Inside the Future of Hospitality Technology

What if the future of hospitality starts with better spaces?

In this episode of Check-In with Bryan, Bryan Fish sits down with Jeff Emmons, CEO of Immedia, to talk about how NextSpace became more than a showroom — it became an immersive experience center where clients can see, touch, test, and understand technology before making major investments.

Jeff breaks down how Immedia built a multi-million-dollar ecosystem around AV integration, workplace technology, smart meeting rooms, event rentals, hospitality tech, and podcast production — and why physical experience still matters in a digital world.

Bryan and Jeff also dig into what hotels can learn from this model, including built-in AV, smarter meeting spaces, guestroom automation, occupancy sensors, leak detection, energy savings, ROI, and the operational value of better data.

In this episode:

• How NextSpace became a sales and experience engine
• Why clients need to experience technology before buying it
• How built-in AV can improve hotel meeting spaces
• Why smart guestrooms can reduce costs and improve operations
• The ROI behind occupancy sensors, leak detection, and automation
• How podcast studios and content spaces are becoming business assets
• Why hospitality needs better technology infrastructure

Subscribe to Check-In with Bryan for more conversations on hospitality, hotel operations, technology, leadership, travel, business, and the future of guest experience.

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#HotelTechnology
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Is it future? Is it just about the wheel? Subscribe so you've never missed a conversation. This episode of Check In with Brian is brought to you by Reliance Hospitality. Hospitality consulting, project management, and business process outsourcing, built exclusively for the owner's side of the table. Tips, renovations, budgets, brand compliance. We manage it all so you don't have to. Learn more at RelianceHospitality.com. I'm your host, Brian Fish, and today I have a guest that I've been meaning to sit down with for let's do the math, uh like five or six months since I first came into this space that we're in, and finally got him today. We are joined by Jeff Emmons, who's the CEO and founder of Immedia Integrated Technologies here in Scottsdale, Arizona. You founded the company in 2004 and built it into the Southwest leading AV integration firm. You have more than 85 employees. Your services span commercial, education, enterprise, and hospitality. Last year you launched Immedia Studios, which is where we're sitting right now, and all of you have given great feedback on since we started in October of last year here. And then Immedia Care, which is your managed AV support service. Correct. And then where we this is inside of, you opened in 2023. It was known as the Southwest Experience Center, which it's a 14,000 square foot showroom with over a hundred plus manufacturer partners, which we will talk about. That it was then the name is changed to Nextpace later.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

There's a good story behind that.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Yeah, which yeah, we'll dig into because I, you know, then it then I think the new question is what is Nextpace? But you know, and lastly, to give you your career some kudos here, you got your MBA from ASU, and then you have been in tech sales, marketing, and AV integration for 30 plus years. And you're still grinding, still creating new things, still getting new business, and uh creating amazing spaces like Next Space. So welcome.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Thank you. I'm hoping the grinding stops because I don't have any more hair to lose.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Right? Yeah. I mean, but if you don't a little bit, like you can slow it down. You don't want to slow all the way. A little bit. Yeah. No, uh, we got connected because funny enough, your business partner, Matt, is next door neighbors with one of my colleagues. And then we needed a space, and someone thought this was a co-working space originally. Yes. One of our mutual friends thought it was a co-working space. And then I don't know how Heather figured it out, but she put like put two and two together, and then we found out that not only was it not a co-working space, but we could use some space here. Yeah. And then we found out we came to see the place, and then I found out there was actually a studio in the building, which we were not expecting. And I was just, I remember coming here the first couple of times and just being absolutely blown away because I was like, everything is perfect. Like everything I've ever wanted is in one spot. But you really have created in, you know, going back to the Southwest Experience Center, you really built this to showcase what the company is capable of.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

What we're capable of, but also what our partners are. So the the concept was hey, you know, when we started bringing clients in and they could touch the technology, our customer SAT score started to go up pretty quickly. And I often give this analogy of like, imagine if you were a human from a different planet and you'd never seen a vehicle for transportation. And we tried to explain to you the difference between a moped and a scooter and a Ferrari and a Corvette and a pickup truck and a dump truck. And, you know, that's kind of what the interpretation is when you have a client that comes in to buy technology is they just don't know.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Right. So you're like, oh, and we're gonna give you a pickup truck. And they're like, well, okay, that sounds great.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Um, and then of course it gets VE'd down to like um, you know, a little pickup truck, and they're like, this isn't at all what we needed. So we started bringing clients in. The success was huge. Like people were a lot happier because they could actually test drive it. And so we had three little dumpy demo rooms in our old office. And I said to my partner, like, hey, we want to build our own office. Like, we should really do this big. And I had this crazy idea. Like, I've got all these friends that are chasing the same clients, the same projects that didn't have showrooms, right? Like our structured wiring company, right? These are the guys who are literally just turning tools, like they just pull cable and terminate network switches, which in a lot of cases wouldn't necessarily need a showroom. They wouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

But but it turns out they've got pretty significant integration with uh the network, right? So all our access control doors are on the network, all our security cameras are on the network, and and there's something to this, right? So I approached those guys and they said yeah. And I approached a friend who owns uh one of the most successful furniture dealerships in town, and she said yeah, and and pretty soon we ended up with a a dozen partners that said, Yeah, we need a showroom, that'd be great. And so, what started out with a budget of about $600,000 of furniture fixtures and equipment ended up with approaching nine million. Right. So, like if you think about that, FF and E would normally be maybe $80 a square foot. Like, yeah, we're real close to 300. So that's why when you walk in the building, you're like, oh my god, like this is amazing. It's because nobody in their right mind would ever build this space. Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

And so that's when I like you have to tell your you have to remind yourself it's a showroom.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Because it again, like nobody would really go out and build this. They would put elements in, but they would do the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Or you'd have a technology company that did technology, but uh, you know, we have three million dollars of technology in here, right? Right. And like that's even more than most. But it also, here's another crazy thing. My manufacturers wouldn't give us anything for free, right? And and they give you the normal showroom discount. But when I said, hey, we're gonna actually not put our logo anywhere in the building, it's gonna be completely neutral. Like this is an agnostic building. We're gonna come up with some crazy weird name that nobody's gonna know what it is, Southwest Experience Center. They're gonna think it's a reptile habitat, which is what why we changed the name. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

I had a feeling it was had to be that or cactus sanctuary or something.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

We've got both. And so we kind of were like, all right, we're out, like we got to do something. But but we approached our manufacturers and said, we'll make this place available for our competition. You know, you can bring anybody in, clients, whoever you want. Our name won't be anywhere in the building. And a lot of them said, All right, we're in. Like that's a great idea. And they they do bring folks in regularly.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

You know, now that you say that, I realize your offices are on the second floor, but you don't know, like, even when you're at the you know there's like you can see people working, but you don't know.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Yeah, we didn't we didn't even put our name on the door on the second floor. There's three ways to get into our office on the second floor. And if you didn't know, you would you'd have no idea that we were there.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Yeah. On purpose, intentional.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

What did the partners that you had gotten that you'd spoken to and pitched it to originally? What what was their reaction after it opened and they actually saw it?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Literally the same reaction that everybody had. I mean, you know, here's the thing. I was out in the field selling for the first eight, 10 years of the company, right? So we've been in, we're we're starting our 23rd year, and I realized that um I've probably designed 20,000 spaces. So, like the how the the training room is set up, how the boardroom is set up, I've been involved in all of them. I've seen them done well, I've seen way more of them done poorly. And so when I actually built 17 space plans to figure out how to lay this out because my goal is to get one type of every room that we sell. So there's a a small huddle room, there's a phone room, there's a small conference room, a medium, right? And so it turns out there's 14 unique conference type spaces and then a couple of other entertainment spaces. You know, people walk in and they hear about it and then they kind of go, Are you kidding me? Like what? And and it it really is, it's impossible to explain to somebody unless they see it.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah. No, it's wild, like to when you walk, when you walk it the first time, especially, it's just like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

So I can imagine bringing a client in would be Yeah, it's uh we we we had a very large consulting firm in to do it too, or we've been courting them for five, six years. In fact, we just signed our first deal with these guys and congratulations. And they were uh they were standing outside the IDF upstairs where all our network racks are and with the LED lights in and they're kind of peering through the windows. I said, Do you guys want to go in and check it out? And they were like, Yeah, absolutely, right? Definitely. So I just badged the door open and these guys go in and they're opening up equipment racks and they're taking pictures. And and I have to laugh because um one of the guys looks at me and he says, So um, why didn't you do the different signal types in different colored cable? So like your audio would be red, your video would be blue, your network would be yellow, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

And I was like, you know, I I felt like we did a pretty good job this way, and the logistics is it's just more work. And you know, he pulls out his phone and he shows me like 17 equipment racks that they had just finished a multi-hundred million dollar project for a big studio, a network, TV network. And he's like, Well, these guys did it. And I was like, Well, how much is the project? And he tells me, and I was like, Okay, dude, this is my money. Yeah, um, but I will say, like, all of the people who put stuff in here, they did the very best of the best. Yeah, and so that it just reflects well for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah, and it changes the dynamic. How is it how has it affected your sales? Oh, brother, I'll tell you that that's such a crazy story.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah, like so. I thought that if we could do a few hundred thousand dollars a month extra in revenue, that we could justify the cost of this. And and so what I didn't anticipate was, you know, when we rebranded Nextpace, it's really built for people who are building their next space. So your next office space, you come here and see this. What I didn't anticipate was um that we went from about three million dollars of projects under design contract to about 40 million in the course of like 18 months. But some of those jobs are are literally two and three years out. So we've got people who come through here before a broker, before an architect, before a general contractor. And so we're engaged years in advance. So the great place to be. Oh, it's it's unbelievable. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Like at one point, uh a couple months ago, I counted. We have 14 new corporate offices under design contract that were ours, right? And and a couple of them weren't moving in for two years. I just didn't anticipate the delay, right? Right. So our revenue really didn't start to go up until fourth quarter last year. And now it's kind of going on an angle like that. I mean, it's just unbelievable what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

And now so you now you feel like you did everything right. I I'm this is I'm really damn close. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

I'm I'm really close.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

But I think again, it's like once it's when you bring somebody in, you can they can see it and they can touch it and they can use it and experience it for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yes, it changes the whole thing. And for us, like to say to a client, you know, hey, we've got um we got a boardroom upstairs that if you were to build it out with everything in it, it would be real close to $400,000 just for that room. We're doing business with all the fortune headquartered companies in the city, right? And so one of the CEOs actually brought his C-suite in and spent a whole day using our boardroom just to take a test run on all that technology.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

And, you know, of course, that's there's no easier way than to have this really amazing space and say, hey, come on in and use it. Like, try it out.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Imagine you use that space and then you go back to your your current one and you're like, it's kind of like when you rent a car. This happened to me recently. I rented a car for something, and we were Tyler and I were driving all over like Texas, I think. And I was like, I actually really like this car. And it was like the base model of the car. But then I like started emailing and I was like, and I was looking, I was like, well, wait a minute. If I get this fully loaded, it's a better deal than my BMW would be if I do the same thing. So I ended up just buying a new car before it, but it's because I had actually driven it and experienced it.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Well, we had so um, and I don't I'm not naming the names of the companies because I don't know whether that it's okay or not. But um, there was a spinoff from a big tech tech company here in town, and the guy who runs Global Real Estate um walks out of our boardroom one day, and I says, What do you think? And he looks at me and he goes, Was this your idea? And I was like, I mean, kind of. I mean, it was mine and a whole bunch of other smart people that wanted to use this. And he's like, Do you know that I have value engineered acoustics out of every single project I've done for nine years around the world because it wasn't until I walked into that room that I understood how big of a mistake that was. Because a normal conference room, right, is probably in the like low 60 decimal range. Um, we've done sound meter tests upstairs where we're in the high 30s. And so you can whisper 30 feet away and hear someone talking, and it completely changes the dynamic of a large meeting.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

And so, you know, it's that kind of stuff that you're like, okay. And and by the way, I couldn't have done it by myself. Like I I I just couldn't have written a check to do it. Right. Um, I needed, I needed some really smart friends. And the good news is they bring their clients in, I bring my clients in, and we cross-pollinate.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

And the ecosystem just keeps going from because I mean, if you're if your sales have future sales have grown that way, I mean, just imagine what that's doing for them. Like I'm thinking of like the cabling guys.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Yeah, they have to like somebody has to wire this. We went from so the structured wiring guys, uh not exaggerating. I think in our biggest year, we maybe did seven, eight hundred thousand dollars of revenue with them. Wow. We probably have five million under contract with them right now. The symbiotic relationship and being in the same house, it's amazing how it happens. And by the way, what we've done is we went to all our partners and said, um, you're welcome to join our sales meetings. Um, so come sit in our meetings with us. And here's a desk right next to our sales team. If you're not working here a couple days a week, you're out of your mind.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Because you can hear people talking about, hey, we're working with these guys. And it's like, how do I get in front of those guys?

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

And vice versa.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

And so I used a meeting room here last month for like two hours for a meeting, and I didn't want to leave. I was like ready to move my shit in. Yeah. I was like, this is nice. I really appreciate you saying because that's just like if I and we don't we don't have a physical office anymore 100% remote, right? But I it's like we're bringing our all of our meetings and stuff, we need to just do them here because if we're and if I'm bringing a client into town, it's bringing somebody here and renting the space for a while is a much better presentation than taking them to a hotel. I mean, funny enough, I'm in the hospitality space, but yes, I'd rather come here than a hotel.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

So you say that, right? So that's kind of the second piece of the formula, right? Right. So we um we realized after we got in here that the place sits empty about 90% of the time. Like literally, we have people counters in all the rooms. So I can tell you how many hours a day the room is used. So 90% of the time, 14,000 square feet of the best stuff you can possibly imagine sits empty. Thus was launched Next Space Rentals. So, hey, like if you need a space, you can come here. And you know what's what what what we figured out is if people come, for instance, use the training room, right? So we can put 100 people in our training room. We've started to partner with the local associations in town, the not-for-profits in town. Well, guess what? All those people are ideal clients for everything else, right? And so you're getting this like, hey, come use this space. Um, yes, we do charge for it, but depending on who it is, sometimes it's super reasonable. We're also getting all this exposure to these people that would have never had the exposure.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah. I mean, even if you're giving anyone a discount, the amount you'd have to spend in marketing to get the same reach.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Without a doubt. And so they're coming in with their local association, and it turns out that you know, we end up with three people coming back for tours because they're building offices, and we end up with a half a dozen people coming back renting the space for their stuff. So it's really turned out to be this crazy ecosystem. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

And I would wonder how many people potentially are real actual referrals also from people events that have been in the building that you just never because you know there are those sales that happen where you just never really know what why the person ended up reaching out in the first place. So I just wonder there's that hidden.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

I'll give you a recent one. So Scott's the leadership. Okay, right. So all the valley has several of these organizations and they bring in local VIP business owners, participants, um, and they do a year of training. So they introduce them to the police department and they do all kinds of community civic stuff. So they came to me and they said, Hey, we have a tech day. Can we use your space? And I was like, love to have you. So we get, I don't know, 45 folks in here. At the end of the day, they're like, Can you use a tour? So we break them off into a couple groups and we start tuning them around. Well, in the group was a local HOA of one of the more prominent HOAs in North Scottsdale. And they were like, This is really amazing. Can I bring my team back? And I was like, Of course you can bring your team back. So they come back for a tour. There's like eight of them that come back. The day after the tour, we get a phone call. Hey, our technology really sucks in our in our HOA space. Can we use your space? They finish that one and they call us the next day and book the next one. And they're like, just because we've got live streaming, right? We've got video conferencing set up. And so they they've got members that can't come. We've got multiple cameras with wireless microphones set up in this training room. The audio is great. 40 to 50 people, the audio is great, and all of a sudden, like they're like, we can produce our HOA meeting for next to nothing in this space because the technology is already built in. Right. It's cool stuff.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

It's cool stuff. And I think that at the end of the day, like anytime in hotel, like when we're developing hotel projects, it's the same. Like, I like to go like see completed projects because once you see it in person, it totally changes the dynamic. And if you're trying to sell someone on it too, it's a lot easier to take them and show them because it gets them excited. Without it. Um and I'd imagine you have people that come in too and like want the whole thing, they want the all the bells and whistles, and then the value engineering starts. When they find out what all the bells and whistles cost, it's like I have one impression.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

I don't really said absolutely we said it's 400,000 for the board room. They said we don't care, we want this exact board room.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Um, it got down to 80 and then it ended up at a 40.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

So uh I think they call that champagne taste on a beer.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

But yes, I was gonna say, yeah. Yeah, maybe even boxed wine. Yeah, yeah. We might have to go that low. I know, but it happens because it's the it's the human side of us. Like you want it because you've seen it and you know it's gonna be amazing. But then when you find out how much it costs, and I think a lot of people don't uh I know we like Tyler and I talk about it all the time. A lot of people don't realize technology and media and all these things that go together, the expense to it. Like I think people are starting with like data centers and stuff now to understand, like, you know, we related it, like we were having a conversation the other day about like music and why the royalties, the way everything gets split. And I was like, there's a part of me that understands why the streaming service has to keep such a big chunk because what it's water, it's electricity. Right. Um, I Tyler was like, it's eight percent. I think wax border was used for data centers or something. Yeah, and then I was like, and then after you did it, you had to replicate the whole thing because it can never go down. Um, because even the guy that's making no money, if it goes down, really makes no money.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

I think people are starting to be aware of it, but it's not cheap to I'll tell you the other piece that that I'm super proud of that's really hard to explain to people. So, like if you go to a hospitality location, right, pick your favorite hotel and and you're gonna pay for the technology, they're gonna charge you for it, first of all. Ours is kind of installed, right? And it's already really good stuff. But when it breaks, what does that experience look like in a hotel? Okay, because I'll tell you what it looks like here. There are at least 60 of some of the smartest audiovisual guys, workplace technology guys in the state of Arizona that are literally 20 feet on the other side of the wall. So our average response time is like four and a half minutes, and our average backup time is like three minutes after that. Who in the world could ever give you that level of comfort that if the technology fails, we gotcha? Yeah, don't worry about it. Yeah. And that's another piece that like that that really has changed in my industry. Is you know, we used to be in a place where, you know, you would I called it the Sherman tank of AV. That was the old VGA cable. Okay. And you plug that into your laptop, that shit worked for a hundred years.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

I mean, it you had to replace the laptop five times before you had to replace that cable. It just worked. And so today, everything being on the network, it just requires so much more care and feeding. Yeah. And, you know, the response time has to be there, or people are in deep trouble.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

But I to me, it's the built-in that is the huge piece of it, is having it built in because you know, you talk about hospitality. There's like the encores of the world or that used to be PSAV that you know they've really made their fortune on renting equipment. So do you know how many times it has to be rented for them to pay for it? Isn't it like once? It's like usually twice. Maybe twice.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Or like maybe wants maybe three, depending on what it is. But but can you imagine getting into a business that if you can rent it three times or you own it? Right. And I mean that's everything from a $200,000 LED video wall to a microphone.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

And um, yeah, it's a hell of a business.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

I know it used to kill me when like we would charge people in hotels, like we were like charging like $1,500 for a L C D projector and a like microphone for the day. Right. It's like, this makes no sense. Like, and people pay it. Yeah, because you can buy your own projector for that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Even back then you could buy $3,500.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Yeah. So it's like, why are we doing this? But there is a place in the bit in the market for companies like Encore, because especially when you're producing like large events in like Vegas and like like trade shows and stuff like that. Without a doubt. You have to do it because it's custom every time. But I think one thing the hospitality industry is has been slow to adopt and could take something from this space is your meeting rooms, if you build it in with the right stuff, you could actually make more money because people want something that's easy. Because to your point, the problem with if you don't have any way to maintain it or and nobody there that knows how to do anything, like you've got like Joe Bob Smith that's like gonna have to call his uncle down the street and hopefully they figure it out. Whereas if somebody can just come in, you know, like we had a so the reason we were here for a meeting was we had a conference called video call that we were doing on Teams.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

It didn't even cross my mind. I originally asked for the space because we were here filming in the studio. Yeah. So to me, I was like, it's better I can just walk like 10 steps across the case. Yeah. Well then I get in there and I was like, oh, wait a minute. This is much better. I was like, I just have to press the button and put the code in from the meeting, and then like, and then like as people are coming in, like the video, like it looked good, it sounded good, the recording was fantastic. Like, you know, if we had that in a board, like if I could have a hotel room, uh hotel with a boardroom, you know, build that technology.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

We've got a couple under design right now. I think we've got eight or nine hotels that we're working on right now. Yeah. And um, and we've had this conversation so many times. And the tough part is they're convinced they wouldn't be able to charge for it anymore. And so, in spite of the fact that they're only getting half or less of whatever that bill is with the big national firms, um, it's still more than if they were in there and they couldn't charge for it, which I I disagree. I think I'm with you. I do disagree. I think if you walk somebody in and go, this is our boardroom, by the way, but we're gonna charge you X because everything's included, right? I don't think anybody would flinch. No, because the experience is so atrocious most of the time, otherwise, especially in a meeting space. If they're gonna set up the gear temporarily in a meeting space, it's super hard.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Well, and the other piece to that is the thing that people need to keep in mind if they're gonna benchmark between building it in and paying the bill paying for the equipment outright themselves, and probably paying if you have a monthly fee to manage it, yeah, they're paying a substantial amount of commission to the A V company. Without a doubt. So there is a point I can kind of see where somebody would say it, but it's kind of like we say about free breakfast. People think free breakfast is like the cheapest thing we can do. It's actually the most expensive. Because once you put all the pieces together, between the labor, the food cost, the and then the all the utilities that go with it and all of that, we basically paid you to eat breakfast.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Okay, now I have to tell you, all right, I gotcha, but I was just in Wailea.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Um staying at a pretty high-end resort where my breakfast for two without any alcohol was $144.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

I mean, I don't think they're starving to death on that.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

They're not because they're charging. I'm saying if it's free.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

No, like, but but they comped us. That was insane. Well, that was good.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Well, the well, they just puts a buffet out every morning. Yeah, I can totally understand. Because it's $20, $30 a person. Correct. It's gotta be. Yeah. And you're eating it. You have to. And now you got a family of four that comes in and stays in a hotel room that the average room night is 180 bucks. And okay, you just gave away a whole bunch of that margin.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Yeah. So like at a full, and what will happen is like at a full service at hell, we'll say it's like a lot of times the cost of it'll come out to like eight or nine dollars, maybe. Well, that's just the food itself. Yes. That's not preparing the food. That's not anything else that has to be. So that's the thing. People miss the point. It's like, no, let's work, let's look past it. They do the same in housekeeping. Hoteliers, hotel owners, and developers, it's the biggest sin they commit is they don't look deeper at the operational impact and where the other bleed is on the expense. Whereas they can totally charge for it. And that's another thing where if you're a if you're operating a hotel and it's built in, it all comes down to how you're selling it to. If your salespeople on site are walking people through and telling them that it's like built in and making it alluding to the fact it's included, right? That's just an issue with the sales process. I couldn't agree more. And that's what it is. And I would almost guarantee you if we were to like do a like a benchmarking exercise and like call a bunch of people, that's the issue. It's getting the staff at the hotel to understand we still have to charge for it. Just because we built it in doesn't mean it's free.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Yeah, and unwinding all those contracts and the relevant. And that's where like and yeah, and now I've got to have staff for an event. So I mean, there is definitely a place for the encores of the world. Yeah. Um, because I we just hired a sales guy from from one of those firms.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Really? Okay. Which I always say they do have great salespeople. Their sales training must be fantastic. Because anybody that can charge you $250 a day for a laptop, yeah, when I can just go to the Apple store and buy like a MacBook Neo for $500. $500, yeah. Yeah, like and I'm good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

That's a good sales person. The crazy thing is, is he was one of their national accounts guys. So his job was to go out um to the guys who would have events all over the country. So pick your Fortune 50, right? Um, he's gonna put an event in Los Angeles and one in Miami and one in New York City over the course of the year. And like these guys were writing checks for $800,000 to a million dollars a year on rental for four or five events, which is insane.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

It's like yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

And there's like I said, like I I might have gotten on the wrong side of AV. I could be wrong. I mean, I think it's I'm pretty far down the road, so I'm not gonna change, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

I mean, but they also though on the rental side and on the business, they they also when the economy goes belly up on the hospitality side that they suffer big a lot. And it's uh yeah, but it's wild. But there are places like if you have a hundred thousand square feet of meeting space, you've got to have an A V provider of some sort. And what it is, is people think it's those places that would need to do all the bells and whistles. But to me, it's more the guys that have like it's the holiday ends, the courtyards, the select service guys, the select service guys that actually would benefit the most because then they've got a space that they can really utilize that doesn't require, you know, Susie, the general manager, that her job yesterday was as the line cook at the McDonald's to figure out how to use.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Right. Right. Now we actually uh we just made another hire of a guy who's got 25 years of hospitality. And his first week, he started visiting some of the select service folks who are his friends. Yeah. And because he walked in and it was like, I was in select service for a bunch of years, and he goes, We needed a place like this so badly.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Like we needed a place. And he goes, Everybody, uh, you don't understand. There's such a demand for this. And I'm like, all right, we'll make it rain.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Let's see. Yeah. But again, it comes down to like you've got to charge for it. Like this is not just an install it and then because they're gonna hit too many people, and I know people that are watching this and listening to this will think, well, we can just charge them room rental.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Yeah, don't charge them room rental too. Like, well, you can charge them room rental, but don't think you're gonna cover everything with the room rental with no AV costs. Right. They might push back on the AV cost, but the reality is if they go anywhere else, they're probably gonna end up having to pay for the AV. 100%. That's where I say, like hotel salespeople, especially when it's it's just a it's a sales process issue, it's all about how it's presented. Yes, it is. Um, and and I've worked with some great hotel, like I had a salesperson that worked with me that used to get people to pay for like the trash, and she would call it some sort of like something something recovery fee. And her thing was if I call it a something something fee, they she goes, they never question it. And I was like, and that's how she would figure out the margin when she was right trying to discount something. Yes, she's like, you know, well, I can do this, but I can't do anything with this fee. And it's because they thought it was a fee, they're thinking it's fees, taxes, like there's nothing I can do for it. And I'm like, well, yeah, because people in the sales, it's just educating the team that works for you too, right? Yeah, because the salesperson doesn't understand like the L C D projector. Like there's a light bulb in it that makes it work, it has to be maintained. Right. There is expense to it, right? Like it's not, you know, it's not like once you buy the TV, it's not like we just leave the TV, like we have to pay for the service every month.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

And by the way, on that light bulb on those lamps, right? There's a clock that runs and it kind of tells you, hey, you're getting close. You also should pay attention to that so it doesn't go out when you need it. That's actually a good point. Again, that's part of that service. Yeah, but look, you know, let's spend a minute on hospitality. Can I correct this? Absolutely, yeah. So, you know, I as we're talking, I'm realizing you've got a bunch of folks that are listening that are probably hospitality. Yeah, all of them. Yeah. Okay. You've probably heard that we got into hospitality, right? So we got to ask to help one of our big manufacturers outfit rooms with technology, right? So on the low end, you're in for a couple thousand a room, and on the high end, you can be in for as much as 20,000 a room, right? It's it's it's a it's a big number.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Yeah. Although I would stay in the 20,000 room.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Yeah, well, I mean, it's unplugged because you've got uh not literally unplugged, you've got um, you've got occupancy sensors, you've got light switches that are tied to a touch panel on the wall, you've got your air conditioning, you can control it from your phone, um, your drapes are all motorized, right? All that kind of technology. One of the projects has got Bluetooth wireless speakers. So we put speakers in the ceiling, and then you can connect wirelessly through Bluetooth on your phone. So you have audio in your hotel room instead of a little crappy speaker next to your right? The QB. Um, so we we put all this together and and we had a client ask us to do it, and in the midst of it, we got roped in to help another project. So we've got a couple of these going on. This is like a year ago, a year and a half ago. And sitting down to do the ROI, here's one that I didn't get that is just unbelievable to me. If all you do is put occupancy sensors and a thermostat and you turn the air conditioning up during the five, six, seven hours a day that nobody's in the room, that's like 30% reduction in electricity. And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. Because the ROI on that, if you just do that portion, you're not talking 20 grand or talking 50 grand. Um, if you just do that, it's like overnight. I mean a year, it's done. Yeah. But then you take in this is the one that I was struggling with, and maybe you can help me.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

So how do you calculate the ROI for being able to turn over your room faster? So you leave at seven in the morning, right? And the room occupancy goes off and it sends an alert to housekeeping that your room is empty. Nobody's been in there. Normally you'd walk around at like 10, right? And start knocking on doors saying, Hey, is anybody in here? So it's so funny you should say this. So, I mean, it's kind of a crazy conversation. You know a lot more about it than I do.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Okay, so I have a thing. Okay, the two, there's two sides to this coin. So we literally were just literally before you sat down, sir. This conversation was happening in this room. People think that they don't need to check out of a hotel room anymore, which I fully agree, do not check out of the hotel room. Okay, it's actually, as a former front office person, yes, it's the biggest annoyance in the world because I've got shit that I got to do to get ready for the arrivals for the day. Yes. I don't need you coming with your suitcases and everything to have a conversation. And at the front desk for six minutes. Yeah. Like I just need, if you were gonna come by, hand me your key and keep walking. Yes. Don't engage. Right. There is, though, the one exception to that rule is if it's before 8:30 in the morning, I actually, it's fine. I want you, I mean, please don't have a conversation with me. But if you want to come and tell me you're leaving, it's helping me. Right. Because operationally, housekeeping can't get the day started as efficiently if they don't know if there's rooms vacant. Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

So, like the worst thing when I was director of rooms normally like high time, 10 30, 11 o'clock in the morning, you're cleaning every room. Correct. But you could have somebody starting at 6 30, right? Correct. And you know that there's going to be on any given day 10 rooms. 100%. And then at nine o'clock, you can have your second person. And by 10 o'clock, you've you're full staffed, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Yeah. And that allows you then, from a labor standpoint, to stack your labor so that, like, you know, first thing in the morning, you may not actually need a laundry attendant and three room attendants to start the day. I can get away with just two room attendants to come in because one can be doing the laundry that's there from the night before, get that started, go do the first couple of rooms. Right. And then let me bring my room attendance in later. What happens in hotels is we have a lack of data because we don't have the technology, like we don't have the room sensors and things. And actually, I saw a gentleman in the UK speak about this at a conference, I think like maybe a year or two ago, about the thermostat and that like the value of putting the system in to tell the PMS system if the room's occupied or not. Right. And that his thing was, you know, a use that he was saying was new for it, which is funny that this coming up. It's like, well, this would then allow you to get the data points to determine based on the day, the day of the week and the other stay patterns or the groups in-house, it gives you a way to build a data model to staff to because then you kind of understand the pattern of the guest. And it's giving you more intelligence that we just don't have otherwise. With my model of just leave the hotel, we don't really have that information.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

So there is a the so in addition to the technology we put in the room, there's this software layer that we've we've partnered with. And these guys are done at thousands of hotels, right? So, and it ties into your registration software, it ties into all your back-end systems, your mechanical systems for your uh banquet centers, your lighting systems for your bank. I mean, it will run everything. Yeah, but it's also a big database. And so they've added AI. So you can go in and start asking questions, yeah, like what day of the week, what's this look like? And I have to tell you, so it took the how do I develop an ROI question on occupancy, and I put it into Claude.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Claude would be my husband if I wasn't married.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Brother, I have to tell you, I feel the same way. And we have gotten very, very close to sleep with a computer before over the last six months. The stuff that so here's one that I didn't get. One of these clients is a casino.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Well, it turns out it's a math problem. How many extra hours I can put somebody on the floor is X amount of generated revenue.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

Right. So, so because I was saying there has to be an ROI for being able to turn a room faster. So that's the first one. The second one is.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Oh, and let me answer the question to that. Yeah. It's a little more complicated than just saying you're gonna like be able to cut hours, but you would be able ultimately to cut payroll hours because all the where they're not looking, so where the the blind cost is in what how the labor model gets affected because of the expeditious cycle that they're able to do expediting in the rooms.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

So one of the big trade publications did a research project on customer SAT. Who would have thought this? By the way, if you're not sure, just ask Claude. So there is an uptick um in, so let's say, for instance, you're flying into Miami, right? And uh you're going that direction. Uh maybe let's talk you're coming this direction. So you leave early in the morning, but you get here, it's like 11 in the morning, right? So you're in Phoenix and you want to check in your hotel room, but they don't have it available, right? Well, if we could have known that somebody had checked out of the room at six, right? Or they ask for an extended checkout, but the door opened and closed, there's only one person in there, and the occupancy sensor hasn't gone off in an hour. Um, so they actually left at 8:30. And I could turn that room faster so that when you show up, they can say, Brian, we've got your room ready for you.

SPEAKER_02 38:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

The customer sat goes up. The number was 15 points, and I don't know what 15 points means and how what their measurement scale was.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

15 points on death satisfaction is a lot. You can there's not much you can do to get 15 points. Yeah. I mean, 15 points. It's it's much easier to lose 15 points than it ever is to gain. I'm reading this, and I'm I'm what it is, sir, is there's a thing called the check-in police in hotels. Um, I just did an article about this. I hate them. I hated them as a manager. So there are people that think the check-in time is 3 p.m. at the hotel. Like, and these are employees, I'm telling you. This is not guests. Right. They think that at like just because we told the guests 3 o'clock that they everybody needs to wait till 3 o'clock to check in. And it's like, and they are like hell bent. They don't, like, there was just no rooms. There's just no rooms. Now, there are some exceptions, right? Like, the reality is maybe I don't have any clean rooms because I don't have the intelligence to but they drive me crazy. And I the article I wrote, I was literally covering the fact, like, I was covering the guy, because there's a difference between a 7 a.m.er and an 11 a.m. guy. The guest that arrives at 11 o'clock, it is much, you're gonna gain so much more satisfaction, which this actually gives us an idea. It's 15%, which is crazy. I'm gonna have to go back and revisit it. I'll send you the study because I it's that's great. Because if you check the guests in it, you're able to do that and deliver that. The impact is so huge because if you were to tell them that you don't have a room and you tell them to come back at three o'clock, all you do is you set up the team in the afternoon for a miserable shift and the guest is going to be pissed when they come back because there's a line at three o'clock.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Yeah. And I waited four hours and now I got to stand in line for you to give me my keys that you should have given me four hours ago. Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

Like, and the reality is if I and then just to the hotel people listening and watching, it's like if it's three o'clock, if check-in's at three and the room was vacant, ready at 11 a.m., you're not losing any money between 11 and and three. So just check them in the camera and put them on the back. I could argue, well, that I was, yeah, I was in a as I'm saying and I'm like, I they're actually, yeah, you could argue actually you will make more money at the end of the day. Yeah. And uh because then they're more likely to then go use the amenities and different stuff in the hotel. Even if it's a select service hotel, I would say they probably will buy some more stuff from the market. There's some other things there. Yeah. But if anything, you're not gonna bitch at everybody about the fact that well, I don't stay there because they won't check you in a bit.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

I just uh as I've been like building the ROI around this, I have been like, okay, here's one that I didn't think about. So the system also has sensors for leak detection. Oh, okay. You're talking about like a hundred dollars room, right? Installed a couple bucks. Well, there's all kinds of data out there on what the average leak costs a hotel and how long it runs before they find it. Yeah, which is stuff that you never think about. I mean, you're talking about potentially tens of thousands of dollars, if not major catastrophic hundreds of thousands for a couple hundred bucks. Yeah, and I can get an alert that says, hey, there's water underneath the sink in room 440. Should we go check that out?

SPEAKER_02 41:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Hello. It's a short-sighted thing in the space because the the larger groups, so like the casino groups and stuff that have the funds to install a lot of these systems, they don't look like they'll just do it. Yes. Which I do sometimes think it becomes in some situations, it becomes a we have to we have to spend money. So we're gonna have to just do it because otherwise they are gonna end up with excessive.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

Some of the research that I've uh I've found is that when you get into the ultra premium, yeah, um, it is really required to be there. Yeah. Um, you don't get the brand of ultra premium if you don't have some of that stuff in there.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

And that's the thing, like the leak detection, all that stuff, like for a for a luxury level hotel or higher to not have like the cost to them if there is a leak, if there's something not working.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Yeah, the number of nights of four rooms being down at $2,000 and night.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

Correct. Yeah, that because they are like those are the guys that are making, you know, a normal hotel these days, you're gonna be running about 70, 75% on the dollar on return. Okay. Those ultra premium brands, in some markets, when they're charging, you know, $2,500 a night, they could be flowing 90%.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

So that's a lot, that's a lot of fucking money. Yes. That and that delta. That delta's huge, where it's like, if but that's where the business gets we get too short-sighted on our side of the table is not understanding. No, we need to take a look at this and analyze it against it. And even though I don't get an immediate payout today, and it's kind of like insurance, where it's like, maybe you don't need it, but you gotta have it.

SPEAKER_01 43:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Because it the effect when it does happen is huge. And I think people also do look like older buildings, these are like these type of smart solutions, yes, are good investments ultimately because those are ones that are more typically going to have the problem the leaks, and they're gonna have this other stuff where they do you. I mean, it's crazy. Like I've looked at deals that people have sent me that they're like are wanting to look at, and I'll look at like utilities. And I'll like run it through um the database that we use to compare like uh costs.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

And I'll and I'll send a message to the broker or the rep and be like, hey, like can you check like this doesn't make sense. Like their water bills are like significantly higher than any hotel in the region. Yeah. And there's been a few times where people have come back and said, Oh, they well, sometimes it's they think there's a leak and they don't know where it is. The best is when they know there's a leak and they just don't want to pay to fix it. But it's like on my side, I can see like I know what the average cost of the utilities are in your area. Yes, you're paying more, but they don't think of it if you would if I would put some other solutions in place, what the what the return would be. And it's it's illustrating that to them and selling it to them in that way.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

That's so we we we got asked to do a proof of concept, we put it in. It took us a really long time because we back in integrated the software layer with all of their systems so we could actually show what it looks like to have control.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

And um, and I'll tell you that uh we went in and pitched it, and then I realized that we didn't build the ROI. And so the good news is we've still got a few months before they're making a final decision. But yeah, as I start to put together the ROI data, I'm really it's startling how you can really justify, you know, you get into the shade control, you get into the lighting control. I kind of scratch my head a little bit. It is definitely wow, and that is ultra-premium. I get that. Yeah. Um, but for mainstream, like I can make an argument on a couple of these pieces that you're not you're not in for 10 or 20 grand, you're in for two or three grand, but it's real.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

Well, like the I would say that for the mainline brands that are serving the bulk of the population, the lighting controls and the drapes and the window treatment stuff isn't really gonna be a benefit. And on top of it, like what we've experienced in the past, um, you know, before we went into the consulting side and we were managing hotels, the hotels that I would have that had like drapery controls, I ended up having more maintenance costs at those hotels because the guests, and again, it's demographics too. The guests that would stay at those hotels are also not like like at my house, I have like a Lutron system that runs like everything. Yeah, like my shades and the whole place open and close at sunrise and sunset, and like I don't do anything. It just happens. And it's so awesome. Go to bed, I hate good night. I know when you have people over at dinner, it's kind of weird because all the shades just close. It's like, well, it's time for you to go. It's time to go. Yeah. And if you ask if you're and if my husband's there, he like is starting to hand out boxes. It's like, no, everyone should go now. Like, uh, he doesn't understand. But I was having a good time. I know. I'm like, well, it's he's like, it's eight o'clock. But uh that demographic, like a lot of them, they don't have that at their house. So like I'm used to it, but I'm also an abnormal person. Yeah, sure. Like I adopted it earlier on. Well, the average Joe just goes in and they're like looking at the thing and they don't realize they're the switch next to it is what controls it, and they'll go and rip the thing and then it ends up breaking the motor and you have to replace it. But you know, let's use like a Hilton garden end, we'll use that as an example. The drapery control is not a big thing. That Hilton guest is not a guest that gives a shit about being able to control the lights from their phone. No. But as the owner operator of it, if I'm able to detect a water problem all day long. All day long, because I also don't have a maintenance team that's big enough to be able to do enough preventative maintenance, I'm doing reactive maintenance. So if I can get something to feed me, just like the TV systems in most of the hotels now, yeah. Just they email us a report and tell us every day which rooms the batteries need to be replaced in.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Yes. There's also a sensor that can that when the sensor goes off, you can turn the valve off. My challenge is like, I don't know that I can ever justify that. Um, because look, all right, like let's do the math on how much water is going to come out between the time that alarm goes off and my maintenance guy or somebody's knocking on the door saying, Let me check this out.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

Um, and you know, the the the big questions are good responding at alarms. So something alarms right. Well, the good question was what happens? Apparently, one of the hotels we're talking to had a a main on a and a on a floor go, and that was not a little bit of damage. They literally shut the tower down. Yeah. Um, is it's big time.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

I've had that happen.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

And so, and so, you know, I can put an automatic valve on there, yeah, but what happens if someone spills their soda on top of the sensor? The sensor shuts the valve off, and now my entire floor, all the water can be.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Well, that's what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

I was like showering. Do I really want this to happen?

SPEAKER_00 48:34

I mean, can you just imagine like oh the the impact because it's like a false fire alarm? Yes. False fire alarms. Everybody gets their money back for the night. Yeah. I mean, it's how do you not? I mean, I remember, and this was like a wild idea when I did it. And I remember my boss at the time just had like was like levitating off the floor about the fact I did it. I had a hotel with 100% occupancy full. People were paying probably the highest rate they were gonna pay all year in Phoenix. And freaking fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night because of a bat, and it was a dusty sensor or something. Like it was something when I got the alert and got the call at home in the middle of the night, then they told me what the error code was. And the lady tells me she was your the alarm is sounding in the hotel. So then I like the hotel's calling me and I find out I ended up going in to the office and I gave everybody like $10 to spend for like per person for Starbucks the next morning.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

And, you know, my boss at the time just was like livid. But I also couldn't afford for my guest scores to slide. And I also wasn't gonna have a fight with a bunch of groups in the morning because it was all group as a soup. So the reality is if I give one person their money back, everybody's getting their money back. You're smoked. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

I think about like you just said that your boss was a little pissed, right? Yeah. And I think now that's the difference between somebody who knows their job and somebody who's fired.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

Because if I've got somebody working for me who's smart enough to do that, I'm promoting them. I need you running a couple of hotels for me. Correct. Because that is super smart.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Well, and I think too, like it's as the systems, and I actually we talked to some people at a conference earlier this year, as the systems all start to talk more and more together, which has always been the issue with the hospitality space, yeah. Our systems have a lot are have mostly all been legacy systems that couldn't communicate. The more that we start to get intelligence and it actually works together, it's okay, well, this floor, there's only a guest in room 301. And they're like, say the run is 50 rooms.

SPEAKER_02 50:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

You know, where you can go, the robot can know to go in vacuum the first, the other side of the third floor up to a certain point in the middle of the night, which won't uh disturb the anybody, the person in that room because the person she's in 301 and you know, be again with the mapping, because you know where everything's at and the system can make those determinations.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

So this system that we installed with the software layer, yeah, the like the first week, they had a VIP and and I mean a legitimate VIP from the 70s, but a VIP nonetheless. And um, and he was performing there, and they get a call, and he's super pissed because he can't get his room any hotter. And so, um and he's an asshole. Yeah, he's just knocked out and he's and the maintenance guy goes up and he's yelling at this guy, he throws him out of the room. Well, somebody comes up with the idea, why don't you just log into the dashboard? But it turns out he's got uh the AC running in one of the suite rooms and the heat running in the other, and they're fighting against each other, which is actually so common. And they were able to just uh adjust it through the dashboard without ever having to send somebody back into the room. And you think about that kind of stuff, and you're like, you know, this is we are literally at the beginning of what tomorrow looks like. Very beginning. And in the truth is, so when we started this project, the pilot with one of these hotels, they had a couple of systems that were um on-prem. And during the course, they were in the process of moving to the cloud. Yeah. And I have to tell you, once it goes to the cloud, this stuff to plug in and make work, it's like an hour. It's not like I need um seven months to do this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

And I like those 70 hours of project management and all this other stuff together.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

Like linking your your credit card account to your electric bill. Yeah. Right? Like you they make you log into your your credit card or to your bank and then you're done. Yeah. It's it's the same thing. It's wild. And so, you know, I look at this and I go, the what's gonna happen in hospitality over the next, you know, three, five years, 10 years, yeah, it's gonna be revolutionary and it will change. And then you've got all this data. That's the part that's so fascinating to me. Yeah. Who's in, how long were they in? What temperature did they run at? Um, did they use the lights? Did they not use the lights? Did they like, you know, all of that stuff that ties back into your systems?

SPEAKER_00 52:58

Yeah. And I look at it from like all because the thing in the hospitality space that's been lacking for so long, in most cases, is always the data. And the more data we get, the better, even when it comes to like renovation, renovating hotels. To your point, like if I'm able to determine like how often a certain lamp was used or like all these things, it helps me put a business case together when a brand is dictating that something needs to happen, right? To be able to say, this is not a good investment for the owner. And this is why. Right in today's environment, they'll just say, no, we have to have it. But I can tell you, in the cases where we're able to present a hard business case, it's easily won because they they even understand it, but without any information, it's like, well, in the banks and the insurance companies, they're all the same. If you don't have the data, which is why hotels typically pay more for insurance, because we don't have the data. Right.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

So the I called the CEO of the software layer company. Yeah. Right. I'm telling him, like, I've got to build this ROI. And he's like, it's funny you should say that. I'm building an ROI calculator right now. So we start talking and I start asking about the five different areas that you could pull ROI out of. And and he's like, Well, I don't know. And I'm like, dude, you have the data. Like, you have the data. And I'm like, and candidly, I don't really give a shit whether the data is a hundred percent right. Like a 30% reduction in electric, whether it's 27 or 33, it's not relevant. Yeah. Right. Um, the real relevant thing is, is is this in the Caribbean? Is it in Hawaii or is it in Southern California, right? Right. Where the cost of energy is dramatically different in these three locations. Right. That's what matters more. Like, get me close. And if somebody wants to back it up, like you can go pull data from a general population area and say, here's what it really is in your space. But I gotta tell you in Phoenix, the ROI on the air conditioning control and occupancy sensing. I can't it has to be massive.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

Well, because I was just thinking, because it's also regional too, because some of the places you just mentioned, like we can't, we couldn't, we could never tell anybody to tell, tell them, hey, you turn the AC off like completely, or and it or it has to run so often just because of the humidity. Right. Because then they end up with because they it's high humidity areas, you have to do it. Whereas Phoenix, Palm Springs, like those markets don't have that problem. Because here it's like, well, we if mold doesn't really grow here because we don't have the humidity. So the reality is we can get the room pretty hot here before we really need to cool it down. Right. And you can cool it down really quickly.

SPEAKER_01 55:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 55:31

We're not talking about three hours to cool a house. Yeah. We're talking about you walk into the room, it's blowing, it's 300 square feet. It's gonna cool down nice and quick. Yes. But again, it's getting everybody's mind around that. The brands have required like smarter thermostats. Yes. But even the franchises haven't gone all in on the they used to funny thing is it had become a standard for a lot that you had to have occupancy sensing stamp thermostats. You still do, they have a list of them, but again, it's only half-assed at the requirement level.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

To make it really truly work, you need to do the optional component, which is pay for the software to connect to your systems.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:06

And that's where the power is. And I even told a guy at a company out of Canada, they used to do the thermostats for one of the brands. I was like, you know, the your the whole thing, your sales pitch is great, but the one thing you're missing is like the actual savings, the ROI piece is in the software. Right. Like the thermostat is pretty, it does its job. Sure. But that isn't saving anybody any money because it's still the occupancy sensing thing doesn't even work the way that I think that they think. I don't understand how that works in those thermostats. The only times I've actually seen it work well is when you have the software piece where it's able to then truly control it.

SPEAKER_01 56:45

Well, the the combination of the door sensor, which by the way is part of Asa Ablo, which everybody and their brother has installed, right? Yeah. Um, so you can piggyback on theirs or you can put your own in. That and the occupancy sensor, and you can put a door sensor on the outdoor patio. Yeah. So, you know, the old like put your key in the wall, like to like I don't need that anymore, right? It's just part of the system in the room. Yeah. Right. So if the door's open, I'll let you run it for two or three minutes. You stepped out to say hello to your husband. Hey, no big deal. You closed the door again, air conditioning never shut off and turned back on.

SPEAKER_00 57:19

We have a family member that she went and stayed in a hotel. She was with other family members. She didn't know that you had to put your key in the thing. And then the next morning tells everyone at breakfast that the lights didn't work in the room. That nothing worked in the room all night. She went the whole night. Doesn't say anything to anybody. Couldn't believe it. It's because she didn't know you had to put your key in the thing. But uh, yeah, it's the only one that well, actually, the door door sensor on the patio, that one always pisses me off. Because it's like, because then the room usually heats up really fast, and then it's like I just want to go outside. But you, I mean, you have to do it though, because otherwise, because guests will leave and leave the door open and then without it out. Which is another thing you want to know too. Like, I want to know if a room is marked vacant and the door is open. Yes. And that's the other piece there. Like, we could do a whole other episode on risk management um and how all these systems would actually save. Save from a risk management perspective as well. Um, because actually, Safe Lock back in the day, if you had a specific safe lock system, their locks were special because they were the only lock brand at the time that you could actually read it and you knew with the if the door had opened. Yes. So it wasn't even like that the lock had unlocked it, like the door swung. Right. So, like when you're trying to do an investigation or something, it was like real easy to figure out.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

Right. Yeah, there you go. That stuff I hadn't even thought about. There's a whole nother risk management thing. Like who was out in the hallway? Who, yeah, like how long were they out?

SPEAKER_00 58:40

I mean, and see, and from an insurance perspective, making a case in the insurance markets to help reduce your cost. And we're like into this right now with a company here in Phoenix, like it's those types of things that actually can translate into savings because you're able to say like these are the things that we're doing, whereas right now a lot of people can't say any of that.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

So, you know, one that that speaking of that, because we this is in a couple of the projects we're working on is the underbed lighting.

SPEAKER_00 59:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:08

That's tied to the occupancy sensing. Do you know how I mean, honestly, it's really nice. Yeah. Like it's it's nice. And how many times, I don't know about you, I'm guessing you travel even more than I do. I'm gonna guess that you wake up in the middle of the night and you're like, was the bathroom to the left or to the right?

SPEAKER_00 59:24

Oh, I have Jeff, I have had a bruise on my forehead before because I've gotten out of bed and thought I was in the hotel I was at the night before and run straight into the wall. Yep. And so this thing kicks on, right? And it's a lot of bucks. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing. Like a lot of brands now require a night light to be near the bathroom. Yeah. My thing is I love the underbed lighting because I also can't, I'm a guy that I need it to be pitch black. Yeah. So like it's better for me if there's no light. But if I need to get out of bed and the light pops on, it's miraculous. One last thing I we have to talk about that we did not talk about, and everything we talked about, we have to talk about the studio, which we've been using now since October. Um, Tyler flies in from New York. He loves it here. And we love it. The people that watch love it because they're like, holy shit, Brian, how much did you drop to buy to build that? Nothing. I just pay you guys to use it, yeah, which is great. But uh, what was why did you decide to put the studio in? Because it was not here originally, correct?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

It was actually, it was just it was built as a studio. Okay, but we never did anything with it. Okay. So our videographer um might have spent about a dozen years traveling with a billionaire who started a web company here in town. Yeah. And so he's been all over the world with this guy. Um, and Jeff Johnson, who's our videographer. Uh he's my age, so he's been doing this for a couple of years and wildly talented. Like I had hired videographers in the past that um that you know I'd want to do a commercial and it takes six months to develop it. And he's like, What do we want to talk about today? And then you'd give him the topic, and he just ask 40 questions and then you go piece it together and you'd have a and you're done. It's magic, right? Right. Because it doesn't have to be, and by the way, I'm not looking for the best of the best quality from a production perspective. I'm looking for better than the guy with the phone.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:15

So, um, so we uh start getting requests to do podcasts in here, and we were setting them upstairs in our executive lounge. So he's setting it up there, and it's like two hours to set up and two hours to tear down because he gotta take all this gear up. Why don't we just convert this? Why don't we make this a podcast to be? And I reached out to my partners and they helped out with the acoustic treatments and some of the furniture, and one thing led to another, and it turns out he had pretty much all this gear already. Like we were already invested in all this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:44

And so uh yeah, it was just we had enough demand. And and the cool thing is that he's producing content for us. We've got the partners in the building that as part of their m partnership agreements, they get some use of him also.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

And then, you know, the other 20 hours a week or so, he's available for us to let people borrow him. Wow. And in your case, Tyler travels the world with you, so you don't need our guy. Yeah. But although he's come in handy a few times for it both both ways. Like we're good. If you want to use him, great. Yeah. Um, and on the podcast side, like, you know, it's pretty simple to do this kind of recording when you've got it set up like that. Yeah. Um, the editing, you know, he's got some software now that he's got it down from hours to, you know, 30, 40 minutes. There's some applications that allow you to automatically pull out the highlights, and you still spend a little bit of time, you know, filtering out which ones you want and putting the header and the footer on them. But generally speaking, it's not too bad. And um, and all of a sudden you got a business. I mean, we've got a dozen or so of these that go on every month, and we we always have a few people coming in and checking it out and saying, hey, we're interested. And it's been open for four, five, six months. So um, and I'll continue. I think what will probably end up happening is, excuse me, I've got some folks that talk about they don't want the space to get stale. And so I think what you'll probably see is that I'll lean on our partners to say, hey, let's refresh this thing every you know 12 months or so, um, just to give a new look because you want a new space, right? And because we've got all these partners, they want to show their stuff off, right? So it's kind of a no-brainer.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:17

Again, win-win ecosystem.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

Yeah, everybody wins at the end of the day. No, it's a fantastic space. Yeah, thank you. We love using it. It's definitely changed the game for us for sure. I mean, when we were the funny thing is we were actually having conversations about building out a studio here locally when this came, when we discovered this because we couldn't find anything in Phoenix, in the Phoenix Scottsdale area that made sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:40

You know, I'll tell you, we have probably built, I'm not exaggerating, 25 of these for clients. Everybody builds them, and the problem is they don't have a Tyler.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

And um, and as much as So I just didn't build the studio, I just went and got the Tyler. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:53

And I'll be honest, like the Tyler is really the to me, it's Tyler, like because it I always say it takes a team. Like Tyler's the one that really makes it me look good at the end of the day. Yeah. And but I also trust him that I not put stuff out that I'm not gonna look favorable.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:08

So, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:10

Yeah, well, I I in in that's the piece. Like there are a lot of these things that are being built, especially in corporate offices where they don't have anybody to run it. Yeah. And so, you know, Jeff from time to time will, you know, make a visit to somewhere to help them produce something.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:23

Which is funny to me because I feel like it would be better for them just to go like to a location like this. Yeah, you know, some of those in my mind, I was like, I thought about it when we were here the last time I was like, at some point they could end up having like multiple studios in this hallway or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:36

Like, yeah, some of those CEOs don't like to leave their building.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:39

So they well, and if you have the money to build it out, then I guess go ahead and build it out. But um, but again, it is it's all about the edit at the end of the day. It is.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:47

And uh Well, I mean, look, it's I mean, so microphones, right? Like it does matter. Um hundred percent. The the caliber of the cameras, the switching back there. It's not super expensive, but it's also not cheap. Like you're not doing this for five or ten grand. Correct. And then you can have the space that sits here empty 75% of the time or 90% of the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:09

I mean, I had to be convinced to do this when we first started this podcast. Yeah. I didn't really want to do it, but then it was like, well, if we're going to do it, we're gonna start to do it the right way. Absolutely. And so we made a few strategic decisions at the beginning. We like, I would say we would never go back to shooting with some of the stuff that we used in the beginning, but like as we like were moving forward, we were able to get more equipment and do different things. So even when we're on the road, I think our equipment's pretty good. Pretty solid, yeah. Yeah. But um, yeah, I think the average, I mean, we talk about it all the time. The average person just doesn't understand what goes into actually producing even content just for like 30 second clips on social media. It's not, yeah, if you have a phone and like you can you can do it, but it doesn't come out the same way.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:50

The the the stuff that people want to watch is probably at that. And and again, I mean, there is there's this like I can go to uh, you know, um TV station. And spend huge dollars filming a commercial. And that's going to give me we'll call it a 10, right? I can come here and get an eight and a half for a tenth of the price.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:11

That'll be just as effective. Yes. And and at an eight and a half, nobody is not watching. You know, it's the three and the fours that hello that everybody's like as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:20

I mean, the biggest compliment to me, and it'll extend to uh to next space as well, and uh what you've built here is when I have m content that goes out, if it's from here, even the content we do on our own, it's like then the first question I get, and I've been getting it more and more lately is oh, what agency did you hire? Right. Like what agents did you hire? And then when I tell them well, it's in-house, and then we the studio work, we're just renting space in Phoenix. People look at me like I've got six heads. They're like, seriously?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:49

I'm like, Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:50

Yeah. Like that's yeah, it can be done. It can. But you do a nice job of it too. Yeah, thank you. But my thing was like once we came here, I was like, Well, I'm not gonna drop the money for the equipment and the space and everything. I'm gonna go with these guys. And we're we're really happy to have you. Yeah, no, we're really happy to be here. So Jeff, it was a pleasure. Right back. We could uh do this six more hours. Thank you. I hear there's an event later tonight that I'll be.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

If you're sticking around, I am gonna stick around.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:18

Oh wow. I don't smoke bourbon. Or no, I don't smoke cigars and I don't drink bourbon, but I was told there's a full bar. Matt's reaction, I believe it was Matt, was kind of funny because I think that's what I said. He goes, That doesn't matter. You still need to show up.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:30

I was like, Yeah, I just laughed. Legit. Like the the thing is, is probably 25% of the guests will actually smoke cigars and drink bourbon. Yeah, but it's a party. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:40

Well, Jeff, thank you so much. We'll definitely have to have you back. We'll see you all next week. We'll be back for another episode of Check In with Brian. Check in with Brian is a production of RH Media Productions, executive produced by Tyler Alexander. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Reliance Hospitality Global, Limited Co., its affiliates, or subsidiaries. All content is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as professional legal, financial, or investment advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making decisions regarding your business.