, which was the first ever sponsorship I ever ran. It was like, okay, like that was cool. That was awesome. I made a significant amount of money that I wouldn't have made within three months at my job. So like, that, let's keep doing that if we can. But I didn't think it was gonna be reoccurring monthly for almost seven years. Well, six years, full-time, seven since I started the show. But yeah, it was like, okay, I didn't think that was gonna be the outcome. So no, I was not evilly planning the takeover of hospitality podcast media, but definitely was just surprised on how long it was. 

[00:10:18] Susan Barry: So it started when somebody basically was like, Hey, can we give you some money? But as you said, you turned it into a sustainable, viable business for many years. What was the hardest part of that? Asking for a friend?

[00:10:35] Wil Slickers: Whew. Oh man. How long do we have?  

[00:10:37] Susan Barry: As long as it takes! 

[00:10:39] Wil Slickers: Well, okay, so I'll say the hardest part for me, I think it's continuing to go when things aren't going well. That's the hardest part is because in the beginning I quit my job. Like, the industry, it was kind of crazy. 'Cause there was like Matt Landau, Heather Bayer, and then there's Stuart Butler and a few other very, like, very small collective of podcasts.

[00:11:05] Susan Barry: Jonathan Albano.

[00:11:07] Wil Slickers: Jonathan Albano. Yes. A hundred percent. And very few doing it full-time. So it was like, okay. When I took the leap, the industry responded well. I got inundated with inquiries, inundated with guest options, and sponsorship was great. There was very few people or very few podcasts able to take on the, the sponsorship at a certain rate or whatever. And so it was really exciting. But then, fast forward to 2023, 2024, even this year, everyone can almost have a podcast today. And so standing out is always harder, especially if you, even if you're the OG, like we are, I would say we're considered OGs. You're an OG in my head because I remember listening to your show when you first started, and it just constantly changes. So now discovery is changing and how you get discovered. Plus we're not in a huge subset of media in terms of like topics or content coverage. So travel and hospitality is actually a pretty small but big industry. When everyone has a podcast, it kind of starts to canalize cannibalize itself. And so I think that was the hardest part for me was how do I keep it fresh? How do we keep going? How do we stand out above the crowd when we are the biggest conglomerate. We had, like you said, about 30 plus podcasts under our umbrella from production and sponsorship and all the other things in between. So it's a lot to manage. And one show is a lot to manage, so it's like, okay, the scalability piece was really hard and we were bootstrapped, took no investment, no outside cash. So it was a lot of taking my sponsorships, funding the company and putting in putting in the time to grow and do all the things. So that was the hardest part for me. If that hopefully answers your question. 

[00:12:57] Susan Barry: Yeah. I mean, it's very much rings true. I wonder if your sale was hard or easy. So you just sold hospitality.FM to Skift. Why was this the right time and why is Skift the right partner? 

[00:13:15] Wil Slickers: Yes, it's the right time because like I said, it's been about seven years since I started my first podcast, five years on the second. And Hospitality.FM was born from those two. And as a bootstrap company with the big vision, it was really hard to be like, how can I get past this ceiling point of X amount of revenue, X amount of shows, X amount of problems that we were having on production or sponsorship? The market completely changed in terms of media as well. So it was in my head where I was like, seven years is a good run. I don't wanna see these people or these shows go to waste. So where, what would be, what would be the next phase? Where would the next home be? And Skift is the obvious solution 'cause as you and I have discussed on and offline, is that I believe that Skift is the biggest and the best travel hospitality media outlet from their live events to their editorial content. I've been a reader since 2017 when I was a hotel manager. So like I've known the brand for a long time. And yeah, Rofit and the whole team from Anne and Carolyn and Jason, the co-founder. Just, we all had alignment saying, Hey, there's no one running this stuff at Skift. There's no ownership of the seat and we need ownership of the seat what you're doing, but also like you could use resources like a sales team and a marketing team and an accounting team and all the things that I was drowning in. And it just made sense. It was an easy solution. It took about a year. The conversation was about a year of getting to date each other, I like to say.

[00:14:56] Susan Barry: It was a courtship.

[00:14:58] Wil Slickers: Yeah, we were going on a little dates here and there and meeting up for events and conferences and having conversations along the way. But yeah, I knew immediately that Skift was the home for myself and for the team and for the shows. 

[00:15:13] Susan Barry: What do you think is gonna change and what do you think will stay the same in terms of your mission, the way that you tell stories and hospitality? 

[00:15:22] Wil Slickers: For sure. The mission that will stay the same in my head, and I've expressed this internally and I think everyone's on board is that I wanna continue to amplify voices. That was my mission with Hospitality.FM, but now I kind of have a different. Pool of voices to choose from is within Skift, going from four people to a hundred people 30 podcasts to now six, but a little bit more intense ecosystem around them. That's where the changes are gonna come, and it's gonna come in phases, but hopefully listeners of our pods and anyone that knows the shows won't think like we're gonna completely gut the shows or anything like that. There's gonna be some changes strategically. That's my role is to look at the, the numbers and the products within Skift and see how we can integrate the live events, the subscriptions, the, you name it, right? But at the end of the day, I'm still gonna be hosting and we're still gonna have our amazing GMH crew and we have Katie Klein with Sweet Success, who is a master of conversation. So just to have everyone at their skillset in a ecosystem and environment that they could just enhance it is really exciting. So hopefully really good changes to come. 

[00:16:38] Susan Barry: We like to make sure that our listeners come away from every single episode of Top Floor with some really specific, practical things to try, either in their businesses or in their day-to-day lives. What did you learn from building a podcast network that you'd want someone to know before they try to scale their own show or brand? You mentioned that there's a ton of shows entering the marketplace. What do you wish they would know besides “turn back”?

[00:17:10] Wil Slickers: Maybe not turn back. Not yet. We're not at that point, hopefully. But I will say truly understand the market. If I could start over when I was starting, there was four or five podcasts. Now there's hundreds. So go through, you're gonna see some obvious signs right out the gate. Poor cover art, same titles or podcast names, right? Or very similar to right? They're gonna have the, the short term rental side. They're probably gonna have “air” or “host” in it. If they're on the hotel side, it's probably gonna have “hotelier” or something with a hotel in it. So like find something creative, find something new, get creative, find what's out there, and really put the emphasis on good audio, video and quality. Everyone's recording with bad microphones or just AirPods and sounds like they're on a work call rather than a podcast and your listeners don't wanna feel like they're listening to a work call. They wanna feel like they're listening to a podcast. And my last advice is to treat your podcast like a show, not a podcast, but a show. So incorporate video, incorporate social, incorporate segments, or spin off content or other little things that you can get creative that aren't just a RSS feed podcast. If you build out the ecosystem around it and you get people that are actually in you'll be more successful than those who just show up once a week to record. 

[00:18:37] Susan Barry: That is some excellent advice. More advice: How do you approach monetizing content without compromising your authenticity or the authenticity of the content?

[00:18:51] Wil Slickers: Great question. And the beauty of this one is that we all have the power of choice. So you get to choose who you work with. You get to choose who, or you basically get to choose what you say. So if you get approached for sponsorships make sure it's an aligned brand. Make sure that the vision make sense, make sure that the product makes sense. Don't pitch a product you don't believe in. Easy, like number one thing, it's hard to turn down the money because everyone has like a marketing budget of 500 bucks for this, or a thousand dollars for that or whatever, for anything that you can think of. And then eventually you're promoting stuff that you don't believe in and your listeners can tell most likely. It's a very intimate platform with podcasting. So I would say, yeah, just stick to brands, and if you have the power to choose the ones that you want and the audience to kind of leverage that, then more power to you. But if not you don't have to take it if you don't want to.

[00:19:45] Susan Barry: There is a sort of running conversation on both Top Floor and in just my general life about smart money versus dumb money. And I think you're saying the same thing. Dumb money feels green, but is a little painful in the end, maybe. 

[00:20:03] Wil Slickers: It comes with a cost. That's what sucks. And it goes controversial. Like I remember watching clips, I don't know if you know Rick Ross, the famous rapper but I saw a clip of him on a podcast and he says he does every job he ever gets offered. Whether it's a hundred grand or a million he will perform for that a hundred grand because it's a hundred grand he didn't have before. Which I guess makes sense, like any money is good money, he thinks, but I think it comes at a cost. 

[00:20:33] Susan Barry: I'm on your side. I totally agree. So we've reached the fortune telling portion of the show. You have to predict the future and then we'll see if you got it right. What is a prediction that you have about the future of hospitality media? 

[00:20:48] Wil Slickers: Yes, I think stock is stuck. So for any of your listeners who are using stock video, stock images, stock music for their hotels, for their vacation rentals, for their business, you're stuck. That's how I feel hospitality media. Especially in the independent, boutique, like hotel side needs to stop using stock photos and images of rooms and their lobby of people grabbing a really bad breakfast of horribly artificially flavored food.

[00:21:22] Susan Barry: Do you know that picture, it's like the first one when you search on Canva for hotel? And literally every single hotel company in the history of time has used this same one. I did a whole series about it. I'm like, Hey, this is not the only image that exists in the world. 

[00:21:41] Wil Slickers: Yes.

[00:21:42] Susan Barry: I should make that the cover art for this episode instead of your face, that hotel stock image.

[00:21:47] Wil Slickers: Everyone will notice. I wouldn't be surprised if you had a jump in listenership because everyone's like, oh, I know this hotel is! I just think the more you can create original content, 'cause I don't know the whole gamut of your listenership, but I know from whether you're under a brand, under like a franchise type model or you own your own independent or managing independence or whatever sector of hospitality you're in, the media landscape in just the world is changing, right? People are consuming Instagram reels, tiktoks, YouTube shorts, and the short form content like crazy. And unfortunately your stock image or even like using, I hate saying it, like even like using the new Google AI video stuff right now. People automatically, I catch myself too. I automatically scroll. I don't stay. I don't stay. 

[00:22:39] Susan Barry: And if there's like a graphic or an animation that's mostly yellow, quite clearly came from AI. No, thank you. Moving right along. 

[00:22:49] Wil Slickers: Yeah, so that's hard and it's like, I get it. We're all experimenting with new tools, like an era of AI and all these things, but yeah, I just think stock is stuck. So if you can hire the young person in your kitchen or your front desk or whoever to grab out their smartphone, shoot some content in the lobby, like it doesn't need to be crazy, but just start creating general organic content, that's how you're gonna get unstuck. I'm tired of seeing like websites on hotels that are beautiful, like historic hotels, hundreds of years of history and memories and just all the coolness that comes with it as hospitality nerds. Then you go on their website and it's janky 1995 dial up, or it has like a video that is all just showcasing a bed, or like room service.

[00:23:38] Susan Barry: Right, like POV, the room service cart rolling down the hallway. You know, the interesting corollary to that I think is that there is a much greater appetite or willingness to put up with lower quality content? Like less professional, I don't mean low quality, like it's bad, but you know what I mean. Less slick, less professional, less perfect. So when we're telling you to stop using stock at the same time, you don't think it has to be a hundred percent perfect.

[00:24:12] Wil Slickers: Yeah. Anything is better than nothing. But anything, I will literally say anything is better than stock, so. 

[00:24:23] Susan Barry: Excellent. Well, if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing — besides stock media — so change one thing about hospitality podcasting, what would it be?

[00:24:34] Wil Slickers: Everybody had a $3 mic right when they started. That would be the one thing. Just get a good quality mic. Uh, no. Honestly, if I had a magic wand, I would change the amount of same or similar podcast concepts that are out there. I just think there's a lot of brands and I get it. I totally get it. We were, during COVID, everyone was looking at pivoting COVID during that time. Podcasts were the number one place to, to serve media because of the amount of consumption that was going on. And then it shifted and then brands caught on two, three years later and they started making their own podcasts. So I would just say like, just be original. If you're gonna create a show, come up with original content and concepts, another interview show is not needed in our space. I think we have some lovely experts like yourself and a few like prominent voices who have done really well and just stuck a flag in interview shows. So come up with new show concepts and maybe, who knows, I'll be knocking at your door to see if you wanna join Skift. 

[00:25:31] Susan Barry: I like it. Now, I'm afraid that like I'm old news and you're thinking, uh, this show is tired. We need to throw it in the trash and start over. 

[00:25:40] Wil Slickers: No, it's new interview shows, new interviews. So those who have been around for a while, like you guys have, you've earned your spot.

[00:25:47] Susan Barry: Heard. Keep on keeping on!

[00:25:48] Wil Slickers: Yeah. You earned your spot, a hundred percent. 

[00:25:49] Susan Barry: Do you think that we'll see more non-traditional media formats? I don't even know what I mean by that. Like livestream stuff like that in hospitality? Or is it similar where we're gonna be lagging the marketplace by two or three years? 

[00:26:05] Wil Slickers: Hopefully we're not lagging. I would say the kind of like livestream or maybe like rise of non-traditional media will kind of be a mix of two broadcasts. So like the live show concept I think is becoming more and more popular within media, not just hospitality. I've seen the information launch their own live stream news show about business and SaaS and other things. So it is gaining traction in other media outlets. But I do hope the rise of more creative ways to do a conference without doing a conference. 

[00:26:47] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh. Better conferences or just like something new? I feel like there's a lot of replication of the same things. Like, okay, we have one design show, so let's make 20 design shows. How about something different? 

[00:27:01] Wil Slickers: Yes, a hundred percent like design shows or the short-term rental conferences I've gone to are getting, in my opinion, a little old because it's Airbnb hosts and this and this, and it's like, okay. I don't know. I just think about what we're doing at Skift as I'm learning under the hood more and just seeing like, okay, like looking at live activations and VIP dinners and the experiences beyond the actual content, the content's really important. And people are, some people probably listening are thinking to themselves like, oh, well I'm an action consumer. I wanna listen to podcasts to get action takeaways from the episode, or from that expert, or from that, there's others who are wanting to be entertained or like to be a fly on the wall. And just it's a part of just broadening their perspective. And they don't care about actions. They care about storytelling. So knowing that it's like how do you balance the two? And I think for events you can get the actionable takeaways with great speakers and great programming on kind of what's happening on the stage. But the people that want to be more the fly of the wall are entertained, the activations and the other things around maybe doing a live podcast on stage or starting a run club for the event, or doing little things that you can get creative with to get people engaged because at the end of the day we're in hospitality, we should be connecting with each other. Like as much media talk, I could geek out with, we should be using our media to do what we do, which is hospitality and making people feel connected and heard and that they have a platform. So how do we do that within live events, podcasts, social media, et cetera? That's a challenge. 

[00:28:41] Susan Barry: I love that. Okay, folks, before we tell Wil goodbye, we are going to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.

Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”

[00:29:00] Wil Slickers: Okay. It's a little bit of an inappropriate one. So I was listening to your example episode about all the good loading docks that you've had on the show, and I was listening to 'em and I was like, okay, there's some really good hospitality angles I could go. But I had to go a terrible, terrible route for, for the listeners. It was New Year's Eve and New Year's day of 2016. I was checking in for my front desk shift on the 7:00 AM shift of the New Year's Day.

Oh, brother.

Everyone was hungover. It was a 717 unit hotel that was a hundred percent occupied. And we had a lot of checkouts that day, as you could imagine. Well, I don't know who called out sick or how it kind of got put on me to do all the checkouts that morning. But one of my buddies showed up around 10:30 for the mid shift and he and I got to experience one of the best checkouts I'll never forget. So this kid comes down and I would say, I say kid because at the time I was 20 and he was probably 17. Like, barely outta high school, if outta high school. And he comes up to me — and for your listeners, I'm gonna have to get real close to the mic, so I'm sorry — but he comes up to the front desk and makes direct eye contact with me. And I couldn't really see half of his face, whatever side he was coming at me from, I couldn't really see the other side. And this is important. So just remember that. But he comes up to me at the front desk and he whispers kinda like this, in this high pitched voice where he is like, “Um, excuse me?” Like legit, like talking like that. And he asked for a new pillow. We're like, “Yeah, I can get you a new pillow right now, or I can send housekeeping up. How would you like me to do that? Like, do you want the pillow now?” And he is like, “No, I just got blood on it.” And I was like, “Okay, so we'll send housekeeping up.” And he was like, “Yeah, please send housekeeping up.” I realized he was checking out, so I was like, “Oh, do you want me to run your bill?” He said, “I want to pay half my rent.” And I was like, “Your rent? You mean your nightly rate.” But he paid, like, paid half of the rent. It was a weird interaction 'cause he was also talking to me very quietly, a high pitched voice, could barely hear him in a big lobby.

[00:31:28] Susan Barry: “I wanna pay half of my rent.”

[00:31:29] Wil Slickers: Exactly. Like legit. Like, he's like, “Oh, excuse me, sir, I wanna pay half my rent.” And like, legit like talking to me. And it was the weirdest experience. And my buddy who's at the front desk is also watching this and he is like trying to listen in at the computer, kind of spying on us. And kid walks away and I see his other half of the face where there's like this big red streak and it didn't look like a cut, but it was almost as if like a rug burn or as if you like someone, like when you were a kid, you got like your elbow, like you dragged your elbow on carpet or something like that. Like it was almost like that look like a rug burn look. And my buddy and I look at each other and his name was Brendan and I go, Brendan, what the heck was that? Did I do that right? That was just a really weird interaction. He was like, yeah, we should have housekeeping go up.

[00:32:21] Susan Barry: Send a little lady up there by herself.

[00:32:24] Wil Slickers: A hundred percent. Well, I go up with — it was Irene and who was the manager. I go up with her and just like, ah, it's weird! And Brendan felt comfortable managing the desk. And so go up there and we find all sorts of sex toys, a blowup doll, feces on the floor. 

[00:32:41] Susan Barry: No sir. Yeah. 

[00:32:42] Wil Slickers: And blood on the pillows and female underwear everywhere. And other, uh, sexual protection devices, I guess. Um, yeah. And it was a scene. It was a scene. What? And I was like, how did that little kid with a high pitch voice — like, what happened in this room? And I stopped asking that question and decided, you know what? I don't wanna know the answers. Don't wanna know. 

[00:33:13] Susan Barry: And so he was gone by the time that you got up there? 

[00:33:16] Wil Slickers: He was, he was out. And apparently everybody else was too 'cause I was like, “Hey, is the other party gonna pay—” because that's what, when he was leaving. “Is the other party gonna pay or do I run it on the other credit card?” He's like, “No, they left. They left early this morning.” And I was like, okay.

[00:33:31] Susan Barry: Happy New Year?

[00:33:33] Wil Slickers: Seriously. I was like, whatever happens, I hope it was totally worth it. So, oh yeah, good times. 

[00:33:38] Susan Barry: Oh my Lord. 

[00:33:40] Wil Slickers: I was also still very new to the role. Like I was still new to the role. So I was like okay, I'm checking out 600 plus people today…

[00:33:51] Susan Barry: Some of 'em are gonna leave some surprises behind.

[00:33:55] Wil Slickers: Yeah, it was a good time. So that was a lovely Happy New Year. 

[00:33:58] Susan Barry: Wow. Wil Slickers. I am so excited for you in this wonderful new pivot and I appreciate you being here. I know our listeners loved hearing behind the scenes of your podcast network, and I really appreciate you riding up to the top floor.

[00:34:16] Wil Slickers: Of course. Thanks for having me. 

[00:34:19] Susan Barry: Thank you so much for listening. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/205. 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. 

[00:34:55] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Top Floor Podcast at www.topfloorpodcast.com. Have a hospitality marketing question? Reach us at 8504049630 to be featured in a future episode.