The COO with a 360° View: Inside My Place Hotels’ Operations and Commercial Strategy - Matt Campbell, My Place Hotels

Josiah: Some of you have told me that you want longer episodes on this show, and I've been trying to do this where it makes sense, and I think today's episode is a perfect fit. We're going to be diving into the intersection of hospitality, people, and commercial strategy with a guest who oversees all of these aspects for one of the fastest-growing hotel companies today, My Place Hotels. Matt Campbell is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer at My Place. As you'll hear in this episode, he started his career learning about the importance of customer service at a very young age, and today he's bringing decades of insight into leadership, operational efficiency, and franchise growth into the hospitality industry. In this episode, Matt shares his journey from his unexpected path into hotels to guiding a brand that is known for smart cost efficiencies and a people-centered culture. In this conversation, we get into how his team drives value, reduces acquisition costs, and brings innovations to this business, all the while balancing technology with human touch. So if you're ready to hear about strategies that are making an impact for this business in today's hospitality landscape, keep listening because this is an episode you won't want to miss. 

[intro]

Matt: My really first entry into hospitality was working at a golf course. I did the typical take care of bags, took care of the range, and took care of the members of the country club. And we had a great club professional who really emphasized the importance of relationships and taking care of the members through hospitality, making sure their clubs are clean, making sure their carts are ready to go. And that was back when I was 14 years old, and I did that for four years. And, you know, I don't really think about connecting that into the hotel space until, you know, I go to school to learn finance, and I studied finance at the University of South Dakota. Still uncertain with really what I wanted to do, I went to business school, went to law school, clerked with the judicial system, did private practice and somehow fell into the hospitality system. So now, as I look back and, you know, what those instrumental moments were, it's fun looking back and saying, man, it made a difference. Now, as I look at what I'm doing here and trying to convey to our team about taking care of the guests, making sure their rooms are ready, and making sure you enter the space with a smile on your face, All that really stemmed from a 14-year-old at a golf course trying to take care of the membership. So they had a good day. And so I do think I can apply a little bit of that to what I'm doing today, but reality, I would have never thought I would have ended up in the hospitality space like I am today.

Josiah: I'd love to dive into a few elements of that, but maybe just share with our listeners, what are you doing today? Tell us a little bit about your role, what that covers.

Matt: I began with My Place nine years ago as general counsel. In about 2020, I took over as chief operating officer and delegated a lot of the legal responsibilities to our general counsel that we have today. But as chief operating officer, I'm responsible for sales, marketing, revenue management, and operational aspects throughout the entire My Place hotel system. On a typical day, I spent a lot of time on Zoom conversations like this, working with our various team members, both in the office and throughout the country, emphasizing a lot of time on making sure our teams are communicating our franchisee's best interest. What's at top of mind for them? And what are we doing to address those issues proactively? So it could be technology advancements. It could be different protocol and sales. It could be a what's the latest and greatest marketing effort that we can push forward for this next quarter. So a lot of engagement with our team members internally and a lot of conversations with our franchisees who are developing new hotels or operating the hotels and have curiosities or challenges for us on how do we improve what's taking place within their structure.

Josiah: I think we're going to have a lot to talk about today because it's actually pretty unusual to have a chief operating officer oversee all those commercial functions as well. So you're seeing it all, right? You're seeing every aspect of the business. But I want to spend just a few more moments talking about your career. As you reflect back, were there any mentors that come to mind that were sort of pivotal in you ending up kind of where you are today? Anyone stand out that made a big impact on you?

Matt: Yeah, I have a handful. you know, you have to appreciate the people before you who can tell you maybe how to navigate the pitfalls. I worked with an incredible judge, Judge Porch right here in South Dakota, who was a finance background, who, you know, imparted some importance on understanding the numbers as part of being an attorney. But as I really got into the hospitality space, I had two attorneys that I worked closely with that truly were instrumental. And I'll go through a couple of reasons why. A gentleman by the name of Bill Bowen, who still practices in South Dakota, he was in office when I became general counsel. And the one phrase that really sticks out to me that he would always say is, Matt, being a general counsel in a business is really a can of worms. Your team's going to pull you into a situation. Matt, we have a problem. What do we do? How do we get around it? You're going to get involved with that and find four or five other things that maybe should have been handled differently or could be handled better. And so be open minded, go into those situations. open that can of worms, be prepared for what you're going to find, and really work with those team members around you, putting better structure in place and putting better processes in place. But 10 years ago, when I'm getting that advice, it still works today. And I tell other attorneys that we have in our office the same thing. When you talk to the team, you're going to open up a can of worms and be ready for what you find and be open to sharing those concerns. And so I really appreciate that. Still close with Mr. Bowen today. And I certainly appreciate his guidance and input over the years. A second individual who has a very similar background to me is Harvey Jewett. Harvey Jewett's a practicing attorney in South Dakota, but his background was president of Super 8 Motels a handful of years ago when that was still within our organization. He is a lawyer, but he's extremely business-minded. When I started as general counsel for My Place Hotels, he was very clear about Matt, the best attorney who understands the business. Don't close your door and operate on just a legal function. Get involved. Know the economics of the business. Know the challenges of the business. Know why we're doing the business. And I can really credit him for shifting my focus early on from a legal mindset to a business mindset because he made it clear. Put emphasis in understanding the business. Understand why we're all coming together to develop hotels. What are the challenges and pain points taking place at the property? You're going to be able to apply the legal understanding and the legal concerns, you know, much better if you understand and can balance the operational concerns that are taking place around us.

Josiah: I appreciate you sharing that because I'm always fascinated to hear sort of the influences and the people behind, you know, the amazing leaders that I get a chance to speak with, like yourself, who have are doing great things in hospitality. But it's it's often kind of a chain of.

Matt: It is a chain of people. And being in Aberdeen, I feel like we're somewhat Aberdeen, South Dakota. We're like the mecca of hotels in some fashion. I was just add one more name to the list. And I shouldn't be glossed over, but Ron Rivett, Ron Rivett founded Super 8. Sadly, he passed away at the end of this previous year, but he was really instrumental in, you know, what we're all doing here today. And it's a culture of the people. It's the taking care of the people around you. It's your franchisees, your partners, your vendors, and most importantly, your employees. And Ron set that tone 50 years ago. And he carried that tone through us with our team that's here today. It's taking care of those people around you, because if you're successful, they're successful. and take a combination of all those three gentlemen, they all make a pretty big impact in terms of what I am doing in hospitality and certainly what my place Hotels is doing in hospitality.

Josiah: Well, I want to get into kind of a few aspects of what you're doing, and maybe as a way to kind of transition into that, you referenced overseeing all these commercial functions and operations. Obviously, as chief operating officer, it is typical for people in that role to look after the operations and all the logistics of making things happen. Still, you're also overseeing the commercial functions. And so I wonder, I want to ask you a little bit about where you see the opportunities to drive the biggest business results, drive the most profits because I think, I guess I'm thinking about, you know, the franchisees or the potential franchisees that might work with you. They're thinking about the whole picture as well, but from a different perspective, right? Because they're thinking about how this is going to make me money. And I am super interested in operations because I think there's, you know, you can drive efficiencies, you can drive cost savings, that kind of stuff. But I also worked a little bit in my career in revenue management and hotel marketing. You kind of see the benefits of driving top line. I'm curious if you can kind of give me two or three areas that you are finding present the biggest opportunity in hospitality today for driving business results across all these areas you oversee.

Matt: Yeah, I'll touch on two different ones that stand out immediately. It's operational efficiency. As we look at the cost or the expense issues that we're having today with the inflationary costs, what are we doing at the property level? How can we find those efficiencies? What technologies can we take on to better manage time and utilization throughout the properties? How are we incorporating that into our leadership development team that's in the field every week of the year, spending time at hotels? You know, what's the best process to start the day? What's the best process to end the day? And so that's first and foremost, monitoring your expenses. With the My Place model, you know, we push pretty heavily as we talk to our franchisees about the efficiencies of the My Place box. It's a simple product. It doesn't take too many staff members to care for the guests. And so efficiencies and cost savings is number one. Number two, you know, the cost of acquisition. As we explore and expand channel opportunities and growth, which channels are we targeting? How are we targeting? How can we redirect to brand.com and shift away from the expense side of the booking process? Those is the two things that really stand out to me today on how do we make what we have today even better in the world of AI, in the world of, you know, the changes in digital It's efficiencies, it's automation, and it's channel control.

Josiah: I'd love to dig into that a bit if we could because I know there are a lot of things in both of those areas that you're doing that stand out to me from the outside, but I'd love to hear from you, I guess, on the opportunity for efficiency. I feel like everyone in the industry talks about efficiency, but I'm curious: have you kind of found a couple of things that drive outsized improvements in efficiency?

Matt: You know, as I look at efficiencies, I really look at the staffing. And so what we are doing is, Fundamentally, we're still in an old, old industry. This industry has been around for thousands of years, right? So it's on how efficient we can make the staff, both in terms of the typical, you're on the property for X hours per day, how are we using that time? So then how can we track and follow that time? And so, incorporating new technologies into the PMS system, how long is it taking you to clean this really dirty room compared to a kind of dirty room? How are you using your time between cleaning those rooms and restocking the housekeeping carts? Can you find efficiencies for changing the coffee throughout the day at a different time? And so taking that technology and applying it to data, interpreting that data and sharing in a way that you can understand it is some of the ways we're looking at it today. So it's modifications to the PMS system, tablets in the hands of housekeepers, tablets in the hands of general managers, trying not to shift away from hospitality because you can't remove hospitality in terms of what we're doing with tablets. But understanding where the time is being spent is the, is the big change of the property level, which we can always do better on.

Josiah: Can you tell me a little bit more about the property management piece? It's such a core technology, right? Did you work with your property management system provider to make the changes, or is it software or something that sits on top of that?

Matt: We're working with our PMS provider, Sabre Hospitality Solutions, incorporating enhancements within the system itself. Both for a couple of reasons. One, it's efficiency for the operator not to have a new partner come in. For us, it's a better training opportunity because we're not pulling in another connection. Uh, in today's world, the fewer connections you can have plugging into your systems, the less errors you're going to have. And so leveraging our partners and saying, Hey, here's the challenge that we have, or here's the concern that we have. We want to drive. We want to improve efficiencies by driving down labor costs. So what systems can we do to better track this and give our feedback And one of the things we've been successful about over the years is because we're smaller, we're more nimble, we can make changes. We've been able to work with partners early on in the adaptation of some of the technologies where they want our feedback because we're not reluctant to share it. We know X product isn't going to work because our franchisees are saying it. We're not moving today a thousand hotels into a new system. We're moving 75. And so we can take a smaller vendor, tell them exactly what we want. They can modify it for us and, you know, create their tooling that can expand broadly, but focus on the extended stay model and take care of the issues that we find most valuable.

Josiah: Thanks for walking through that. And then kind of the other piece of it that you mentioned is moving channels to channels that are more cost effective to kind of reduce your kind of cost of booking or cost of customer acquisition. I know you're doing a lot in the worlds of marketing and revenue management. I guess there as well. Are there any kind of specific things that you've found made an outsized input in reducing that cost of customer acquisition?

Matt: I'm going to say two different things. One, we still operate the old school model of relationships. And so we have a national sales team that's developing relationships on a daily basis. And so as we look out, we look at our 75 hotels that are open. We can look at who's staying at those hotels and really try to connect hotel to hotel and not have them go through a third party to increase that booking cost. And so really focusing on that relationship first through a technology side, we're able to You know, as we get into more channels, the cost actually can go down. I mean, we're creating demand in different areas, so we're able to push that a little bit harder. As we've scaled up from 10 hotels, 30 hotels, 50 hotels, 70 hotels, generally the cost comes down. But really for us getting in more channels and being a little bit more nimble of, hey, here's a new opportunity over here where we can eliminate opportunity A, let's take advantage of opportunity B, not lose volume, but play the revenue management game and making sure the cost of acquisition goes in the direction that we want.

Josiah: How do you see the industry evolving over the next 10 years or so?

Matt: You know, technology, you know, it's such a broad concept, but technology is going to be at the center of it. I mean, I think we're at a little divergence of, you know, we played with the kiosk to check in and we played with cell phone check-in processes. And I think we're just at a divergence of the, you know, demographics of the country where half the group really loves it and half the group doesn't, and we're going to slowly maybe become more familiar. Everybody's going to become a little bit more familiar with incorporating technology into every process. But it's going to be those little pieces of technologies that people get comfortable with. And I think we're just right on that cusp of everybody's going to adapt to it because they want it versus half the group is saying, hand me a key card. I want to talk to an agent. The other half of the group is saying, let me get to this hotel and check in and get that clean room that I expect. But every component of what we're doing and looking at it is technology driven. I mean, it's finding those efficiencies. It's still finding and listening to what guests want. How do you redeem your points? How do you check in? How do you make your next booking? How do you make it easy? And the balance of people and technology and finding easy. I think we're just right on the cusp of that shift where a lot more than maybe we want is going to be technology driven. And the battle of maintaining hospitality is going to be the struggle for everybody in the industry.

Josiah: Interesting. I mean, I find it interesting thing about my own travel. Like sometimes I am, you mentioned kind of like two groups. I'm almost like a different group depending on the day or kind of the moment. Sometimes I want that, you know, all digital experience. Sometimes I just want the key card.

Matt: Yeah, it is. It is fascinating because we've, we've ran the tests where, you know, the machine kicks out the key card when you get to the hotel and you know, the feedback we get from the guests in a higher percentage than you'd probably anticipate. Still say, I'd rather say, you just say, good to see you. you know, I'm checking in today and go through that engagement. And it'll be fascinating when that tide turns. And if it turns, maybe it'll be a long time from now. But guess what? They appreciate the interaction. They appreciate the care and the hospitality through the hotel process, the whole booking process.

Josiah: I want to kind of talk a little bit about people. And I guess kind of on a high level, you know, what have you learned about leadership over your career so far?

Matt: You know, growing an organization is not easy. I mean, I think one of the things that we All we struggle with is keeping the right. Quality team members, a part of the team, growing the team in a cohesive manner. And one of the, one of the items I guess I pride myself on is making sure I have an open door policy. I think my entire team top down knows my door. Yes. It might be physically shut. You can just walk in my office. I'll tell you to, you know, you can't be here right now if it can't be here, but everybody knows you can walk in my office and say, Hey, I got an idea. I have a concern or, Hey, let's, let's talk. I need support. And I pride myself on that. I think you have to have empathy in terms of what everybody has going on. I think you have to be aware of the challenges people are going through. And so I pride myself in that open door policy because you get a lot of opportunity to mentor team members. You get a lot of opportunity to bounce ideas off of. You learn more on what's going on. You have to listen. You can't just speak, but you listen to actually what's being communicated. And so as we look to grow the team, it's you know, listening to being available to mentor and listening to those concerns. And it helps us keep a strong retention rate as we continue to staff up, you know, as we get different tier levels of our, our system growth.

Josiah: To that point of mentorship, is there something that you make sure that you teach all new team members is kind of like core to the culture or core of how you operate?

Matt: I do. Well, we have a really unique organization because of the franchise system. We have management companies, construction companies, and a handful of other things throughout our organization. So I always try to instill into team members. It doesn't matter where you start. It doesn't matter what path you take. What do you want to do? What's like the one, two, three, or five-year goal that you have in mind? You might be coming in here with zero hospitality background, basically like me. Where do you want to go? Because you have the opportunity today to say, you know, let's put me on a path to get into construction or put me on the path to franchise sales or put me on the path to marketing. We can do that. And so become an expert at what you are doing today, learn something and apply that skillset in a different area. I spent time with two individuals this week, younger gentlemen in our organization. Then we had that similar conversation and it's kind of like a light bulb moment for him. Like, you know what, it is right. You don't have to fast pace growth early on in your career, become really an expert in property management, but you can quickly parlay that into sales and marketing and revenue management and franchise sales by understanding the core concepts of what's taking place. I try to make clear, you know, there are so many opportunities in the hospitality space. It doesn't matter if you came from a technology background, straight out of college or insurance sales, you can come into the hospitality space if you have a good attitude and willing to engage with people. And there is a path for really anybody. One of my, going back a little bit to the new team member growth, one of my initiatives this year is really to expand internship opportunities. And we have a couple of universities in South Dakota that we're working with to get engaged with. One of the barriers that we have to break, at least in South Dakota, is hospitality is so much bigger than hotel room renting. Like, yes, that is a primary component of what we do, but you can be a wizard on Excel and be a hero in revenue management. You can have a great relationship, just a good personality and be an incredible person in sales. And so as you go to these universities and talk to their business programs or their hospitality programs, really educating There is a whole world of hospitality that you won't even know existed. Somebody wasn't here to educate you on it. Or if you don't open that door and say, geez, I didn't even know it required technology experts to understand or marketing, digital marketing experts that relate specifically to hospitality without kind of opening that door. So that's one of our team objectives this year is to grow internships, to grow our base up because we do have incredible leadership. throughout our organizations to instill information and knowledge to those folks.

Josiah: I'd love if you could share a little more detail around that, because it's such a big opportunity. I feel like awareness of the diversity of hospitality careers is pretty low, and I love that you're investing in changing this. Practically, what does it look like to kind of get the word out at these colleges or universities?

Matt: You know, fortunately in South Dakota, we have benefits and drawbacks, right? So we don't have that many people living in South Dakota, and our corporate office is in a town of 25,000 people. The ability to scale internally here in South Dakota, we have to engage with the universities. And so we do it, the grassroots. Efforts. We have an HR team that'll spend time at their career fairs. I've signed people up to speak at specific classes. I had to tell Ryan Rivett that I signed him up for everything at Northern state university here in our hometown. And so he's going to be engaging with them a handful of times this year, but really the grassroots measure of, Hey, what here's we're here. We're we're available. here are career paths that exist that you didn't even know existed. I look at our team across the street and we have two offices. So we look at the team across the street and a lot of those team members came in with skill sets, right? They didn't, they weren't revenue managers, but they were data analysts and they understand Excel or they were creative that we can put on the design team to help with videography or design work that we put out. And we do all these things internally, but it takes us to go out into these communities without South Dakota to grow internally, to educate and inform what opportunities exist. So it is the grassroots measure of relationships. It's core to our business. And frankly, we enjoy going to those universities and having the opportunity to speak to students, to share a little story of the 50 years of business that we've had here in South Dakota.

Josiah: Amazing. Well, I hopefully can have you back on to talk about the results of this as you're ramping it up. But I mean, just to give, I guess, our listeners a sense of what it's done already. Are there people that have kind of started as interns and have then joined the organization? I'm curious if there's kind of a success story, if you will, of somebody who's gone that path already.

Matt: Yeah, we have a couple. Tyler Whiff is a great example. Tyler, today he leads resource development within our leadership development team. He's a young gentleman. He started with us, I believe he was sophomore in college. I could be off by a little bit, but middle of his college career, he joined the hotel here in town, did everything from housekeeping to front desk, excelled at what he was doing. He was devoted to the hospitality. He got leveled up into the management company, took control of one asset, quickly took control of a region. And then I was able to bring him on to our leadership development team to promote resource development from somebody that has seen multiple properties operations, understand their struggles that take place at a property and to create those resources that create those efficiencies that we were talking about, or challenge the technology that's in the hotels today. He's a great example. We have in a corporate wise now we have about 35 employees, at least 10 or 15% of them are direct multi-year interns that have leveled up and joined us full-time post-college anywhere from, you know, Tyler's been with us almost seven years. And so, There's always good opportunity and there's always success stories with it. And I think some of the success isn't just on bringing the team members on and have them be successful in your organization. It's just, you know, it's sad when you lose team members, but it's equally as rewarding when, you know, you're losing team members to other parts of the country because of, you know, we've done a good job training. We've done a good job educating and really that's promotional for us on, Hey, the group from my place knows what they're doing. And the other organizations may be. I think one of the things I've taken on recently was. the need to take care of yourself and both give back. And I think it kind of works together. So, you know, if I can give any advice to younger people coming into the industry, and I'm certainly, I feel young still today, it's taking care of yourself. And I don't think there's in the world of technology, in the world of cell phones, there's not really an easy way to have a work life balance, but you can integrate work and life together.

Josiah: How do you do that? What have you found work there?

Matt: First, accept it. Accept that we are in an industry that's 24-7, every single day. Our guest's day at our hotel is an important event for one reason or another. But recently I started going to the gym and I think one of the things is finding, it's not as much going to the gym, that's just an example, but it's finding that time for yourself to give yourself that mental break. And so when you're actually doing the activities, work activities that you need to focus on, you're able to dedicate the energy that's there. I find getting out of the office for an hour and being physical or having a cup of coffee and listening to music, catching up on the news for a little bit of time allows you to really refresh. So I challenge anybody coming up in the industry or any industry that's 24-7, find that balance of you can always be on, you're always going to be available. But how do you give yourself that mental break? Because it really doesn't end. So how do you incorporate a little bit of that into your life? And, you know, you're going to have hobbies, you're going to have families. And so you've got to find a way to take care of all, all of what's important to you and do it well. I'm fortunate, you know, being in South Dakota, I'm able to coach my kids as hockey teams. And so I'm able to get out of the office and spend time at the ice rink with the kids. you know, be around their buddies. They're seven and nine. And so they still want to hang out with me. And that's a good mental break, but finding a way to get out of the office and incorporate some, some life balance to what's going on is incredibly important. And then for other, for other young guys in the office, I always. You know, encourage finding ways to give back, find something that you care about, or you think can make a difference. I'm on the boys and girls club board. I think. you know, making sure the kids of the next generation have the opportunities that I had is incredibly important. And find that thing that you're passionate about to give back a little bit, because we're pretty fortunate to be in the industry that we are. And finding a way to separate yourself from work for a moment to give back to something you care about, I think is incredibly important.

Josiah: Amazing. Matt, thank you for sharing all that you have. Appreciate you having me.