How I Develop New Brands That Succeed - Bashar Wali, Practice Hospitality

00:00 Josiah What does it take to design a new hospitality concept from scratch? Today, we're learning from Bashar Wali, one of the most recognized names in hospitality, because he's done it all, as a leading operator, investor, and hotel branding expert that 180,000 people follow on LinkedIn alone. In this episode, you'll learn where he starts, who he's thinking about, the role of real estate, and much more.

I want to talk about the process of creating a new brand. And how do you think about approaching this? And maybe to be more specific with this, who is in mind or how do you lead that process?

00:59 Bashar Really, really good question. Number one, when I work with designers, I literally say, if you win an award for doing this job, I will never hire you again. Because if you don't say that, this is what happens. It's human nature. Designers have one goal in mind, and that is the magazine cover and the award, right? Not necessarily you or your target audience. And in the you example, in the me example, if I make it about me, I have failed miserably. In fact, I often argue with owners that You are absolutely the wrong customer for this. In fact, if you come to stay here and like it, I failed miserably. So the really hard thing to do that goes against our grain and against our egos, because we all have big egos, especially in this industry, is who is ideally my target customer? Broad range, right? I can't be everything to everyone nor accommodate a group that has 10,000 people across the planet. Like, it's got to be broad enough. Who are they and what do they want? What's important to them? So I think the way I'm thinking about this is end user first, second and third. Me on the list is probably number seven. So fundamentally take your ego out of the mix, really figure out who your target audience is and ask them what they want. Cause we often as an industry think we know what you want and we want to jam it down your throat when in fact it's nothing that matters to you and that's not what you want.

02:14 Josiah How do you decide who that person is, though? Because there's so many people out there, so many different types of travelers. What's your starting point?

02:21 Bashar I think you have to think about the most common denominator. Like I said, you can't be so singular-minded in thinking about who your target audience is. So you have to establish sort of the baseline of whether it's socioeconomic, whatever the criteria may be. You know, hotels have done this forever now. If this hotel was a magazine, what magazine would it be? If this hotel was a car, what car would it be? Which then helps you distill down the concept of who your target audience is and what they want. And the target audience, because you're a hotel, obviously your rate dictates the socioeconomic, right? Because if you're charging $4,000 a night back to Aman New York, no matter what, someone who makes a hundred grand a year is not gonna be able to stay there. Maybe they'll do it once on a very special occasion. So if that's your audience at that level, and that can afford to stay again and again at four grand a night, who are they? What's important to them? And funny, when you get to that level of luxury, it's almost harder, right? Cause it's harder to impress. And I think we, again, try to overdo it rather than really think about what are their needs. And again, like that Beverly Hills Peninsula flexibility. The answer is always yes. They'll pay you for it. Whatever it is. Don't do a picnic in the Hamptons package for them. If they tell you they want a picnic in the Hamptons, the answer is yes. You should know how to pull that off. So focusing on the audience, not easy, to make it broad enough that you have broad appeal that you can fill the rooms, but narrow enough to actually stand for something, I think is really key. But again, not an easy process and focusing on who that target audience is across different socioeconomics, backgrounds, education, et cetera, and truly and truthfully listening to what they tell you they want to hear. Now, there are basics that we fail miserably at. I'll give you another great example in New York Equinox. They leaned into fitness. They said, our customers are going to be the fitness fanatics. And they did such a great job with it. They were very thoughtful and intentional. They designed it for that audience. Now, that audience is broad, again, in terms of age and wealth and socioeconomics and all that stuff. They had to be somewhere in the middle and their rate dictated what that is. So if it's $600 a night, Well, yeah, sure. You'll get some of those people who may afford it once, but they're not our focus. Our focus are on people who are going to be able to actually afford this repeatedly and regularly. What do they want and what do they need? And fitness was their thing and they own it. I feel that they have such a strong point of view. Authenticity at one of the most overused words today to me means an unapologetic point of view. So at some point you have to say. I am going to do, I don't know, a nautical hotel. Like if that's your thing, own it, celebrate it, stand behind it. Don't dilute it so much to appease everybody because then you'll be nothing to anybody.

04:56 Josiah I'm very interested in the sequencing of this because I've talked to some people who have a strong conviction around as an individual, this is what I care about. I care about makers or whatever the case is, or boats. And so I'm going to like create out of that. For others, it's real estate. I'm curious for you, you own real estate. And I'm curious at what stage in this process does real estate or the physical building enter the brand development process? Is that what kicks everything off? Or are you thinking audience first and then real estate?

05:23 Bashar Being thoughtful and intentional and really hitting that self-actualization transcendence button for people will then allow them to forgive your physical ailments, as it were. And I think, again, there's table stakes, right? You have to have comfortable, it's got to be maneuverable. If it's a small room, it's got to be well thought out in terms of layout, etc. But I think at the end of the day, when I meet someone and I like them, I don't like them for their body or their outfit. I like them for their personality. So if you think of the brand as the personality, unless we're judging a book by its cover, which many do, but I think we're starting to become more in tune with this idea that don't judge a book by its cover. I think ultimately I will take the much less attractive building full of life and personality over the perfect building that is absolutely boring and just sort of soulless. So I think if you start with the audience first and what will make them happy, clearly the building dictates what space you're in. If you're selling me, you know, 180 square foot room with very little public space, well, that's a price conversation. So if you have a brand back to Amman again, for the lack of equinox, even better example, they have to be in a certain price range to deliver those facilities, which then comes with expectations of the building in terms of layouts and size of the room, et cetera. But I think your audience has to come first because then the building I've always said a hotel is just a building, right? It's brick and mortar, glass and steel. It doesn't matter. Because if you take the humans out of the building, what is a hotel? It's shelter, right? It's purely commodity. As long as it's safe and comfortable, I could care less about anything else. But we think of hotels as so much more. The commodity has to be good enough, but then what differentiates one over the other is the personality. So I say personality first. And again, back to the award with the designer. I will not hire you if you win an award because I don't want the award to be your North Star. Do good work and you will win an award. Similarly, in a real estate, if you infuse the right brand in the right building, I think that byproduct of you doing that makes the real estate so much more valuable and so much more successful.