Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Rob DelliBovi's Hospitality Revolution: From NY Boutique Hotelier to Dual-Sided Travel and Consulting Empire

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Rob DelliBovi's Hospitality Revolution: From NY Boutique Hotelier to Dual-Sided Travel and Consulting Empire · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:16
today's guest is Rob Dellabovi. Rob is the owner and CEO of RDB
0:22
Hospitality Group, A one stop shop and hospitality that has
0:26
been operating since 2009. They're based in Miami Beach
0:30
with a presence in New York, Orlando and Nashville.
0:34
They offer travel agency, concierge and event services,
0:38
plus executive recruiting, training and hotel consulting.
0:43
Under Rob's leadership, RDB Hospitality introduced an
0:46
industry first VIP hotel Greeter program.
0:51
Rob has been recognized among the top 1% of Virtuoso producers
0:56
and he brings extensive hospitality experience from his
0:59
previous roles, overseeing sales and revenue across more than 160
1:05
properties and brands. Now before we get into all that
1:08
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AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
1:52
today, the owner of RDB Hospitality Group, Rob
1:55
Dellabovi. Thanks for making the time to
1:57
Share your story today. Thank you for having me, good to
1:59
be here. So Rob, tell us about how you
2:02
first got into hospitality and travel.
2:04
What was the moment or experience that made you say
2:06
this is where I want to build my career?
2:08
So very, very immature story. I was in television production,
2:14
which is what I thought I wanted to do.
2:16
I worked at MTVI, was not happy about it.
2:19
It was it was it was a rough job.
2:21
It was 12 hour days, it was 7 day weeks.
2:23
It was low pay. It was was not my favorite place
2:26
to be, although I studied television production in college
2:29
and selfishly and weirdly, I wanted to move to an island and
2:34
be a bartender like Tom Cruise and cocktail, right?
2:37
I want to. Was that your inspiration?
2:38
Was Was that was my. Inspiration.
2:40
I wanted to walk barefoot to work.
2:42
I wanted to hang out with tourists.
2:43
I wanted to not have a lot of responsibility.
2:46
So I figured the easiest way to do that would be to apply for a
2:50
job in my home city of New York and to transfer to the Bahamas
2:54
location about the hotel job to to transfer to the Bahamas
2:57
location of whatever hotel company I worked with.
3:01
That would be the easy way for me to get to the Bahamas and
3:04
work at a hotel bar, right? So I applied for a sales job at
3:08
a hotel in New York City, got the job started that next Monday
3:14
and fell in love with the industry immediately.
3:17
Weeks in, I said this is what I want to do, this is where I want
3:20
to be. I love hospitality, I love
3:23
hotels. I love taking care of people
3:25
when they're on the road, making sure they're enjoying their stay
3:28
and the best city in the world. And that whole kind of immature
3:32
idea of moving to the beach and being a a bartender to my
3:37
parents happiness went away very quickly.
3:39
And I said no, forget that. I want to be running hotels in
3:43
New York City. This is a great job and a great
3:45
industry. That's how I got into it.
3:47
What was it that you'd loved about it so much just in those
3:49
first few weeks? Yeah, so every day I was working
3:53
and talking and meeting people from all over the world in every
3:57
industry. And I, I, it it, it was just
4:00
amazing. I'm a people guy.
4:01
I, I'm a relationship guy. And one day I was dealing with a
4:05
rock band from Australia. The next day I was dealing with
4:08
a bunch of lawyers from Europe. The next day I was dealing with
4:10
people who were just on vacation from Idaho.
4:13
And I was meeting all these new friends and, and, and talking
4:16
all these new people and learning about different
4:18
cultures and foods and places in the world.
4:20
I was like, wow, this is what these people in hospitality do.
4:22
They, they, they double their Rolodex daily by just meeting
4:27
and dealing with all these people from all over the world
4:29
and of all walks of life. And I just fell in love with it.
4:31
I was like, this is where I want to be.
4:33
What I wanted to do in in a way it, it, it with that I did not
4:36
know at the time because I was young that I was, that
4:38
relationships were really what were important to me.
4:41
And this is where I learned that from the first couple weeks on
4:44
the job in a hotel in New York City.
4:46
So I said, OK, forget the bartender thing.
4:47
This is this is where I want to be.
4:50
So you were OK putting shoes on every day for work done?
4:53
Shoes were, yes, I changed my mind on the shoes, which was big
4:57
and, and the responsibility level.
4:59
I was like, I'm ready to take on responsibility.
5:01
Don't forget, half the reason I wanted to be this bartender on
5:03
the beach was I, I, I was done with the, you know, with the,
5:06
the 14 hour days and going home and stressing about the next day
5:09
and all of that. So yeah, that all changed.
5:12
That all changed. You you've had multiple career
5:16
stops along the way, all of them sort of staying in this
5:19
hospitality realm. As you think about some of those
5:22
stops, Rob, can you pick one that maybe was the most
5:25
formidable for you? Sure.
5:27
I opened a hotel in New York City called the Hotel Ganzafort
5:31
in 2005. That was at the time, the
5:38
coolest hotel on planet Earth. It was the first thing in the
5:41
meat packing district of note in New York City.
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And it was just under very, very high demand.
5:48
It was it was written about and every publication in the world
5:50
has the nicest, the coolest hotel on planet Earth.
5:53
And I was the guy working there. So it took the experience I just
5:57
told you about and it kind of doubled it in my head because
6:00
now the whole world was calling. We had 187 rooms and I was
6:04
having the most important people on planet earth, dignitaries,
6:09
royal families, celebrities, everybody call me and say, are
6:12
you sold out? Can we kick people out for so we
6:15
can stay? And I was just like, wow, that,
6:17
you know, I, I, I belong to this brand.
6:19
My name is associated with opening this brand and the brand
6:23
took off. And that's really what, what
6:25
really double doubled my kind of respect for the industry, but
6:28
also by name within the industry was was that one job.
6:31
I didn't know going in, I was just some hotel that was going
6:34
to pay me 10 grand more than the last hotel.
6:36
But when I started, it ended up being the coolest thing on
6:39
planet earth. And I, and I then associated
6:41
cool with this industry, you know, like this, this is
6:44
something that I not only would work at all day and night.
6:47
I, you know, on Saturday, I can stop by for a, you know, for a
6:49
drink and some food. And, you know, this is, and, and
6:52
it really made me think of my own industry in a, in a new way.
6:54
And that's really what solidified.
6:56
I was already in love, but this is what really solidified.
6:59
Like this is where I need to be. What was so cool about it?
7:02
Why was this so different and special?
7:04
It was an the the design was unique and new.
7:08
It was in an area of New York City that was a bit unexplored
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and, and, and an area that had restaurants and nightclubs, but
7:15
never was a place to stay. Never had never had a hotel
7:18
property. And just, I think the hotel did
7:21
a great job of selling and marketing and, and developing
7:24
press around, you know, creating visibility around this property
7:27
as, as a cool place with a rooftop bar and an amazing
7:29
restaurant, a band, a brand new place in New York City.
7:32
And the whole world listened and, and, and, and, and as you
7:37
know, the Meatpacking District today is still a top tier place.
7:40
But you know, I was hospitality wise, I was really one of the
7:43
first guys there, one of the first people there.
7:46
And you know, I, I was kind of like, OK, great.
7:49
It's, it's also interesting in this industry to open something
7:52
in a new area and to teach, you know, the unlike baby Times
7:57
Square, where people already know about and they're coming
7:58
to, to see the world, you know, to maybe teach the world about
8:02
something that they didn't know about in an area that's new to
8:04
them. So it just put a whole other
8:06
layer to what what was going on here.
8:07
And I was like, wow, this is this is the industry.
8:09
This is this is where I need to be.
8:11
So what was the path that got you from being with some of
8:13
these cool hotels and these really neat brands to opening up
8:17
your own businesses? Yeah.
8:20
So like many entrepreneurs, I, I, as I grew in this brand,
8:24
another, another, you know, 567 years, there were a lot of
8:27
things happening that I simply said, I can do better or I, or I
8:30
simply said to myself, I don't think that this is happening on
8:33
a high level. And it needs to be, I guess in
8:35
the, in the playbook of an entrepreneur, like solving a
8:38
problem, right, is, is a great way to, is a great thing to
8:41
start a company around, right? So I noticed that when big names
8:46
were arriving at these hotels I was running in New York City, we
8:50
weren't ready for them. The hotel wasn't ready for them.
8:53
Nobody people might have called us and said, hey, so and so is
8:55
showing up, but they didn't let us know all the particulars
8:59
around what this person needed. They didn't know let us know the
9:02
flight they were on. They didn't let us know the
9:04
exact time of arrival. They didn't let us know they
9:06
like the M&M separated by colors.
9:08
It was very, very rare. And I basically said to myself,
9:11
hey, if there, if there was a company that really specialized
9:15
on creating these travel experiences and, and, and
9:18
concierge work around the exact details and needs of what that
9:23
individual is looking for, that that company would be very
9:26
successful. Again, I was running what was
9:29
the hottest hotel on the planet and it would still be a lot of
9:34
high net worth individuals, celebrities, people like that.
9:37
Dignitaries show up and, and, and we were like, oh, who are
9:39
you? Oh my God, this person's
9:40
important. We need to put them in a better
9:42
room. We need to make sure that they
9:43
have, you know, this, this, this, this, and this, whether it
9:46
be, you know, something weird or something regular right in, in
9:48
in the room. And, and, and I just said, Hey,
9:50
I need to start a travel company and I need this travel company
9:53
to be all about taking care of particular people and making
10:01
sure that the world knows the world is ready for them before
10:04
they get there. It was not happening on a, on a,
10:07
on a really on a high level. It was just here and there.
10:11
And so with this initial idea, who's going to pay for the
10:14
service? Is the celebrity, is the hotel
10:16
that's receiving them? What we learned in these hotel
10:20
jobs is that these celebrities and important people are very
10:23
happy to pay all the you know for for all that they want and
10:26
need. No one was asking them, but if
10:27
in when people maybe did ask them, they didn't convey that
10:31
information to the vendors to the airlines or the hotels or
10:34
the car service or the restaurant or the nightclub or
10:37
the green room at their own concert or event.
10:40
So, you know, I, I think we just put two and two together so we
10:44
can go to these same people and say we can do the same thing as
10:47
your current representation is doing.
10:50
But give us 10 things that are important to you, from
10:54
temperature of the room to favorite bottle of water type to
10:59
type of car you'd like to be in to.
11:01
Do you want the driver to talk a lot or not talk at all?
11:04
We did that before Uber did that right?
11:07
And it blew up the second we started it.
11:11
These individuals that we contacted and said here's our
11:14
shtick, fell in love with it. And so were you taking
11:19
responsibilities away from somebody who's already in their
11:21
inner circle? We believe that these things
11:25
weren't being handled at all so. You had an additive effect.
11:29
You weren't replacing somebody. Correct.
11:32
There might be cases where someone was doing this, was
11:34
supposed to be doing this, but we added what may be an
11:37
assistant would be doing to the travel experience.
11:41
Again, on a high level, what was happening here and there when
11:43
someone was very, you know, it was important to someone that
11:47
something happened, you know, that they would tell the hotel
11:49
it would happen. But on a large scale, these
11:51
things were not happening often. We didn't even know who was
11:54
showing up. We would get a reservation
11:55
through the system for a, you know, a very famous name.
11:59
We'd be like, this is this, you know, Will Smith, you know, and
12:02
then and then Michael Jordan. Yeah, exactly.
12:04
And then and then they'd show up.
12:05
We're like, oh, my God. Like nobody told us nobody.
12:07
And, you know, the king that they booked needs to be a suite
12:10
or a penthouse if it's Michael Jordan, like you're saying.
12:12
So it just that was what started the first part of our company
12:16
which was the travel and concierge company now.
12:19
So we doing this on the side, did you keep your day job or did
12:23
you leave right away? So at the very beginning, I did
12:25
it on the side until I made enough money to quit my day job,
12:30
which was about four years, OK, five years.
12:35
So it it's it was hard. It was, it was 18 hour days.
12:39
It was working day and night. It was doing things at the same
12:42
time. But yeah, I was not in a
12:45
position where I could, you know, leave a very nice salary
12:49
and, and, and kind of start over financially.
12:52
So I, I did, I did. It was, it was your classic side
12:54
hustle, right? And once I realized the side
12:57
hustle was worth a lot of money, net net, net more money than I
13:02
could ever imagine. I was making the hotel business.
13:05
I was like, OK, this is the time.
13:06
Now we're going to we're going to make a thing out of this for
13:08
sure. OK.
13:09
So you're doing it on the side, you're getting access to these
13:14
celebrities, these dignitaries because of the work that you're
13:17
already doing, right? And so you can approach them
13:20
through that work and say, hey, would you like an elevated
13:23
experience? We could work together on that,
13:25
yes. Right.
13:26
So what we did was we made sure to start to deal with big names
13:32
that were unrepresented, right? We didn't want to compete with
13:35
our clients, right? We didn't want to compete with a
13:37
travel company that was booking these people already.
13:40
They'd be upset. They'd be like, why is the hotel
13:42
guy doing this, etcetera. So we about 70% of these people
13:46
were unrepresented, meaning they just booked on their own or
13:49
their assistant called and that was it.
13:50
And I started talking to people that we were helping, people
13:53
that asked us for things, people that I would meet, I would greet
13:56
everybody at the door and say, let me take you your room,
13:58
here's your key. When we knew who they were and,
14:01
and I would tell them, hey, you know, we are doing this on a
14:05
high level. If you need help anywhere else
14:08
in the world, let me know. And a lot of them told me to
14:11
buzz off. A lot of them I never heard
14:13
from. And some of them said, oh, this
14:15
is really cool. I'm going to Nashville next
14:16
week. Could you help me out with that?
14:18
Where do I stay in Nashville? Is there a good restaurant?
14:20
Could you make sure the hotel has the temperature of the of
14:24
the room 68° just stuff like that and it just started and
14:27
then it spiral snowballed and snowballed and then it turns
14:30
into and turns into a company and and a real and a real
14:33
living. And that is when I quit my hotel
14:36
job. I.
14:36
Was going to say what was sort of the ultimate catalyst?
14:38
Did you just reach a certain number of clients where it's
14:41
like, OK, now the numbers make sense?
14:44
Or were you mentioned in an article somewhere and then it
14:47
just really took off? I made the exact amount of money
14:50
on the side as I did in my, as my regular salary.
14:54
And I was like, well, I'm not going to lose a dollar if I make
14:57
this my main thing right now. I was very risk averse.
14:59
So I, I, I, I, I, I just said this is the time I made that
15:02
that exact amount of money this year and goodbye working for
15:06
someone. And now I'm working for myself.
15:09
And was it just you to begin with?
15:11
Just me to begin with. OK.
15:12
And so in the beginning, you're a travel service agency deluxe
15:19
for people who need all the extras.
15:22
And what has it evolved into today?
15:25
So when I left to the hotel business to just manage this
15:28
travel agency, a lot of hotel companies called including the
15:32
one I had left and said, could you help us with the following
15:35
things? Cuz I happen to be good at the
15:37
hotel job that I left right? A lot of hotels company
15:40
companies called me and said, could you help us in our sales
15:43
and marketing plan? We want to attract the people
15:45
you're now working with. Others said, we know you're good
15:49
at this particular part of the business.
15:50
Could you train our team on it? Other people called me and said,
15:53
do you recommend anybody to, to do what you do at our hotel?
15:58
So instead of giving out lots of free advice, I said, this is a,
16:01
this is a different company and I'm consulting now and I started
16:05
the consulting half of our company.
16:07
So our company is, is 2 halves. It is a travel concierge and it
16:10
is, let's call it a hotel services because we do so many
16:13
things on, on the other side and a, a, a business started just
16:17
from nothing. I had, I had forecasted are
16:19
predicted. People were just calling me and
16:21
asking for things. And me being an opportunist, I
16:23
said, yeah, we do recruit. I can help you with that.
16:26
I can help you find somebody. And I would help them find
16:29
somebody and I would send them an invoice for 10 grand or
16:31
whatever it was. And all of a sudden I have two
16:34
companies working at once. And the big news is that I
16:41
believe we're the only company on planet Earth that works on
16:44
both sides of the game. I'm not aware of another company
16:47
that represents the traveller slash eater slash drinker slash
16:51
partier slash meter and is also representing the venues in terms
16:57
of helping them with sales and marketing operations and and
16:59
higher talents. And I'm not sure there's a
17:02
you're either on one side or the other on our business.
17:04
So this has afforded me amazing Intel and perspective.
17:09
I now know what both sides are thinking.
17:10
I know what the guest wants in a venue and I know what I know.
17:14
You know what the venue's priorities are in terms of
17:17
servicing guests and making money.
17:18
So now we do lots of due diligence projects for lots of,
17:22
you know, even investment firms who want to know about starting
17:25
businesses like this, just because we're really the only
17:27
ones who could speak on both sides.
17:30
And so is it really important to a lot of hotels to bring in the
17:35
certain kind of clientele because it boosts their image?
17:38
Is that the thinking? Yeah, in the days of Instagram,
17:41
right, Having a famous person at your walk through your front
17:45
door, or maybe the paparazzi gets a shot of them or maybe
17:50
someone in the restaurant takes a quick pic or even talks about
17:53
it to a, to a page 6 or, or anyone, you know these the
17:58
amount of impressions involve, we're talking about millions or
18:00
billions of impressions. And it could change the
18:03
property's entire business. And Instagram has obviously
18:07
changed the business when, when owners are in a meeting to
18:11
create a hotel, a couple of billionaires in a meeting, it's
18:13
hilarious because they say, what is our Instagrammable moment?
18:16
They say that. And like old people, people
18:18
don't know what Instagram is say that.
18:20
So, yeah, I mean, look, the, the, the PR value of having the
18:23
high net worth. And I'm sorry, the, the high,
18:27
you know, the, the, the fancy people, the, the highly visible
18:30
people. Yeah, it's that you can't put a
18:32
price on that, right. So that, so all the properties
18:35
want this. And we, we are experts on
18:40
delivering it and understanding how to how to persuade it at a
18:45
property. And so on that other side of the
18:48
business where you're being hired to consult with the hotel
18:50
properties, they're bringing you in for a lot of different
18:54
things. It sounds like, hey, can you
18:56
help us find somebody who would be good for a particular role in
19:00
our hotel? Can you help us attract these
19:04
highly visible people? Can you help me with the list
19:08
here? Sure.
19:09
So the phone rings off the hook and they're always asking for
19:13
something different. It's tough on, on a, on a
19:15
podcast like this because it, it's what we do is so it sounds
19:19
scattered because we do so many things.
19:20
Some people call us and say we want to work with Sony.
19:24
Could you, could you get, get Sony on the phone and to send
19:26
U.S. business at our hotel? So Sony people are staying with
19:29
us. It it's, it's, it's something as
19:31
simple as that to, to something as as big picture as Rob, We'd
19:36
love your company to manage our hotel, right?
19:39
So it and, and everything in between.
19:40
So yes, it is recruiting and training, right?
19:43
It is showing the property how to sell, market, revenue manage
19:47
and operate, but it's also something as small as could you
19:52
look at this two page document that we're about to send out to
19:55
our clients and and let us know if it makes any sense.
19:57
So we attach a price to anything and everything, but our core, I
20:01
would say if you maybe pick something out of our hotel
20:03
services that we do the most, it is on the commercial side,
20:07
sales, marketing and revenue management showing hotels how to
20:10
fill. That, that is what we specialize
20:12
in. However, we're doing 100
20:14
different things for 100 different companies right now.
20:17
And you said actually managing the hotels is one of the things
20:20
you'll do as well, and so explain what that means in the
20:23
hotel world. Yeah.
20:25
That means that means it's our show.
20:27
That means, Rob, please, we would like RDB Hospitality Group
20:30
to oversee operations at this property, meaning the GM now
20:34
works for us and we are putting together all strategy in terms
20:39
of commercial and operations and running the hotel.
20:43
We owners ask, there are a lot of owners, a lot of real estate
20:48
guys open hotels cause real estate guys don't have a lot to
20:51
talk about at cocktail parties, right?
20:53
And, and hotels are cool, right? So, you know, I think so a lot
20:56
of real estate guys call us and they say we own a hotel.
20:59
We don't know anything about the hotel business.
21:01
Could you make sure the hotel company that we're using is
21:05
doing their job correctly? It's called asset management in
21:08
our business. So it's like an owner
21:10
representation thing. And we'll be like, oh, like we
21:12
think Marriott's doing a good job, or we think Marriott could
21:14
be better in these areas or we think whatever it is.
21:17
So we do a lot of that as well. Like, so it's everything from
21:19
the tiniest thing like train our sales manager to the biggest
21:23
thing like run this entire operation.
21:25
You're now responsible for our bottom line.
21:31
Trying to connect dots here, Why do you think, I mean, this
21:34
wasn't like an overnight success, right?
21:36
I mean, this was years of grinding on the side, long days,
21:39
long nights. And then eventually you got the
21:42
traction to where you were making the same money in both
21:45
roles and you're like, OK, now I can leave and not work for
21:48
somebody else. But the way that you've
21:50
continued to grow this and bolt on these other services that
21:54
clients have been asking for, I'm sort of like trying to look
21:58
in the rear view mirror and like, connect the dots on how
22:01
Rob got here and, and tell me if I'm getting it right or what I'm
22:05
missing. You had this idea because you
22:08
were in a really cool place, working for a really cool hotel,
22:13
getting to meet a lot of these, you know, highly visible people.
22:17
And Rob Della Bobe is an opportunist.
22:22
And you're like, I'm going to go for it.
22:24
I'm going to go for that now. I'm going to go for this now.
22:26
I'm going to go for that. Yes.
22:28
What? What else am I missing?
22:30
No working at a cool place, had access to these people, saw that
22:34
they were being under serviced, started a company around that.
22:39
Once the company servicing important people was growing,
22:43
all of the hotel side was calling me asking for favors.
22:48
The opportunist started the hotel services company out of
22:51
those favors and asks which we did not expect and both sides
22:56
grew concurrently. Now the the way we go from small
23:01
favors to hotel management is we simply had a lot of success with
23:05
what we were charging for on the consulting side, on the on the
23:07
small side. So we were, we were when we were
23:10
asked to help look at a sales and marketing plan, our review
23:13
of that sales and marketing plan, our recommendations cause
23:16
more sales, cause more money, right.
23:18
The owner was then happy, right and said, can you do these three
23:22
other things? The owner tells his friends or
23:25
her friends, these these guys are doing a good job.
23:29
They made us 10% more top line, right?
23:33
I meet the friends, I talk about what we do.
23:35
We show them a little improvement on their property by
23:38
training their team, hiring their people, consulting on
23:41
their strategy. And they say, wow, you guys are
23:43
really doing a great job here. And this is unique in terms of
23:46
strategy. We'd like you to manage our
23:48
entire property. So it grew.
23:50
So again, we still have that travel and concierge company.
23:53
That's our big business. But this hotel services company,
23:56
which was unexpected and it came out of nowhere, grew, grew on
24:00
its own organically by just us knowing the business.
24:04
And of course, we hired people over these years as these
24:07
companies grew on their own too. We're 29 people now.
24:09
So it's, it's, it's, it's just a, it's, it's a great story of
24:15
growth based on showing numbers and success.
24:19
So people love celebrities. They're going to want to know.
24:22
Obviously privacy is important, but is there anybody that you
24:25
work with that you have permission to reference their
24:28
name? Not really, no.
24:31
We sign ND as I have. I have some celebrities, we have
24:35
3 or 4 NDA's. We have one for their parents,
24:38
one for their assistant, one for the family.
24:40
It's it's we're not allowed to give names.
24:43
We do have amazing, amazing stories.
24:46
I'm quoted on a number of these of of these type things with,
24:49
you know, we have people that requested a dog in every city
24:52
they went to. They want to play with a
24:53
requested a medium sized dog is what they requested.
24:56
We have people that requested the whole room to be blacked out
24:59
so you can't see your hand in front of your face.
25:01
They want to live in complete darkness and unscrew all the
25:04
light bulbs we have. We've we're asked for every
25:06
illegal thing in the world. Of course we do not, we do not
25:09
fulfill illegal requests. Our company is doing too well
25:12
for that to get in trouble for that.
25:14
But and then we do get the M&M separated by colors and the we
25:17
need peanut butter with no peanuts in it and all that
25:19
stuff. And every day we have an
25:21
exciting list of all these crazy things people ask for.
25:24
But that's kind of the the purpose of why we did this.
25:27
Those people were not comfortable asking for those
25:29
things in mass before us, in my opinion, it happened.
25:35
It happened, but not in mass. So clearly somebody didn't ask
25:38
for peanut butter without peanuts.
25:39
You were making a joke there, but what is like one or two of
25:42
the most ridiculous or or maybe not ridiculous, but just wild
25:47
requests that you receive? Peanut butter with no peanuts is
25:50
real to be clear, to start, there is a peanut butter with no
25:54
peanuts. It's like a.
25:58
Talking about like a like a nut, like an almond butter or a sun
26:01
nut or like. It's, I believe it's nutless.
26:04
I believe it was, it's, it's, it does not have nuts.
26:06
It's something that mimics peanut butter.
26:08
Very easy to get in in New York and Los Angeles, very difficult
26:11
to get in Omaha and Minneapolis, right.
26:14
So you, there's these organic, you know, kind of weird food
26:17
stores where you can pick up things like this.
26:18
But that's real. That's very real.
26:20
And we took that from a celebrity, a very well known
26:22
celebrity requires that the weirdest thing we've ever been
26:25
asked for is a, is a colonic, an in room colonic, which is a
26:28
cleaning of the colon. So we were asked, we had to set
26:32
that up and we had to do like a mobile colonic unit to come into
26:35
a hotel room and clean out that area for a guest.
26:39
It was, it's the weirdest ask we've ever had.
26:42
And I, I guess the question is, you know, I guess spending a
26:45
weekend in New York City, why would that kind of cleaning be
26:48
needed before a, a weekend, say, who knows, right?
26:52
But doesn't matter, it happened and we arranged it no problem.
26:55
We got it done. A bunch of doctors thought we
26:57
were crazy asking, but those are the sorts of things There's less
27:01
like, you know, rock stars breaking everything happening
27:05
lately. That's where the rock stars are
27:07
more into organic food and yoga now, right?
27:10
So it's a. Little changed.
27:11
Yeah, totally. So it's a little boring on the
27:13
on the music touring side, but there are people that still have
27:16
their crazy and we're here to accommodate that as long as it's
27:19
legal. So, OK, your career spans
27:23
overseeing sales and revenue across more than 160 properties.
27:27
Yeah. What patterns or insights have
27:29
you gleaned from that scalable experience that informs the way
27:34
that you help other clients as they come on board?
27:37
Sure. We don't believe that
27:39
salespeople sell effectively as of late.
27:42
We believe people are afraid to pick up the phone.
27:45
We believe this new world of Zooms and Instagram and texting
27:52
and phones has really murdered the sales process and, and, and
27:56
how sales is supposed to work. We find that 80% of sales people
28:01
in our industry are not effective.
28:04
They kind of watch the phone, they wait for the phone to ring
28:07
and they answer the phone and they say, how many rooms do you
28:09
need? No problem, right?
28:12
We we push proactive sales. Get out there, meet people.
28:17
Hi, Anthony, great to meet you. I run an amazing hotel in Los
28:20
Angeles. Next time you're in town, give
28:22
me a call and we'd love to take care of you.
28:25
Follow up with you three months later.
28:27
Follow up with you three months later, take you to dinner next
28:31
time we're in in the place you are.
28:32
It's it's the sales process, which is a process is is is is
28:37
is no longer the younger generations, the millennia
28:41
millennial Gen. Z like they they do not want to
28:44
pick up the phone and they do not want a cold call.
28:47
They don't want a cold e-mail. The sales is different now and
28:53
the old school people, they don't necessarily have it all
28:56
correct either. But it's, it's we, we push
29:00
properties to focus on proactive sales.
29:05
And So what does that proactivity look like?
29:07
Because I think about like cold calling today, it's totally
29:11
changed because I got so bombarded on my phone that if
29:15
you're not a recognized number, now my phone number rings.
29:19
And I think a lot of people either have their phones set up
29:22
like that or they just look at it and, you know, I don't know
29:24
that number and I set it down. Yeah.
29:26
But to answer the first part about the proactive, we believe
29:28
most are only reactive, meaning they're not talking to anybody
29:32
they don't know, right. In terms of cold calling, cold
29:35
calling to me doesn't mean calling.
29:38
Cold calling is just an old school term that right nowadays
29:41
means contacting people you don't know, right?
29:44
Figuring out Anthony C, the podcaster.
29:46
I want to get in touch with podcasters, figuring out what
29:48
your e-mail address is by scouring AI in the Internet,
29:52
sending you a quick e-mail saying, hey, it's Rob.
29:54
I'd love to be on, I'd love to be on your podcast.
29:56
It looks really cool. I love that it's inspiring
29:58
people in business, right? That's a cold call, right?
30:01
Because I don't know you if, if I'm doing that.
30:04
So we stressed that whereas cold calls or lower conversion, less
30:08
of them are going to come through as a client, it's still
30:11
a very important part of growing your Rolodex.
30:13
So if you're running a hotel and you're a salesperson and Google
30:17
has an office next door to you, you're going to want to figure
30:19
out who's in travel, who's who's in charge of travel for Google,
30:22
right? And if you don't know and you
30:25
don't know any people that have relationships with that person,
30:28
you're going to have to contact them on LinkedIn or
30:31
viaemailfirstname.lastname@google.com. You could figure that out or or
30:36
a number of other ways, but that would be considered cold to me
30:39
because they don't know you, you don't know them, and you're
30:41
you're reaching out hoping for the best.
30:43
SO for you, cold calling is could just be the e-mail.
30:47
And you're saying even younger folks today, they're afraid to
30:49
send a cold e-mail? We're saying many of 80% of them
30:53
are not proactive in any way, meaning they don't even think to
30:56
send that e-mail. They're reactive.
30:57
But whoever's calling the hotel like they're going to answer the
31:00
phone, they're going to be great.
31:01
They're going to say come stay here.
31:03
And and the reactive sale, you know has its value and is
31:07
important part of sales, but the pro but being out there and
31:10
being proactive is very important as well.
31:13
So you guys launched AVIP hotel greeter program, What is that
31:17
and where the idea come? From the genesis of this is from
31:21
the airline greeter business. There is something called an
31:23
airline greeter, which is someone who will greet you at
31:26
your car at the airport, walk you through all the craziness of
31:31
the hotel, I'm sorry of the airport and take you to the gate
31:34
and sit you on the plane. This is a service that's existed
31:38
for years. It's obviously for high net
31:41
worth celebrities. People have trouble being seen
31:43
in the airport. People can't stand to the 20
31:46
minute security line without being, you know, attacked by
31:49
fans. It's it's a really cool service
31:51
that the airlines offer. It is very expensive and
31:55
everyone loves it. Airline greeters are all over
31:58
the place Whenever you're in the airport and you're waiting in
32:01
line in security or you're waiting in line really anywhere,
32:04
and you see on the side a person in the uniform walk by with some
32:08
fancy people that's a greeter who met them at the car.
32:11
And I don't think I've ever noticed this, but maybe that's
32:13
because I live in Columbus, OH. You will now.
32:15
No, no, this comes with CMH. Is that what Columbus is?
32:18
Yeah. Yeah.
32:19
Columbus there. There's we book readers,
32:21
especially for the limited execs in, in in Columbus.
32:25
So. And then on the way home, they
32:26
greet you at the gate at your at, at.
32:29
You're going to see. This is what you'll see when you
32:30
get off the plane. There's a little sign with the
32:32
name on it. Anthony.
32:33
Right. They're going to greet the
32:35
person at the gate, walk them through back of house and out
32:39
the back to their car so nobody sees them.
32:41
This is huge business. It's it's managed by the
32:44
airlines and the airports. We just booked them.
32:47
We're not allowed to do it. It's only by the airports and
32:50
the airlines. We figured that this process
32:52
would work in hotels. We figured that the same people
32:56
who use airline greeters would not want to go to the front desk
32:59
of a hotel, a busy hotel lobby, they wouldn't even want to walk
33:03
in the main entrance, right? So we thought greeting would be
33:07
a really good idea. We also thought that maybe
33:10
someone should check this room before they get go in there.
33:14
We've all entered rooms that are too hot, too cold, facing the
33:18
dumpster. Have something unfortunate in
33:20
them, right? Have a person sleeping in them
33:23
tap into all of us, right? So what we, what we did is we
33:27
said, hey, for this greeter program, we could arrange a
33:30
hotel greeter. They'll go early, go to the
33:33
room, make sure the room looks great, smells great, is of the
33:37
correct temperature. All these items I'm telling you
33:39
about peanut less peanut butter, make sure that's all set up.
33:42
Check in the room for them. Go to the front desk.
33:45
Of course, we're the agencies so we can arrange all this to
33:47
happen. Check in the room for them.
33:50
Make sure all the billing and everything is all set and all
33:52
the details, the dates, everything is all set.
33:56
Go to a private entrance at the hotel.
33:58
If it's the employee entrance or a designated private entrance or
34:02
the parking garage, whatever it is, greet the important people
34:05
when they come, walk them directly to the elevator.
34:09
No front desk, no busy lobby. Bring them to their room, which
34:12
is already checked and great. Hand them their keys and say
34:16
you're all good to go. Let us know anything else you
34:18
need when you're in town. We thought that this would be a
34:21
really great idea. Again, it works at the airport,
34:23
right? We beta test, we beta tested it,
34:27
right? And it worked.
34:28
People loved it. People were like, wow, those are
34:31
three annoying things I don't have to do now.
34:33
They arranged the private entrance for me and I know the
34:36
room's all good to go. The room is 72°, the shades are
34:39
open. I don't have the view of the
34:41
dumpster or the couple next door.
34:43
And this is really great, right? So we just, we just took an
34:46
existing idea to the hotel business and we've had high
34:48
success with it. And so this greeter, this VIP
34:51
greeter at the hotels, they work for you.
34:54
They work for us. And so is this somebody that,
34:58
you know, maybe in Nashville, TN, they may go to two or three
35:02
different hotels in a single day to provide this service or are
35:06
they stationed at a single location?
35:09
If there are delays, they might be stuck somewhere for a bit,
35:11
right. But yeah, the idea is we mapped
35:13
out that they would go to a couple places per day if
35:18
necessary. If if we have that many greets
35:20
that day and handle a couple of people per day, yeah,
35:23
absolutely. OK.
35:24
And so how long have you been offering this service?
35:27
About a year. OK, what other services are new?
35:32
Or maybe you're cooking that aren't quite ready yet.
35:35
Nothing that we are cooking, we are constantly trying to think
35:40
of new like the use the hotel greeter example, new VIP
35:44
services that are that are unique and, and, and people will
35:48
pay for exclusivity. They will pay for ease.
35:53
They will they will pay right. We have to be able to provide it
35:57
before we know it's something that we can we can offer like
36:00
these hotels. A lot of the hotel companies
36:02
were a little like what's going on here with this?
36:04
Our rooms are always clean and like we all know that's not
36:06
true, right? It's all good of no, we're not
36:08
hating on anybody, but we're just double it's trust but
36:10
verify, right? It's a classic trust but verify.
36:12
We currently do not have anything that we're allowed to
36:14
talk about that is that. Is Oh, that's a much better
36:17
answer than telling you there's nothing cooking.
36:19
There's always something cooking.
36:20
Tease me. Yeah.
36:21
Yeah, That's that's way better. OK, so you get to work with a
36:25
lot of these high net worth individuals, celebrities,
36:28
artists, highly visible people. What's a surprising lesson
36:32
you've learned from catering to such demanding and distinct
36:37
clientele? Regarding famous clientele,
36:41
there is no rhyme and reason to who you think will be great,
36:44
who's actually great and vice versa.
36:46
So people you think will be amazing, friendly, great people
36:51
are can be terrible and people you think will be the worst and
36:55
we would never want to work with like we'll make it a new
36:57
celebrity. We'll be like, Oh no, this is
36:58
going to be a disaster. And they end up being the nicest
37:01
people on the planet. So there's no rhyme and reason
37:03
in that world, which is really, really interesting.
37:06
Just because of how they present on screen or at public events,
37:10
you make an A judgement about, oh, that must be how that they
37:14
normally are as a person. So I would just.
37:15
Yeah, like we don't work with Larry David, so this is not a a
37:18
true story, but I would imagine Larry David to be difficult.
37:22
And then I think the example I'm saying is that working with him,
37:26
it's very possible he's not right.
37:28
That that's thing. Number one, I would say thing #2
37:30
was that people believe that celebrities get everything for
37:33
free and that these important people get everything for free.
37:37
They do not. These people are paying big time
37:40
for their services and for their travel.
37:43
There might be barters in this world for advertising or
37:46
something like that, but everyone's like, oh, this person
37:49
makes, you know, millions and they get everything for free.
37:51
Not how it is these these, you know, Four Seasons brand is not
37:55
copping or, or discounting heavily these big names to stay
38:00
with them. And, and that's something that
38:02
everyone thinks that is simply not true.
38:04
We get that, we get that all the time.
38:06
These people are paying. And I, I think that's important
38:09
because I think for some reason, you know, the, the celebrity
38:12
world gets a bad rap because of that.
38:16
Also, we find one just a fun one, is that reality stars are
38:18
more difficult than than than than movies than than than
38:21
regular. Why do you think that is?
38:23
I don't know, I, I, I cannot answer that.
38:25
That's a that's when you got me on it.
38:27
I can answer any question. That's that's what I have no
38:28
idea. But you know, the reality stars
38:30
and there are many that we love, right?
38:32
We find you know them to be generally pickier and more
38:37
difficult and more sensitive than than your, you know, a
38:43
listers and then your people. You would think right?
38:46
Like it's, which has always been interesting to us.
38:48
So, Rob, you are recognized among virtuoso's top 1% of
38:53
producers. What is Virtuoso for those
38:56
outside the industry and what does this distinction mean for
38:59
you? It's a big deal.
39:00
So Virtuoso, if you are a Virtuoso agent or hotel Virtuoso
39:06
travel agents are the top 1% of booking travel agents in the
39:11
world. They're they're the people that
39:12
book all the fancy people. We are the top 1% of that.
39:15
You have to earn your way in to, to, to be to this club, to be
39:19
part of this club to be to begin with.
39:22
And if you're if, if you're, if you're talking to travel people
39:25
to represent you and the travel person says I'm a virtuoso
39:27
agent, that means they're a huge name.
39:29
That means they're they're qualified by the community is
39:31
someone who knows it all and books the best people.
39:35
We as of two years ago are the top 1% of those providers.
39:41
So in terms of production, meaning it doesn't mean sorry,
39:44
we're the best, it means we're the, we book the most of, of, of
39:47
the 1%. So it's a big deal.
39:50
Hotels, Simply put, take care of of those clients first.
39:54
They know that if a virtuoso in person calls that they need to
39:57
answer, they need to be great. And it's it, it's not only great
40:01
for my company to meaning, you know, we're doing a good job.
40:04
It's great for anybody who wants to work with us because they're
40:07
going to be taken care of not just by us, but by wherever they
40:09
go. It's.
40:10
So on that side of the business, are you only representing these
40:13
highly visible, highly net worth people or you work with some
40:17
average Joes who just, you know, want some help getting a nice
40:20
trip booked? Yeah, we're bragging.
40:22
We're bragging. We we have just as many, we're
40:24
booking just as many Holiday Inns as we are Four Seasons.
40:26
We do it all. People tend to want to talk
40:30
about the big names more, but yeah, we're we're booking just
40:33
as many $99 rooms as we are $799.
40:37
Rooms. OK, so somebody's listening and
40:39
they're like, yeah, I'm not Michael Jordan, you know, I'm
40:42
not a highly visible name, but I want to take a trip.
40:46
What's the benefit of using you guys when they don't need the
40:51
peanut, less peanut butter in their room versus, I don't know,
40:55
the travel agent down the street?
40:57
So it's, it's, it's our buying power.
40:59
So we have such high volume and we have such high celebrity
41:02
volume. All these venues, as we
41:04
discussed, want celebrities that they take care of our Joe and
41:09
Jane Average, me and you guests, because they know that one day
41:13
the Michael Jordans of the world might come, right?
41:15
So Hilton, we have a dedicated Hilton person, right?
41:18
The Hilton people take great care of all of our guests, my
41:21
parents, you know, you, me, everybody, because they know
41:25
that A, we have volume and B, it might be one of the biggest
41:28
names in the world one day. We're calling about.
41:29
So it's the general buying power of using US.
41:32
So they give us great rates so we can get better deals and then
41:37
these individuals can get on their own.
41:39
And there's perks, right? If there's an upgrade in the
41:41
hotel available and the Hilton's forced to upgrade somebody,
41:45
they're going to give it to our people, right?
41:46
Because they know we're, we're big Hilton bookers and they know
41:49
that we represent a lot to them. So it's, it's, it's being it,
41:53
it's, it's backdooring your way into this network, right?
41:56
And, and it's, it's really honestly how we pitch people.
42:00
We get this a lot. We get a lot.
42:01
I guess I must talk, I must brag a lot because we get a lot of
42:03
people that say, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm a teacher.
42:07
Can you help me with my trip to Maryland?
42:09
And we're like, of course, like, absolutely.
42:11
In fact, we're able to help you better than anyone else can
42:14
because we we handle all these these fancy people.
42:17
But clearly you must be more expensive than the other
42:19
agencies. We don't cost a dime or so.
42:23
We are paid on the back end. The example is if the we're paid
42:28
10% of everything the traveler spends.
42:30
So if you want to go to the Hilton in Seattle tomorrow, if
42:34
it's selling $350.00 a night, I can get you $275 and likely an
42:40
upgrade and you don't have to pay me to do that.
42:43
That's the real beauty of this business and why it grows so
42:46
fast. The opportunity is these calls
42:48
go very well because we don't charge for our services on the
42:53
consulting side, hotel services side, we charge extraordinarily
42:57
there, right? If people want to go to a
42:59
restaurant like a Carbone type thing, we might charge something
43:02
concierge's fee for that, right? But our travel services do not
43:05
cost anything. So you could book my upcoming
43:08
trip to New York, you could do the flight, you could get me a
43:10
room, and I'm not going to pay anything more.
43:13
And I might pay less and I might get an upgrade.
43:16
So your cars, your hotels and your experiences you're not
43:21
paying me for. We only charge for commercial
43:24
air 'cause they do not pay us on the back.
43:25
End. Got it.
43:26
And what would you charge for that?
43:28
$50 a person. $50 a person, whatever the itinerary.
43:31
Is so if you have a big thing and it's you and your
43:35
significant other, yeah, we're charging you 100 bucks total for
43:38
that, for those flights. Or you know, a lot of people
43:41
like to book the flights on their own and we handle the
43:43
rest, whatever it is, the hotels, the cars, the
43:46
experiences. We just don't.
43:49
There's no fees. So we've talked a lot about all
43:53
the great things that you guys are doing and the amazing
43:55
trajectory that you're on. No business is unscathed in a
44:00
growth process. What's maybe a a big speed bump
44:03
that you hit along the way and how'd you get through that?
44:08
We hit an enormous speed bump and it's kind of something you
44:11
touched on a bit when I quit this industry, the hotel
44:15
industry to start the travel business and concierge business.
44:21
I think the way you mentioned it is some of the the people, the
44:25
existing providers, meaning our new competitors when we started
44:29
this business were livid. I was working in a hotel, I was
44:34
helping them with their clients and meeting their clients.
44:38
And now all of a sudden I'm one of them.
44:42
So the entire industry, travel industry came at me.
44:48
They said, hey, are you taking our clients?
44:51
You met all of our clients. We sent them to you as a
44:54
hotelier. Now that you're one of us, are
44:56
you calling all of them and are you forcing them to work with
44:59
you? And I and I had to say 70% to
45:04
more, 75% of those people we're dealing with were not
45:08
represented. So those are where we started
45:10
and how we built this business. You would have known if I called
45:13
your client, what while you had them?
45:16
And even though we weren't stealing clients, it caused
45:19
major, major backlash when we started the company.
45:22
So when I was building this company and now telling the
45:26
world about what I do, I had a major consolidated group voice
45:31
against me, right? Telling the clients, telling the
45:35
hotels, telling the vendors, telling the press.
45:38
This guy just switched sides and is stealing everyone's clients
45:42
now. That was a major problem because
45:46
I was trying to build the company and sell myself, right?
45:50
And all I had was my word that we didn't steal any clients.
45:53
We had asked those competitors name the clients we stole.
45:56
They couldn't. But it really caused the first
45:58
year of starting this business to be a major, major challenge.
46:01
We had to do immediate reputation PR, right?
46:07
Like right away, not with the company, but like kind of on our
46:09
own saying we're, we've just decided to start a business.
46:13
We believe we have a different value offering than what exists
46:17
and we are not calling the existing agents.
46:20
We worked with clients. We had to sign our name to it,
46:23
which we did. But it caused the start to be a
46:25
lot slower than I thought this business was building like this
46:28
when I was when I was in the industry.
46:30
And when I when I quit the industry to do it on my own, it
46:32
kind of plateaued a bit because there was a lot of negative
46:36
negativity about us and me, right?
46:39
That was the huge challenge. We've overcome the challenge.
46:42
We're all best friends with those people now.
46:44
There was no clients dealing that went on of any kind.
46:47
We're now a community. I'm actually part of that
46:49
community. I'm on boards of things that,
46:50
you know, I've been voted to in that community and it's all
46:53
good. But that one year was a tough
46:55
year and we had to overcome. Say more about how you overcame
47:00
that because it's one thing to, you know, years in in the
47:03
future, you know, where we are today.
47:04
Look back and be like, yeah, it was sort of a slow process, but
47:08
what were some of the key things that you did along the way to
47:11
get people's trust back? Just being direct, calling them
47:14
all directly and saying hi friend, I'm in your industry
47:18
now. Anything you believe is
47:20
happening regarding your clients is not.
47:22
If I somehow I'm working with a client of yours, I'm happy to
47:25
stop. Please let me know if you hear
47:27
about this because I don't know who's people's people's clients
47:30
are generally. And it was a lot of direct
47:32
conversations, a lot of winning and dining, a lot of
47:34
relationship management, a lot of taking people out for a, a
47:37
coffee or a beer and saying, I hope that you can accept that
47:40
I'm starting a business in your industry.
47:42
There's nothing illegal or or immoral about creating a new
47:45
business with a new value offering.
47:47
And so again, like I said before, some of them told me to
47:50
buzz off, others told me to thank you for doing this.
47:54
Others said, I think you did something for this one client.
47:57
I'd appreciate it if you don't work with them again.
47:59
I said, right, no problem. And we just, we just dug our way
48:02
up right. And it all worked.
48:04
Luckily we weren't doing the thing that we were people were
48:08
worried about. So it, it made it really easy to
48:11
manage our way out of this. But it had we had to manage our
48:14
way out of this. We called some new clients and
48:16
they said, Oh, we heard about you from the community and we
48:19
know that you guys are, you guys are maybe, you know, coaching
48:23
people's clients. But some people, you know, as we
48:25
grew into this, you know, later on, years later, when people
48:28
said, are you going after clients?
48:30
I said, hey, Coke goes after Pepsi, Nike goes after Adidas.
48:34
You know, the, the Gansbord hotel I mentioned goes after the
48:36
standard hotel. You know, I, you know, there is
48:39
natural competition in sales and marketing in this business that
48:41
we, we, we will engage. However, the direct I'm taking
48:46
the clients when I start thing I had to manage my way out.
48:50
When did you feel more comfortable?
48:51
Kind of being more competitive then because like the dust I'm,
48:56
I think kind of has to settle from something like that first.
49:00
I was attending trade shows, every trade show in our industry
49:03
and the, and the I was kind of alone at the, the, the agent
49:08
sessions where no one would talk to me.
49:10
When people started to engage me and say how's business and, and
49:13
talk to me more that were my peers.
49:15
These were we got it took a year, you know, and say, you
49:19
know, became more of a joke that, you know, I'd switch jobs
49:22
right then if I was comfortable kind of, you know, having a
49:26
commercial strategy that would be more normalized.
49:30
I'm going to talk just a little bit about how you approach
49:34
recruiting, nurturing and retaining talent because it's
49:37
clearly something that you've done a lot of from before you
49:40
started your business, you know, running some of these hotels to
49:43
now managing hotels. You got your own internal staff.
49:47
What? What's your philosophy there?
49:50
It, it, it, it's the hardest part of having a company, It's
49:54
the hardest part of having employees.
49:56
It's, it's the hardest, it's the hardest part about all of this.
49:59
If your first question was what's the most difficult part
50:01
of being a business owner? It's hiring and it's managing
50:03
talent, right? Very, very difficult.
50:06
And you have to micromanage that process a bit, in my opinion.
50:10
You have to, obviously not only everyone in an interview process
50:15
is trying to say what you want to hear, right?
50:18
100% of people, whether they're genuine or not, they, they are,
50:22
they are answering questions in the way that you, that they
50:25
think you want to hear. So you have to see through that.
50:28
So you have to be very careful about the questions you ask and
50:31
you have to kind of, you kind of have to walk them through the
50:34
day, the day-to-day. You have to, you have to kind of
50:36
find inaccuracies in what they say.
50:39
It's very, very important. I also say you also have to like
50:41
the person, right? And you, you know, or not
50:44
dislike the person, right? The person has to be likable not
50:47
only in a sales job capacity where they have to be likable to
50:49
the public to make money for you, but they have to be a
50:51
likable human being in one way or another.
50:54
Because if you don't like the person, I think it's ultimately
50:56
not going to work out. But really, Mike, again,
50:59
micromanaging the, the, the interview process is huge.
51:02
We do things like, and I'll give away a secret.
51:07
We'll schedule an interview and then we'll change the interview.
51:11
We'll say, hey, look, can you meet on Monday?
51:14
We'd like to interview on Monday at 9:00 AM.
51:16
And then Sunday we'll send a change.
51:19
Right? People who don't respond to that
51:21
change, they're out right. People who get upset about that
51:26
change, they're out right. People who say, OK, great.
51:29
When, when's a better time for you?
51:31
Please? I'm available Tuesday at 8.
51:33
They're, they're still in right? We love to e-mail them.
51:36
Like could you e-mail me a follow up after this?
51:38
Because that remind me to do this.
51:39
We like to say things like that. Could you please, because on
51:42
Friday, I, I, I actually want to schedule another meeting with
51:44
you, with our team. Could you e-mail me on that?
51:46
50% of people don't send that e-mail after the interview to
51:49
follow up. They're out right.
51:51
So there's a number of things like that.
51:53
And then when they send that e-mail, grammar, important
51:57
pleases and thank yous, commas. We don't need the thank you
52:01
e-mail. You know, that used to be the
52:02
big thing if ever when you would interview, if you didn't get the
52:05
send the thank you e-mail, you're out to me, it's more
52:07
about how much attention is this person paying toward their own
52:11
e-mail for their own life in general of this, which you would
52:15
think getting a job is a priority and to even spelling,
52:17
you know, the right there, there, there in their in their
52:21
e-mail. So we watch all of these things
52:24
and then we might and then again, we, we, we ask questions.
52:27
We, if I'm interviewing you for a podcast position right now,
52:30
which it would be the opposite, of course, you know, I, I would,
52:32
I, I would make you go through a podcast with me in your final
52:36
interview. We, we, we, we'd be podcasting
52:37
together. I'd be asking the questions, you
52:39
know, it, it, it would just be, or you sorry, you'd be asking a
52:41
question. It it we would just make sure
52:44
that you're battle tested and give me a.
52:46
Little test task. Yeah, most people aren't doing
52:48
this. Most people are not.
52:49
Most companies are not doing this.
52:51
So we're recruiters, right? So we, our name is on these
52:55
people, right? So when I said, if you're hiring
52:58
a, a junior podcaster and you hire me to find them, you know,
53:02
it, it, it's my name if that person doesn't work out, right?
53:05
So it's really important to micromanage.
53:07
Micromanagement is underrated in terms of the hiring process, we
53:11
believe. Where do you think hotels and
53:14
travel services, the industry in general, are heading, Rob?
53:19
I think they're heading to a very interesting place.
53:22
And this is all obviously, I'm sure every podcast you're on is
53:25
talking about AI, right? AI is going to change this
53:28
business. AI is really the first thing
53:32
that I've ever seen, the first technology where the public is
53:36
using it before the companies, which is really interesting.
53:40
Right, I hadn't thought about it like that.
53:41
It's it's it's I mean, think about it like like the kids.
53:44
Everyone knows how to use AI, except for like these
53:46
corporations who are like trying to figure out how they can
53:48
integrate it and what they do. So that especially hits hard at
53:53
travel, right, because things that a travel agent does right
53:57
research is the best place for you to go, you know, figures out
54:02
the best restaurant, what hotel people can do in one second on
54:05
ChatGPT with links with everything.
54:08
So we believe that travel people that just offer travel people
54:12
that say we can offer you the Hilton Nashville and here's the
54:16
rate. It's the same rate that's
54:17
online. We believe that they're in some
54:18
trouble because every offering and not giving a lot of value in
54:22
terms of numeric, I'm sorry, dollars and cents value and
54:26
knowledge value that all can be done in one second on ChatGPT
54:32
and it's just going to get better.
54:35
AI has not taken over, excuse me, the travel industry yet.
54:40
It's not there yet, it's not ready yet.
54:41
It's just kind of AI version one.
54:43
But we all agree in five to 10 years that it's going to be a
54:47
big thing, right? So it's it, it's going to a
54:51
scary place for many people. That's why it's important that
54:54
we show value, right? That we can get a better rate
54:57
than people see online, right? A is never going to take that
54:59
away, right? We can give you personal
55:01
experience. The hotel greeter program,
55:03
something AI never, never going to handle.
55:06
On the hotel side, they have to handle this in a completely
55:09
different way as well, because people are no longer going to be
55:11
searching for them in the conventional ways.
55:14
They're going to be using AI. So hotels are going to have to
55:16
optimize AI to show up in results like you would a Google
55:21
search now. And they're going to have to
55:23
really change the way they present everything to
55:26
accommodate AI. Also, AI is going to replace a
55:29
lot of employees. There's AI concierges, there's
55:33
AI reservation systems. I don't know in unionized
55:36
markets like New York how that's going to work.
55:37
But you know, a, a reservations agent that you're paying $45,000
55:42
a year to, that could all be done on, on AI right now.
55:45
And that technology is not ready, but it's, it's good right
55:48
now. It'll be great in five years.
55:49
I hope it doesn't replace employees, but I don't see how
55:52
it couldn't it, you know, the AI concierges that plug directly
55:56
into Google. You say I want to go to an
55:57
Italian restaurant tonight, Nashville.
56:01
It reads Google in one second and tells you the five best per
56:04
ratings. I don't know why you would pay a
56:07
regular concierge in a, you know, in a hotel in Nashville
56:11
for that unless they have the in, they have to provide value,
56:13
right? So that's what's changing not
56:16
only our industry, but the world.
56:18
It's pretty scary. Yeah, indeed.
56:20
And so a big part of what you guys want to continue to try to
56:23
do is provide those things that AI won't be able to, that better
56:26
rate that's not online and those experiential things that a
56:31
program, a robot can't do upgrades.
56:35
Just things that we can score via our buying power and
56:37
relationships that AI can't. But someone who they're a big
56:42
part of our industry are people that look online, see what the
56:45
rate is and and tell the client that's what it is.
56:48
And that person would be deemed useless, unfortunately, by AI,
56:51
which is very, very bad. So we're stressing that the
56:54
industry figure out ways to provide value.
56:57
Yeah. Rob, we already talked about a
57:00
big speed bump that you ran into early on with this business.
57:05
Curious if there's another big life challenge that you might
57:09
want to share with our listeners, something that you
57:12
know is really difficult to get through.
57:16
You had to figure out what to do next and how to get through it.
57:19
But now you look back on it, perhaps even with a little bit
57:22
of gratitude. I created serious sales
57:28
infrastructure. When I started this business, I
57:31
was out there Wheeling and dealing, right?
57:33
Shaking hands, kissing babies. We had a real value offering.
57:37
We were telling people why we were better.
57:40
This also existed on the hotel services side.
57:43
We were out there and I was traveling the world, meeting
57:46
with everyone on the planet, doing a lot of press talking
57:49
about what we what we what we were doing and how we were doing
57:52
it. We're having a ton of success,
57:54
right? Then came all the inquiries,
57:58
right? It was working, right?
58:00
But I had three people and we were getting thousands of
58:03
inquiries for travel, for hotel, to help hotel companies, to
58:07
help, you know, restaurant and bar companies just they were
58:11
pouring in. I was succeeding in the sales
58:13
side. I had not set up the
58:15
infrastructure on the operation side to serve us all of that.
58:19
I figured, hey, when it comes in, great, I'll just hire more
58:21
people like and I did not. And I and it was a major
58:25
problem. It caused some upset clients
58:28
like, hey, you just pitched us on all this stuff and you know,
58:30
where is the why aren't we getting the services you talked
58:33
about? And we were, we were up to here.
58:36
We were up to here and we could not service what was coming in
58:39
major, major, major speed bump and challenge.
58:42
We were losing clients. People were speaking badly about
58:44
us. This is a small world, this
58:46
world, right? We had to hire.
58:49
We had to hire quickly. We had to hire and train
58:50
quickly, had to slow down the sales process, and we had to
58:54
bring people in, right? And we brought in via this
58:58
micromanaging interviewing process we just talked about.
59:01
We brought in a lot. We brought in some great people.
59:03
And those people talk about gratitude, work their butts off
59:07
to get up to speed. We told them in the interview
59:09
the problem, We said this is a problem, we need to start
59:11
tomorrow. We need you to drop everything
59:14
and overwork at the beginning, long hours, weekends, whatever
59:19
it is. And we hired some great people
59:21
and they did. And those people are still here.
59:25
Those people are not fireable unless they do something really
59:28
bad or illegal because those people really set the set the
59:31
company straight. And without them and their work
59:34
ethic and them, you know, really pushing and pounding the
59:37
pavement, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be here right now.
59:39
This wouldn't have worked. So I'm luckily I'm lucky that I
59:43
have not had a lot of personal challenges in life.
59:44
I'm privileged to say that there's just nothing that I
59:47
that, that I can really talk about in that world.
59:50
But this is the major, major business challenge.
59:53
And we, we got through it and we then started work on earning
59:58
back a lot of the clients that we, we told them directly, Hey,
1:00:01
we overdid this. We're we were we sold very well
1:00:03
and and now we're going to we're going to be better and some came
1:00:06
back and something. Yeah, you know, and that's a
1:00:08
problem that so many business owners would love to have that
1:00:11
are listening right now like, oh wow, your sales process was so
1:00:14
effective. You you know out kicked your
1:00:18
your operations coverage. Which is part of the sales
1:00:21
process, right? Like that's, that's like the
1:00:24
sales process to me would be while you're selling and
1:00:27
understanding success, like creating that infrastructure
1:00:29
while you're doing it, which I did not do.
1:00:31
Yeah, stupidly. Well, yeah.
1:00:35
It just goes to show both sides of the business are really
1:00:37
important. You have to have sales first and
1:00:39
foremost. Any business owner, anybody
1:00:41
who's been around the block will tell you that the lack of sales
1:00:44
will be the first thing to kill a business, but then you need to
1:00:47
be able to execute on the back end.
1:00:49
And so you guys went through some growing pains and
1:00:51
eventually put it together and you figured it out.
1:00:53
What would you characterize as your superpower, Rob?
1:00:56
I, I I my superpower. Personally, I am, I, I'll tell
1:01:01
you I, I am an expert relationship manager.
1:01:05
I'm a, I'm bad at a lot of things.
1:01:06
So I'm not bragging generally, but you know, managing
1:01:09
relationships. I've always kind of collected
1:01:12
relationships and friendships in my life.
1:01:14
I've always wanted to have a big circle.
1:01:16
As we talked about the beginning, like I got into this,
1:01:19
I, I liked this industry because of it, the relationship
1:01:22
management aspect. And I'm very good at collecting
1:01:27
clients, friends, people and managing my relationships with
1:01:31
them well. A meeting, saying hi, checking
1:01:35
in, making sure they're OK, worrying about them and and and
1:01:40
and and their. Problems.
1:01:40
It's hard to do in scale. Selfish.
1:01:42
It's hard to do in scale. This is my why, It's my
1:01:44
superpower. This is why I put the Cape on
1:01:45
like that's. It's really something that I'm
1:01:47
good at and I've noticed other people are not good at.
1:01:52
So when I yeah, that that's the only way I, that's the only way
1:01:55
I can answer that question. Like you're going to hear from
1:01:57
me forever, Anthony. Like it's, it's just how it is.
1:02:00
Love it, already looking forward to the future.
1:02:03
So you have a professional relationship with a lot of well
1:02:06
known people. Have you developed a personal
1:02:10
relationship with some of them? Do you hang out with some of
1:02:13
these same people that you get to work with?
1:02:14
I do. Yeah, I do.
1:02:16
Again, You can never kind of tell who's going to be great,
1:02:19
who's going to be terrible based on what you think of them before
1:02:21
you meet them. But a lot of them end up being
1:02:24
great and a lot of them end up being friends.
1:02:25
And it's, it's cool because it's, it's, it's like any other
1:02:31
friend. You've identified someone who's
1:02:33
kind of cool enough to take past your professional life, right?
1:02:37
Which is not, not, not everyone or as we know, and you know,
1:02:41
you, you got to get to add them to your, your friend group and
1:02:43
then then add yourself to theirs.
1:02:45
And I think the only downside is, you know, when you want to
1:02:48
go have a beer, like 80 people run over and try and say hi,
1:02:51
take pictures with these. You have trouble like catching
1:02:53
up. But the in general, yeah, it's,
1:02:56
it's, it's bled over in many cases.
1:02:58
Yeah, that's great. Rob, I've just got one more
1:03:01
question for you today. But before I ask it, I want to
1:03:03
do 3 quick things. First of all, anybody who wants
1:03:06
to get in touch with Rob's company, RDB vip.com, RDB
1:03:12
vip.com. And then if you want to get in
1:03:14
touch with Rob directly, he's given us permission to give out
1:03:17
his e-mail address, which is just Rob at RDBRDBVIP.
1:03:25
One more time, Rob at RDB vip.com, and we'll have that in
1:03:29
the show notes for everybody. Also, as a reminder, if you want
1:03:32
to get more employees access to benefits that won't hurt them
1:03:35
financially and carries a financial upside for the
1:03:37
company, reach out to us at Add Back benefits.com.
1:03:42
Excuse me. Finally, if you'll take just a
1:03:44
moment to leave us a comment or a review on your favorite
1:03:47
podcast app, you'll hold a special place in my heart
1:03:49
forever. Thank you.
1:03:51
So last question for you now, Rob, you and I reconnect a year
1:03:54
from now and you're celebrating something big.
1:03:57
What's that big milestone that you hope to be celebrating one
1:03:59
year from today? Wow, We really, really, really
1:04:05
hope to wow. We, we actually, we actually, we
1:04:10
actually have a couple of things.
1:04:11
I would say open our own hotel from an ownership perspective
1:04:16
would be our, our big goal. And I would say that's a goal
1:04:19
that's within a year, attainable within one year.
1:04:21
That's like a really, really, really big goal, which is, you
1:04:23
know, we want, it won't be called the RDB or anything
1:04:26
selfish like that, but it will be, you know, we are managing
1:04:28
hotels, we're consulting on hotels, we're telling owners how
1:04:31
to run their hotels. We're doing everything in the
1:04:33
hotel business you can imagine. For every company you can name,
1:04:37
we want to have our own. OK.
1:04:41
To get there in a year, probably something that's already in the
1:04:44
works. Sorry, it won't be open in a
1:04:47
year. OK.
1:04:48
I would love to tell you in a year that that that, that
1:04:51
there's. There's a shovel on.
1:04:52
The ground, right shovel on the ground and you're and you know
1:04:55
you're going to be there staying there in two years, something
1:04:56
like that. Great.
1:04:58
Well, Rob Dellabovi from RDB Hospitality Group, I want to be
1:05:02
the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your
1:05:04
story today. I really appreciate it.
1:05:06
Thanks for having me. Folks, that's a wrap on another
1:05:09
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:05:11
Thanks for learning with us today.