Transcript: Episode 250: HITEC San Antonio Part 1
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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is Top Floor episode 250. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/250.
[00:00:15] 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: This special episode of Top Floor with Susan Berry was recorded at HITEC in San Antonio. Produced by HFTP, HITEC is the hospitality industry's largest technology conference, bringing together thousands of hoteliers, innovators, and solution providers to explore what is next for our business. I am so grateful to our friends at HFTP and HITEC for hosting us, and for the opportunity to record live from the event. One more milestone before we get started. This is Top Floor's 250th episode, and we are releasing it the same week as the United States 250th anniversary birthday. It is a fun coincidence, and sort of a fitting reminder that hospitality has always been part of how people experience this country. From its oldest inns to the newest innovations announced on the HITEC trade show floor. We didn't plan it that way, but I will take it. First up, we are sharing three stories about things that were not even a little bit what they appeared to be: a B&B, a hotel full of furries, and a flight that wasn't going down because of a bomb. I am here with Lee. Lee, tell everybody about yourself and about your company.
[00:02:10] Leigh Silkunas: Sure. I am Lee Silkunas, the founder and CEO of 1AX Consulting. We are a digital marketing hybrid, digital marketing and consultancy that specializes in independent boutique hotel digital marketing and commercial strategy.
[00:02:23] Susan Barry: Amazing. And is your background in independent hotels?
[00:02:28] Leigh Silkunas: It is. I came up through Kimpton before Kimpton was IHG, and then Thompson and Joie de Vivre and had even a stint at the startup Sonder.
[00:02:38] Susan Barry: Oh, how interesting. Well, as a hotelier, I have to press this button and see if you know what it is.
[00:02:52] Leigh Silkunas: You've Got Mail. Yeah, of course.
[00:02:53] Susan Barry: What does that make you think of?
[00:02:54] Leigh Silkunas: Well, the movie You've Got Mail. Oh, you know what it reminds me of? Like, when getting email was exciting back when I wanted to get email. And there was a time where I was so jealous or, like, really wanted my email to say, like, "Sent from my BlackBerry." I thought that was, like, the highest level of standard.
[00:03:16] Susan Barry: It was so glamorous at the time. That's so funny. You know the answers to that question have been sort of 50/50. The movie or a lot of people talking about their AIM.
[00:03:28] Leigh Silkunas: Oh, instant messenger?
[00:03:29] Susan Barry: Yes. Their screen names. All right. So you talked about remembering a time when getting email was exciting. What about regular mail, like snail mail? Do you like to get mail, or do you dread getting the mail?
[00:03:44] Leigh Silkunas: No, I think I'm single-handedly keeping the postal service alive.
[00:03:47] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh, tell me everything.
[00:03:49] Leigh Silkunas: I love mail. Our mail comes in through our garage, and we have a Ring on our garage. And so my husband is annoyed that he gets alerts all day long of me checking the mail. He's like, "No one likes the mail more than you."
[00:04:03] Susan Barry: It's true. I might be second place.
[00:04:06] Leigh Silkunas: Okay. I love a package. I love sending a letter. I also, since I went out on my own, a lot of hotels still pay via check in the mail. So there's real incentive to the mail happening. I mean, no one loves, like, IRS mail or AAA promo mail. But oh, I also still really love magazines. So getting a magazine in the mail is exciting. I'm here for mail.
[00:04:34] Susan Barry: Me too. And in fact, I am so into mail that we are launching the Top Floor Mail Club. Which is a monthly mail subscription of travel, hotel, and hospitality-themed goodies. Every month we'll have a different theme. We're gonna launch in July, and the first month is the Great American Road Trip. So if you like mail, you can absolutely subscribe and get it. I think it's funny that I am making people at a tech conference talk about mail.
[00:05:10] Leigh Silkunas: There's something really, like, authentic, and like I just saw your hand, like tactical about it.
[00:05:16] Susan Barry: And as sort of the things we don't wanna do become more frictionless. I feel like at least me, I'm craving like doing something with my hands or like spending less time scrolling.
[00:05:30] Leigh Silkunas: Well, mail feels really intentional. Even if it's junk mail that you're putting in the recycling bin, you still have to touch it, like flip through what it is before. It's like a moment of pause.
[00:05:41] Susan Barry: Yes. That's so nice. Did you wanna write my ad copy for me? Okay, Leigh. We are gonna head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:05:59] Susan Barry: Lee Silkunas, what is a story you would only tell me on the loading dock?
[00:06:03] Leigh Silkunas: Okay. So this was one of my very first hotel stories, and it's one that I have just continued to tell over and over again. It's, like, great dinner party fodder. I was a revenue management intern at the Westin Pittsburgh in 2007, so almost 20 years ago. And I showed up on the first day, and everyone said, "Have you heard of a furry? Do you know what a furry is?"
[00:06:31] Susan Barry: I have been waiting my entire podcasting career to hear this word. Please continue.
[00:06:37] Leigh Silkunas: Okay. So I was vaguely familiar with what a furry is. And for the listener, it's essentially people who are super into animals, also super into dressing up as animals, being part of animal culture. I don't know. I think it's sort of like Comic-Con, but for animals. But there's also this, like, really cool kind of artsy creative side where there's a lot of fan fiction that takes animals and drawing that's animals. So there is a community of people that dress up sort of Disney costume style except anthropomorphic. And then they meet at these conventions to share their tips. I don't know, just to come into community with each other, I think. So I very quickly found out that the Westin Pittsburgh was the host hotel for the Pittsburgh Furry Convention. And it didn't matter that I was in revenue management. It was like an all-hands-on-deck, everyone is in ops for the week. And it was a full buyout, so it was over 600 rooms with many sort of four to a room, right? Like a big double-bedded high-occupancy room. And it was connected to the convention center, so most of the events happened at the convention center, and we were just responsible for the lodging. But it was just the number of things that came up throughout the week that I don't think we could have anticipated. Like, we had to open all of the service elevators because everyone's costumes were so big they kept getting stuck in the elevator. Oh my gosh, are you serious? Yeah, so we had people going, like, back of the house, up and down the elevators because their tails were getting stuck. We had furries in costumes in the pool, which I guess is a sight to see, something that we weren't used to.
[00:08:44] Susan Barry: That feels very uncomfortable. Like, you're wearing a fox outfit trying to swim. Soaking wet.
[00:08:49] Leigh Silkunas: Yeah. And it just, like, comes down.
[00:08:51] Susan Barry: Sounds like a recipe for drowning.
[00:08:53] Leigh Silkunas: Yeah. I don't know. I think it was popular. And then perhaps, maybe I think what was most ironic is because it was a full buyout. We had to flip the entire house when they checked out, and we were having a very conservative Christian group check in. And so again, it was everyone was in housekeeping and just going through the rooms and finding stray ears, stray whiskers, stray tails. It was really community bonding, both for the furries, but also, like, as a hotel team that just, like, really enjoyed it. And then, of course, as revenue, we ran a displacement analysis because full buyouts didn't accept other people in the hotel at the same time. Did it make sense? But their stay pattern was so good over the 4th of July weekend.
[00:09:53] Susan Barry: Oh, when nobody else is coming.
[00:09:54] Leigh Silkunas: Exactly. I think they signed, like, a multiyear, like, a three-year contract for it.
[00:10:00] Susan Barry: That is spectacular. Thank you so much for joining me on the loading dock, and find your tail on the way out. Find your tail. Exactly. I love it. Leigh runs 1AX Consulting, helping independent and boutique hotels with digital marketing and commercial strategy. So next time your favorite hotel's website does not look like it's from 2009, you can probably thank her. Next up, a honeymoon bed and breakfast that may or may not have been a glitch in the matrix. I am here with Dominic. Dominic, tell us all about yourself and about your company.
[00:10:45] Dominic Locascio: Good morning, Susan. Thanks for having me. So my name's Dominic Locascio. I've been in hospitality for over 20 years, and I am currently with Positron Access Control. We do Ethernet over coax. It's a next-generation way to use the existing cabling to help other providers get their access points, IPTV, other solutions into the room without having to re-cable.
[00:11:08] Susan Barry: I will tell you that Positron Access Solutions sounds like the most futuristic space-age company name that I've ever heard.
[00:11:17] Dominic Locascio: Our CEO actually hired a consulting firm to come up with the name. It means nothing else, but that sounds cool and technical.
[00:11:23] Susan Barry: It does sound cool, and very technical. Well, futuristic name aside, I'm gonna perhaps take you back into your history. When I press this button, I want you to tell me what it makes you think of.
[00:11:38] Dominic Locascio: It makes me think of when I actually had an AOL account and got all those CDs in the mail, like every other day. You would get another CD. And my first Rolodex where I didn't have any email addresses on it at all, because they didn't really exist at the time.
[00:11:55] Susan Barry: It's funny because folks who have been to see me or to talk to me have fallen into two categories. Either they had an AOL address, or they saw the movie You've Got Mail, and that's what it makes them think of.
[00:12:10] Dominic Locascio: Also, my favorite is when I still get clients who have an AOL address. I think they're probably not technology buyers.
[00:12:17] Susan Barry: Oh, very true. Oh, that's so interesting. Has that ever happened?
[00:12:20] Dominic Locascio: Oh, absolutely.
[00:12:21] Susan Barry: Really? Before email was, like, a burden and a full-time job in and of itself.
[00:12:26] Dominic Locascio: It's a great point. No, I used to think like, "Oh, wow, I've got an email. I'm so important." "People need to talk to me right now." "I better look at that on my BlackBerry."
[00:12:34] Susan Barry: Yes, yes. Totally. Email and BlackBerry go hand-in-hand in terms of that sort of cachet and glamour of the business world. Well, aside from email, how do you feel about snail mail? Are you a fan, an enemy, like it, hate it?
[00:12:51] Dominic Locascio: It almost is exclusively just ads now, or I've been approved for another loan or something like that. But I still get the mail every day. Like, if I leave town, the mail does not get picked up till I come home.
[00:13:04] Susan Barry: Interesting. I love to check the mail. It's like a highlight in my day. Is there anything that you've ever gotten in the mail that was, like, the best thing you ever got in the mail?
[00:13:15] Dominic Locascio: My daughter had surgery when she was young, and I got a $2,000 refund from the hospital in the mail. Did not know it was coming. So yeah. That might be the best thing I ever got in the mail.
[00:13:27] Susan Barry: Heck yeah, that is a really good thing to get in the mail. Well, it may seem strange that I'm talking about snail mail at a technology conference. But the reason I am is that Top Floor is launching a mail club. A snail mail subscription where members get a monthly little package from us with themed hotel, travel, hospitality goodies included. And I think it's funny to ask technology people what they think of that. Because it is helping me decide if this experiment is gonna really take off or not.
[00:14:00] Dominic Locascio: You can do like I got a random check in the mail, just one in every thousand of them has a check in it.
[00:14:06] Susan Barry: Sponsored by Positron Access Solutions. Yes, absolutely. Well, I think it's time, Dominic, for us to head down to the loading dock, where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:14:24] Susan Barry: Dominic, what is a story you would only tell on the loading dock?
[00:14:28] Dominic Locascio: Back in the day, I booked our honeymoon through a travel agent, 'cause that's how you did it. And so we had a bed and breakfast that we were staying at one night, and lovely pictures, the brochure that the travel agent showed us, like a Victorian room. Like, big four-poster bed, in-floor jacuzzi in the room, beautiful oak furniture. Like, I'm like, "This looks really nice." So we drive to the place, and it would aspire to be a Motel 6. Like, there is a tented pavilion in the middle that is the bar. It is closed.
[00:15:09] Susan Barry: A tent?
[00:15:10] Dominic Locascio: Yeah. It's, like, all exterior doors. The check-in station is, like, the piece of glass that you pass the key under. And it is closed, by the way. It's 6:00 PM. There's nobody there, so I have to call and wait for somebody to show up, and I'm rethinking my life choices at this point. And I'm like, "When we walk into that room, if it is not the brochure, we are out of here." Well, it was like opening a time portal. It was exactly that. It was beautiful 100-year-old Victorian furniture, like, solid oak stuff, plush carpets, and we're like, "What is this place?" And then we went and had dinner in the basement, where we had a four-course meal with wine pairings. I'm like, "This has to not really exist." And so we've gone back, and it's no longer there. So it may be it never existed.
[00:16:00] Susan Barry: It was a glitch in the matrix, for sure. That is so funny. Where in the country was it?
[00:16:06] Dominic Locascio: It was in Orlando. It was called Buckets, which maybe should've been my first clue. I think it's a Denny's now.
[00:16:20] Susan Barry: This story is killing me. I will be spending several hours researching Buckets later on today to find out if anybody else had this experience or if we need to check you into an inpatient care center.
[00:16:30] Dominic Locascio: Please send me a letter by mail letting me know if that's the case.
[00:16:34] Lindsey Wenger: I will do it. Dominic, thank you so much for joining me on the loading dock.
[00:16:35] Dominic Locascio: Thank you so much, Susan. Really appreciate it.
[00:16:39] Susan Barry: Dominic works with Positron Access Solutions, which lets hotels deliver next-gen Wi-Fi and IPTV over their existing cabling. No expensive rewiring needed, which honestly sounds more reliable than that bed and breakfast. The last story in this set takes us 35,000 feet in the air with a sound nobody on that plane wanted to hear. Our next guest is Doron Dreyer here at HITEC 2026. Doron, tell us about yourself and about your company.
[00:17:18] Doron Dreyer: Morning. Great to be here. So my name is Doron Dreyer, and I'm the co-founder and CEO of GratifID, which is a company that specializes in electronic cashless tipping technology. We're launching today at HITEC for the first time our product, which is called TipMoe. TipMoe actually enables guests in hotels and other places to tip, cashless tipping with using NFC technology and wearable devices. Really cool technology. It's gonna be revolutionizing the way people see tips and use tips and actually receive tips.
[00:17:53] Susan Barry: Excellent. Well, I'm all for our hardworking folks getting more tips, so I'm glad to hear it. Okay. Well, we're here on the loading dock because that is where everybody goes to tell their best stories.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:18:13] Susan Barry: What is a story you would only tell on the loading dock?
[00:18:18] Doron Dreyer: So this story is actually about a flight that I took, must've been 10-12 years ago. Flying in Europe and taking off from Paris. And, like, halfway through our journey, you hear this sawing sound coming from somewhere. Like somebody's sawing at the wing. Like something sawing, yeah. And it was scary. And so they alerted the flight attendant, went to the captain, and they thought it was a bomb somewhere. And we descended from, from 35,000 feet to the ground in record time. It was like a panic, thousand-type of situation. We were on the ground within, like, five minutes.
[00:19:03] Susan Barry: Where did you have to land?
[00:19:05] Doron Dreyer: We had to land on the border of France and Germany, in an airport called Mulhouse. So it's actually France, Germany, and Switzerland. It's like the triangle border there. And we got hauled into interrogation rooms, lo and behold. And it turned out that the sawing noise was from a Blackberry. Those were the Blackberry days. Yeah, and it was the alarm clock of the Blackberry that somebody forgot to turn off, and that was the sawing sound. Well, that was a night to remember. We spent the night in the airport, and we were released after interrogation 'cause everyone was thought to be terrorists. But at the end of the day it was just a harmless BlackBerry.
[00:19:51] Susan Barry: A BlackBerry alarm. Okay, so here's my question for you. What happens to the person who makes that mistake? I mean, do they just sort of live in shame forever, or do they have to reimburse the airline, or do they get banned from flying?
[00:20:06] Doron Dreyer: I don't think they get banned. Basically, I mean, imagine the costs associated with diverting a flight. Having people stay at a hotel, and having another plane come. It's a lot of money. But at the end of the day, it's a harmless mistake. You know, somebody forgets to turn off a phone. Well, it happens.
[00:20:26] Susan Barry: Well, Doron Dreyer, thank you so much for joining me on The Loading Dock, and I appreciate you being here. Doron's company, GratifID, just launched Tipmo at HITEC, a cashless tipping wearable for hotel staff. Worth noting, no BlackBerrys were harmed in its development, and that is act one. Our next set of stories from The Loading Dock at HITEC is all about wardrobe malfunctions, a Zoom interview gone wrong, a wedding dress that took an unscheduled trip through the industrial laundry, and an outfit that did not survive a COVID test. Buckle up, or in this case maybe zip up? I am here with Lexi. Lexi, who are you and what are you doing here?
[00:21:21] Lexi Bermingham: Yes. So I am with Bermo Co. I started the business within the last year, and I am here to help startups within the hospitality network grow their business.
[00:21:33] Susan Barry: Amazing. And so do you focus on tech startups, startup hotels and restaurants, or something else?
[00:21:40] Lexi Bermingham: So I do a lot right now within the tech space, within hospitality. However, my background also goes into working with hotels as individuals as well. I did recruiting for about 12 years specifically within hospitality.
[00:21:55] Susan Barry: All right. Well, so if you're like me and you like email, how do you feel about snail mail?
[00:22:02] Lexi Bermingham: You know, it can be really used for great things. I personally don't do it a ton anymore. I think it kind of gets lost. However, when I was in recruiting, I would a lot of times suggest that if someone really wanted a position, sending a letter thanking the company. And I'm gonna say there are three people who got C-suite positions because they sent a thank you letter.
[00:22:26] Susan Barry: Oh, that's good to hear. We should do a whole episode on that separately.
[00:22:30] Lexi Bermingham: The company actually called me and goes, "Wow, I have not received a letter in the mail in so long. The fact that this person actually took the time to send that to me, they're the person."
[00:22:41] Susan Barry: All right. Well, it is time for us to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:22:53] Susan Barry: Lexi, what is a story you would only tell me on the loading dock?
[00:22:56] Lexi Bermingham: So I was interviewing this woman, and we had a great interview. All of a sudden, we're on video. All of a sudden, she had something come up, and she had to quickly, like, grab something above her. Stands up and has no pants on. What? Are you kidding me? Yes. And she was in a full suit from what I could tell. Interviewing for a very professional position, and then stands up, and she sits back down but does not realize. It even ever happened. Like, she comes back down, continues talking.
[00:23:31] Susan Barry: Did you say anything?
[00:23:32] Lexi Bermingham: I didn't say anything at that time 'cause I was like, "Well, what do you say to that?" But I will say that after that interview, I did give her tips on what to wear for an interview and to make sure that your screen stays in place and just be aware that, let's say you have pajamas on the bottom or something. Be cautious of that.
[00:23:56] Susan Barry: That is in bloody sane. I love it. You hear those stories, but I've never had anything like that happen to me. So I'm very glad that I insist on wearing a full outfit every day because I'm so scared and paranoid I'm gonna do something stupid.
[00:24:14] Lexi Bermingham: Right. Well, it's like on Shark Tank, I'm blanking on his name, but he always does the videos of podcasts, and he wears his boxers with the suit top 'cause he, like, jokes about what that is. But I think in my position, it's so important that when those things happen, you still really coach them on it because that can happen in another situation and it's not like they did something realizing.
[00:24:38] Susan Barry: Right. And I mean, I wonder how many people are out there, like, "Hi, wonder why I never got a call back on that interview." Because you flashed your panties on them. So hopefully that never happened to her again after we worked on it.
[00:24:52] Susan Barry: Well, Lexi, thank you so much for joining me on the Loading Dock.
[00:24:55] Lexi Bermingham: Thank you. This was amazing.
[00:24:59] Susan Barry: Lexi runs Bermo, helping hospitality startups grow, and apparently also runs a side practice in Zoom interview wardrobe consulting. Next up, a wedding dress, an industrial washing machine, and a love story written by mistake. I am here with Lindsay. Lindsay, who are you and what are you up to?
[00:25:23] Lindsey Wenger: Hi, Susan. My name is Lindsay Wenger, vice president of sales for Directful. Directful is an autonomous marketing software tool for hotels where we drive repeat bookings, upwards of 80% rebookings for hotels, even from past OTA guests that have stayed at respective properties.
[00:25:44] Susan Barry: That is a brilliant product. I'm so happy that somebody invented it. So basically, for the listener who's not familiar, if you book through a third party into a hotel, the hotel does not have access to your contact information. So this is a way for the hotel to create a deeper relationship with guests. Is that pretty accurate?
[00:26:06] Lindsey Wenger: Exactly. We want the guests to come back and book direct, so those hotels, all our hotels and hotels around the world, will be able to create longstanding relationships with their guests.
[00:26:17] Susan Barry: All right, Lindsay. Well, we are gonna head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:26:27] Susan Barry: Lindsay, what is a story you would only tell me on the loading dock?
[00:26:30] Lindsey Wenger: Oh my goodness, Susan. Okay. So I'm a wedding sales manager working for an uber luxury resort on an island. And I had the most amazing, magnificent wedding planned for this bride and groom. They flew in from a very posh location from the Northeast to the island. The bride brought her dress on the plane, as all do. She reached out to our housekeeping department to have her dress cleaned and steamed, 'cause it had gotten wrinkled from the plane. I kid you not, I cannot make this up. Within a few hours, I found out that the staff had put her dress, her beautiful wedding dress, into the industrial washer-dryer machine where you wash your sheets for the hotel beds and the hotel linen and towels. Yes, this actually happened. The dress actually stayed intact, Susan, but it came out like a dark brown versus a pearl white.
[00:27:52] Susan Barry: What? What? No. I don't even know how to respond to this.
[00:27:57] Lindsey Wenger: What did I do? I started sweating, hyperventilating. The bride called me. I'm her main contact, and she says some precarious words which I don't know if I'm allowed to say on this show.
[00:28:09] Susan Barry: Like, she probably threatened murder, I'm sure.
[00:28:11] Lindsey Wenger: She threatened murder and said, "I want my whole wedding comped." "The whole nine. You ruined my day," kind of thing. Like, terrible. I then went into what Lindsay usually does is stay organized through the chaos, stay calm, took a couple deep breaths. So it wasn't a custom dress, thank goodness. No, it was not custom. So her dress was a designer dress. I worked with our PR agency, who I got our PR agent to get on a plane, courier another dress that was only available in one part of the state where she was from, and bring it into the island so that she could have it on her wedding day. And I literally, by the skin of my teeth, got a brand-new dress for this bride in the same size. But it took two days to get this figured out. I didn't work on anything else but getting the bride a new dress.
[00:29:14] Susan Barry: I feel like I'm watching The Bear right now. That is the level of anxiety that I'm experiencing secondhand from this story. Okay. You saved the day, along with your PR person, so congratulations on that. I'm curious how the bride, like, did it turn the situation around, or did she burn down the resort when she left?
[00:29:36] Lindsey Wenger: She did not burn down the resort. The resort still remains intact. But she did stop hyperventilating and came out of her room when the new dress arrived. So the crisis diverted. Lindsay saved the day, plus the team. It was a team effort. But it was just like you need one person to coordinate all the moving parts of this. But it was an incredible experience. I never want to relive it again. No one should ever relive this again. And it's something I would only tell the people in the loading dock.
[00:30:12] Susan Barry: Amazing. I have another question. Did you have to comp the whole wedding?
[00:30:17] Lindsey Wenger: Absolutely not.
[00:30:18] Susan Barry: Oh, good. Oh, I'm so glad. I was so worried. Okay. That is a relief. That, like, soothes my anxiety a little bit. Well, Lindsay, thank you so much for joining me on the loading dock.
[00:30:29] Lindsey Wenger: Thank you so much, Susan. You're the best.
[00:30:33] Susan Barry: Lindsay's company Directful helps hotels turn one-time bookers into repeat guests, a much smaller crisis than the one she survived in that story. Our last wardrobe story takes us from an island laundry room to a meeting with a celebrity mogul where one outfit did not make it to the finish line. Kate, tell everyone who you are and what you're up to.
[00:31:02] Kate Adamson: I'm Kate Adamson, CEO and co-founder of a company called Folio. Folio is the only spend management system purpose-built for hospitality.
[00:31:11] Susan Barry: Amazing. And who is your user? Is it hotels or something else?
[00:31:18] Kate Adamson: We have built everything for on-property teams, so chefs, head of housekeeping, the folks on the ground that actually do the work because our view is if it's not used, it's not useful. But we sell to hotel management companies and owner/operators.
[00:31:34] Susan Barry: Understood. Well, this feels like the perfect time to ask you a completely unrelated question. What's the best thing you've ever gotten in the mail?
[00:31:45] Kate Adamson: Whoa. How to answer that and think through. I mean, it obviously is a gift. The most recent, most memorable gift that I can think of is when I had my first baby five years ago. And it was in the midst of COVID, and we're all deprived of human connection. And I got a gift from my sister, who's now expecting her first baby, that was a book of advice from all of the women in our lives on how to be a great parent and what about me would be a great. And it was an unbelievable gift.
[00:32:19] Susan Barry: I feel like I need to take a crying break.
[00:32:22] Kate Adamson: I know. Should we?
[00:32:24] Susan Barry: That is the sweetest thing that I've ever heard in my life.
[00:32:27] Kate Adamson: It's really special, and we recently rediscovered it, and it's become a book that I read to the five-year-old as a bedtime story occasionally. She gets a little bored, but it's the dream for me to see all these people I love.
[00:32:41] Susan Barry: Yeah. All right, Kate. We are gonna head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:32:52] Susan Barry: Kate, what is a story you would only tell on Loading Dock?
[00:32:56] Kate Adamson: Prior to starting Folio, I was exploring what exactly it is that I wanted to build. And I had an opportunity to co-found a company with a famous momager celebrity who has a number of daughters whose names also start with K, who have built excellent businesses, and she wanted to build a bank for entrepreneurs to start their business and grow their business. And one of the best, funny moments was in that meeting, and you can imagine, she's a stunning lady, so warm, so supportive of female entrepreneurs. It was in the midst of COVID, so I had to have a COVID swab test. And while that was processing, or that 15 minutes before you could go in, my whole outfit dissolved. Going back to that. I know. Going back to that. Let me actually reframe that. My zipper broke because I had just had that five-year-old baby. He was now five. I did not birth a five-year-old baby. I kind of wish that was the story. I just had that baby that was five years ago. And my clothes didn't fit the same way, and so I was in the bathroom trying to navigate something that I'd put a lot of energy into, which was the coolest outfit for this cool lady meeting. And it kind of fell apart, and so anyway, I had this meeting. I figured out how to use my romper ties to sort of pull it all together. And so navigated that, showed up, we had a great conversation.
[00:34:39] Susan Barry: Kate, thank you so much for keeping your clothes on and for joining me at the loading dock.
[00:34:46] Kate Adamson: I now wear much more adaptable clothing that doesn't burst when I overeat or have a good time.
[00:34:54] Susan Barry: Amazing. Kate's company, Folio, just launched their first spend management card for hospitality teams. Reliable financial technology, unlike her romper that day. In the last set of loading dock stories from HITEC, we'll hit on general shenanigans, confusion, mayhem, and broken glass. I am here with Richard. Richard, tell us about yourself and your company.
[00:35:26] Richard Bradbury: Hey, I'm Richard Bradbury, and I work for a company called Quore. Quore is a software company. We do basically everything in the back of the house of a hotel. Everything the property management system doesn't normally do. Asset management, work orders, guest request deliveries, housekeeping, that sort of.
[00:35:48] Susan Barry: All right, Richard, we are going to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:35548] Susan Barry: Richard, what is a story you would only tell me on the loading dock?
[00:36:02] Richard Bradbury: This kind of ties into my company core a little bit. All of our team that work at Quore that interact with hotels come out of the hotel industry. So they're empathetic when they pick up the phone, they know what's going on. And I tell this story because it was when I was manager on duty.
[00:36:26] Susan Barry: You just said the magic words to unlock anxiety in every listener who has ever had to do an MOD shift. Please continue.
[00:36:33] Richard Bradbury: One second. I came in Saturday morning. I was gonna start my MOD shift, and the parking deck is on the lower level. I get out of my car, I go in, press the button to go up to the lobby level, and there is the soda machine from the fifth floor.
[00:36:57] Susan Barry: That was like a prank at first. I'm like, "Okay, who cares about a soda machine? Oh, from the fifth floor. Got it. Got it. Got it."
[00:37:04] Richard Bradbury: So I squeeze my little behind the soda machine. Press the button to go up to the lobby level, and walk around the corner to the front desk, and they said, "You need to go up to 502."
[00:37:16] Susan Barry: Wait, can you just back up for one second? Was the soda machine in the elevator? Oh, I thought you meant it when the elevator opened. How did it get in the elevator?
[00:37:28] Richard Bradbury: Well, we're gonna find that out. Motorcycle rally. We had a number of clubs that were staying with us, and I got up to 502, and the housekeeper is standing outside of the door. And she said, "You need to see this." So I walk in the door, and there are many people passed out.
[00:37:49] Susan Barry: Oh, they're still there.
[00:37:51] Richard Bradbury: And she said, "I came in, and, look." We went into the bathroom, and a Honda Gold Wing, sorry. Gold Wing in the bathtub.
[00:38:02] Susan Barry: They just like to rearrange everything.
[00:38:11] Richard Bradbury: Somehow they got this motorcycle onto the elevator, up to the fifth floor, and they replaced it with the soda machine.
[00:38:18] Susan Barry: That is insane. So did people start waking up once you were in there?
[00:38:24] Richard Bradbury: No. We just waited until they woke up.
[00:38:29] Susan Barry: You backed your way out and left?
[00:38:33] Richard Bradbury: We got the soda machine put back where it was supposed to be.
[00:38:39] Susan Barry: Oh, my gosh. What is the cost for putting the soda machine in the elevator?
[00:38:45] Richard Bradbury: It wasn't so much. It was the damage that the motorcycle did to the bathtub. So I had to replace that.
[00:38:50] Susan Barry: Oh. Yeah, I guess you had to replace the whole thing. Holy guacamole, what city was this in?
[00:38:55] Richard Bradbury: Atlanta. So the hotel that I worked at was right across the street from the old stadium, before they built the Ted, which was the one. But, yeah, we had a crowd.
[00:39:08] Susan Barry: That is a time.
[00:39:10] Richard Bradbury: That is a fun place to work because we used to turn the hotel every Friday. So during the week we were about two blocks from the Capitol. And so we had government all week long, and then the Braves played right across the street. So we had baseball all weekend, and then government and then baseball, and the government, baseball.
[00:39:28] Susan Barry: Interesting. That's like running two totally different hotels. Wow. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the loading dock.
[00:39:10] Richard Bradbury: You're welcome.
[00:39:39] Susan Barry: Richard's company, Quore, handles all the behind-the-scenes hotel operations, work orders, housekeeping, asset management. Basically everything except motorcycle in the bathtub removal, which is still a manual process. Next up, a true story about wine, weight limits, and glasses that did not survive the night. I am here with my friend Jackie Brown. Jacki, tell the people what they wanna know. Who are you and what do you do?
[00:40:12] Jacki Brown: Susan, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. So I am a product marketing consultant. That sounds boring, but what that means, mostly for hoteliers, which are most of your listeners, is that all of the technology they're trying to purchase, and it's super confusing because everything sounds the same, my job is to prevent that from happening. I work with the tech companies to help them better explain what it is that they do.
[00:40:40] Susan Barry: Let's head down to the loading dock because of course that is where all the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:40:51] Susan Barry: Jackie, what's a story you would only tell me on the loading dock?
[00:40:55] Jacki Brown: You know I'm an avid listener, and I do love these segments. But I have not worked in a hotel. So, transparently, but I did spend my summer when I was 19 as a server. I am a terrible server.
[00:41:14] Susan Barry: I find that very hard to believe. Well, let me rephrase that. Carry on.
[00:41:19] Jacki Brown: Okay. So I was much better when I worked at Target before then, and I was a cashier, customer service. That was much better. So probably my first mistake was I was a server at Olive Garden. Well, if you've been to Olive Garden, the plates are very large and heavy.
[00:41:34] Susan Barry: They are so heavy.
[00:41:38] Jacki Brown: You have to hold them on a big tray. I was probably 100 pounds at the time. And so already, I looked ridiculous. I was in pain. Every day would go home, I had to like stretch out. And I was just, it was not great. Now, on top of that, they think that they are very distinguished. So part of that is making sure that you're properly handling wine and such. And so people would come and order bottles of wine, and there's a certain way you're supposed to do this. When you open it with an actual regular corkscrew, right? Not any of the fancy stuff that I have in my house now.
[00:42:13] Susan Barry: Right, right. Nothing easy either. It's a wine key with a knife on it, right?
[00:42:17] Jacki Brown: Right. And you're not supposed to put the bottom of the bottle down on the table when you do that, which I still always do. So I could never get it open. So in this situation, this couple, you could tell maybe they're not the best food to begin with. They order a bottle.
[00:42:38] Susan Barry: Relying on that bottle of wine. They really needed the bottle of wine.
[00:42:40] Jacki Brown: Right. Yeah. So I'd like to pretend to kind of open it, and then say, "Oh, excuse me. I just need help with this." And I would go and have the bartender open it for me. This was my game. 'Cause I really couldn't do it. Okay. So already that's the situation that's happening. Now, there's another server, and I was like the low man on the totem pole. One, I was terrible, two, I was the new person. And this gentleman who had been there for a while wouldn't even deign to look at me or talk to me. He would just snap, "Here's server here." And so I also, there's so many bad things about this. I could never time it right to go pick up my food. And it would always happen that a runner would grab my food, and then I'd be standing there waiting for the food and not know that it had already been run. But then this happens, so I finally get to the table, and something was wrong with their food or whatever, so they finally get there, and they're disgruntled a bit because they were waiting for something. I don't remember what it was. They had some kind of special thing. They got it, but they had ordered something special, and it wasn't customized. Okay. So I leave to go talk to the chef and say, you know, "Can you rush order," or whatever this thing is. And the server, the super top-tier one, walks by me and kind of dodges out of my way. He doesn't see me because I'm far too. And the huge platter that he has, he kind of shifts over. This couple is sitting next to a ledge that is stacked with wine glasses. He bumps his tray into at least a dozen wine glasses. They fall. All over this couple, their table, their food, shatter everywhere.
[00:44:38] Susan Barry: Did you start crying? I'm gonna cry right now.
[00:44:43] Jacki Brown: I was mortified and kind of stunned. And instantly, you know, like, tried to, like, help clean it up a little bit. Went to my manager and was like, "You need to just buy their whole meal." Right. Like, please just take care of this. They paid this way. They're eating glass. Help me. I don't know what to do. And I'm like, this one, they were already angry. I had already screwed up a couple of things. This was not my fault. I was just standing there, but oh my goodness.
[00:45:11] Susan Barry: Holy moly. Were they nice about it or were they mean about it?
[00:45:15] Jacki Brown: Oh, they were totally mean. They were instantly like, "Make us new food. We're taking it to go." I did not get any tip on that one. You know, from like an ex-college student, I was trying to go study abroad. I was like, but that extra, like, $10 would've made a difference.
[00:45:32] Susan Barry: Yeah. Did the super server hold it against you? Like, he totally blamed it on you, right?
[00:45:36] Jacki Brown: Oh, he totally blamed it on me. Yeah. 'Cause I was standing there. How dare I stand near my customer.
[00:45:45] Susan Barry: That's crazy. I still have anxiety dreams about waiting tables, and I literally haven't done it in three and a half decades, like a really long time. Do you have a stress dream that you have about serving, or did you ever?
[00:46:05] Jacki Brown: You know, I will tell you, everyone loves the show Yes, Chef. I started watching 10 minutes of it. I was like, "Absolutely not." "I can not watch the show." It's Chef, you know what I'm talking about.
[00:46:17] Susan Barry: The Bear. It's so stressful, I know.
[00:46:21] Jacki Brown: There's no way I watched 10 minutes, and I was like, "Absolutely not. I'm so uptight. I cannot handle this." "I do not want to ever relive that suffering."
[00:46:28] Susan Barry: I feel exactly the same, and I waited tables for years and years and years. That show is too true to life on the anxiety side. Okay, I have to ask you this. Do you have a favorite meal at Olive Garden? Because I went to an Olive Garden recently for the first time in a really long time, and I had the most delicious chicken parmesan. Like, not as good as my husband makes, but almost. It was real good.
[00:46:55] Jacki Brown: So, transparently, I love the salad and breadsticks. It's fantastic. And it has been a long time since I've been, but I love the lasagna.
[00:47:06] Susan Barry: Oh, I don't think I've ever had their lasagna.
[00:47:08] Jacki Brown: When I go to a New York Italian type of restaurant. I gotta scope out the lasagna first. It's my go-to.
[00:47:16] Susan Barry: That is amazing. Well, Jackie Brown, thank you so much for joining me on the loading dock.
[00:47:22] Jacki Brown: It's been a blast. Thanks for having me.
[00:47:31] Susan Barry: Jackie Brown runs her own marketing consultancy, helping hospitality tech companies explain what their products actually do, a skill that may or may not have been useful that night at Olive Garden. For our last story, a man, a Halloween costume, and a job interview he didn't know he was in. I am here with Adam. Adam, who are you and what do you do?
[00:47:55] Adam Bermingham: Hi. Thank you so much for having me on today. My name's Adam Birmingham. I'm currently the vice president of sales for Ramsi.
[00:48:01] Susan Barry: And what is Ramsi?
[00:48:03] Adam Bermingham: Ramsi is an AI-powered revenue management system. So with traditional pricing solutions or systems, they rely on manual oversight and static rules. So what we do is that we have a team of AI agents that are continually analyzing competitive rates, demand, weather, special events, booking trends, and are actualizing that data and creating recommendations for you.
[00:48:31] Susan Barry: I love that you said weather. I feel like that's something that people forget. Well, we are going to head down to the loading dock where the very best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:48:45] Susan Barry: Adam, what is a story you would only tell on the loading dock?
[00:48:49] Adam Bermingham: So this is good, right? So this would be my first, like, entrance in the hospital. So, I went to school, got a degree in biochemistry. I moved to Boston, but I would come home on the weekends because I had enough at that time. And so, on the weekends I would nanny for this couple. So, in this particular time I came home, it was November 1st, and Halloween got canceled because of rain, so they had to push it to there. So, this couple asked me to take their son out trick-or-treating. So I didn't have an outfit, so I went to, like, Walmart or something like that, and everything was sold out. So Batman is my favorite superhero. And so I'm like, "I'm gonna get a Batman costume." So the only thing they had was, like, a kid's medium, right? I'm, like, 5'7" with heels on, okay? So I'm not, like, a big person. So I squeeze into this medium.
[00:49:40] Susan Barry: Are you kidding? A child's medium?
[00:49:42] Adam Bermingham: A child's medium. And I go to the house, and I grab the son. He's dressed up as, I think, like, Sonic the Hedgehog. But there was another person that wanted to go trick-or-treating with us, who brought his son, right? And this person happened to be Lee Organ. Okay? So Lee Organ is currently the CEO of Unidesk. So a long time ago, he used to work for New Market International. He was their VP of Sales, and then I became our CEO, and now he's the CEO of Unidesk. And so at that point, I was trying to break out of working in the lab, and I wanted to get into sales. And so they had told me that I was gonna meet this guy, Lee, but I didn't know what he looked like, and I didn't know who it was. So I go trick-or-treating dressed as Batman. He's not dressed up as anything.
[00:50:28] Susan Barry: Dressed as Kid Batman.
[00:50:30] Adam Bermingham: That doesn't fit, and right, so we're talking like, the pants go, like, maybe to the top of my ankle. So we go on this, and we're there for probably, like, two and a half hours. Like, I'm drinking beers while doing this and just having a conversation. Like, it's questions like, I don't care. And at the end of it, he goes, "You know, I think I can hire you at New Market. Come in on Monday, we'll have a job for you."
[00:50:48] Susan Barry: And you didn't even know this was a job interview?
[00:50:51] Adam Bermingham: I had no idea. That was 15 years ago. I spent 13 of those years at New Market on this, and essentially, kind of the career I have today is based on dressing up as Batman and meeting Lee Organ.
[00:51:02] Susan Barry: That is the craziest thing that I've ever heard. I love it. Thank you so much for joining us on the loading dock.
[00:51:05] Adam Bermingham: Absolutely. It was a pleasure.
[00:51:08] Susan Barry: Awesome. Adam now sells AI-powered revenue management at Ramsi, a long way from being a nanny, although that may be debatable. Thank you for joining us at the loading dock at HITEC, and thanks again to our friends at HFTP for being amazing partners. We will be back next week with more loading dock stories from HITEC.
Thanks so much for listening. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/250. 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.
[00:52:14] 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.