Transforming Lives Through Hospitality - Craig Poole, Reading Hospitality

Craig: I'm a private guy. trying to change the world and be successful with a lot of people. We have 208 people that work in a hotel. 92% walk to work, meaning 92% of the people live in the second poorest city with the second highest crime rate. So these people have never even been in a hotel like this before. They never ate food like this before. They never used China glass and silver like this before, they never had uniforms, and they never been treated like this before. I had hired about 60 people who had felonies Because when you work when you live in a poor city with high crime rate you have felonies. Right? So these people that people don't want to hire are the same people that are number one in the in the world. They're Connie award winners, and it changes families. Imagine if you had someone with autism, someone with Down syndrome, and all of a sudden they had a job and they're working with us. The joy that is, and people brag about it. And they're the Connie Award winners.

Josiah: It's not just about hospitality. It's not just about the hotel. You have to be motivated by something bigger. But what gave you that bigger vision beyond what you do for work?

Craig: Great question. We're a big piece of property, right? We take up a lot of land. And if I'm not successful, I have to make others around me to be more successful so I can be successful. If you go into blighted areas like I do. So you have to put your money in. You want to build your community up. If you build it up, you'll get built up as well. So at the end, you're always working, always working for the good of the people. But the hoping actually, it's really a hope more than an expectation because you don't want to be disappointed. You're not doing it to get it, but you know if you do it, you will get it. That's that give and you'll receive tenfold. It's the same thing. It's that principle. I give, I give, I give. And for some reason, I get tenfold. Now, I don't do it for that, but I already know it's going to happen because that's how I live my life. So it has become a natural part of my life; it's not a business strategy. It's just a life strategy.

Josiah: What inspires that?

Craig: Well, I'm a Christian, so that helps a lot. So I've been in the hotel business my whole life. Probably when I was in my 50s, I knew I was going to get out of the restaurant that I owned, and I wanted to go back and do something. I didn't want to study what hospitality was doing, but I wanted to study what life was doing. So, I started studying what churches were doing. I just started reading about the organic church. I just started reading a lot of things about churches. I could have picked; I could have picked whatever I decided to pick. What is the church movement like, and why are they gaining or losing? What are the people like? What's the culture like? Where are people's minds in that in the theological world? Because it's going to tell me where that's hospitality, right? And I want to figure that out. So I just studied it and thought, you know, hospitality will always be hospitality. You can put all these new internets and new things, the financial things, and all the toys and bells and whistles, but at the end of the day, hospitality is hearts and souls and pulses. And this city was broken. The city was poor because it didn't have any businesses downtown for 20-some years. So when we built this, I said, look, this is going to be a 24-hour, seven days, seven-day-a-week pulse and heartbeat. And I knew that if we did this, it would change. I knew that. I just knew it was a matter of fact that people would, if I could be transformational, which I would read about in the transformational church. Transformational. I thought, okay, I like that word transformational. I want to be a transformational manager and leader or lead people through transformation. which the hotel industry really needs today. They need a transformation because they're stuck.

Josiah: What are they stuck in? .

Craig: You know, I almost hate to say it, but with the equity piece, it's about cleaning the house, running it as bad as you can, running it to make all the money in the day. But these things, they built these, they take out a 30-year mortgage or a 20-year mortgage. You take it out for a day. You're taking that for 20 years. It's a long-term game. So I'm the long-term player. You know, I knew if we could get out of the hole, it'd have a long-term gain. If I take care of the asset, I'll have a long-term gain. If I don't have enough people, they won't be able to fix it. I'm not going to have enough people here. We are running so well here that I expanded our star report to another area. So we have our star report that's local. And then I went outside, and I picked within an hour's drive the higher-end hotels that are around us. I thought, well, I'm 150, 160, 170% index, so I better go into another region before I get arrogant and just go against the bigger hotels like in Harrisburg and Allentown and Lancaster. So, I picked the bigger brands. And lately, we've been 106%, 110% index against those.

Josiah: That's remarkable. And for people who are unaware, that is a huge achievement. And in the much broader area of 6%, locally being at 160%, this means you're way outperforming others in the same market, the same set of cards. You're doing something showing up in terms of financial performance.

Craig: Sure. And you know why? Because people. Because they love the people that work here. They love the mission to stay here. And they'll drive from those other hotels to here. Because of the mission, because they want to be taken care of and recognized and appreciated, but they don't get recognized and appreciated in those hotels because they're just money factories, which they really aren't. It's short-term. I'm the long-term one.