Building Trust, Boosting Profit: My Place Hotels’ Owner Engagement Playbook - Sarah Dinger

Josiah: Over the last few days, we've been learning from Sarah Dinger, Executive Vice President of Franchise Operations at My Place Hotels, one of the fastest growing brands in America. What you've heard in each episode of this series so far is how they focus on making sure all stakeholders succeed. And today we're going to be exploring one stakeholder relationship that maybe doesn't get a ton of airtime, but is key for all of us to consider, the hotel owner. In this episode, you'll hear exactly how the My Place team engages with owners. They have a very thoughtful, hospitable approach that's also driving performance. And we bring this to life by diving specifically into how Sarah thinks about driving profitability, including through technology. If you want to understand what it takes to build strong relationships in these crucial partnerships, keep listening.

[intro]

Josiah: I wonder if we could talk a little bit about the way that you interact with owners, because this is interesting to me. I think I interviewed Ryan on the show a little while back and was fascinated by his description of your approach there. But you mentioned earlier in our conversation, looking at things from an owner's point of view. And I find that interesting because hospitality is such a interesting world. There's so many different stakeholders. Obviously, we're here to serve guests. You're here to serve associates and team members. And you've touched on that. But you're also here to serve owners. And I think that your focus on that as an organization has led to some of the rapid growth and the high satisfaction that you're seeing. So I'm trying to frame this as a question, I guess, to step back. How would you describe what it means to look at things from an owner's point of view? Because you're very operationally focused. And I think that's been a big key to your success. But what are some of the things that owners think about that you are constantly reminding yourself and helps you engage in their world?

Sarah: Yeah, I think a lot of the decisions that we have to make in the organization have got to be mindful of an owner's bottom line. There's a lot of times that you look at things from a top line standpoint, but top line, you know, doesn't tell this real story. And so as we approach decisions and we make decisions, we look at the bottom line. How is this actually going to impact an owner's bottom line, whether positive or negative? You know, the relationship with the owners really starts even before they sign a franchise agreement or come into the company. We do our best to get anybody that is interested in becoming a part of the My Place family to the corporate headquarters for a round table discussion with the support team. And so Josiah, if you were saying, you know, I'm really excited and I want to build a My Place location in whichever part of the world that you decide, we would say, Hey, we'd love for you to come visit us in Aberdeen. Come spend a few days with us. Come and share a couple meals with us and really, you know, have discussion with the team that is here to support you because it's a partnership. It's an opportunity for us to connect on a personal level. It's not a business transaction. It's, you know, it's all of those things. But the first and the most important thing is making sure that we've got really good partnerships in place and that you've had an opportunity to visit face to face with the teams that are here to support you.

Josiah: That's very different and very unusual. I could just jump in and comment because I think, you know, a lot of people talk about showing hospitality to guests. Very important. Fewer people, but some are talking about showing hospitality to team members. You are a great example of that. I very, very rarely hear people talking about showing hospitality to owner partners, right? I think this is one of the hallmarks of what you do differently and do so well at my place. Well, thank you. As you have people visit meals, days together. This is a very in-depth process. This is very different from what most are doing.

Sarah: Yeah, and it's been so rewarding and it's been so beneficial too. I mean, the last few weeks we've had visitors every week and so there's a lot of conversations that are happening. And it really starts with, from day one, this is a partnership, we're in this together. And so from there, I mean, we have frequent webinars, whether owner-led webinars or more operations-focused webinars. We've got a virtual summit that we're hosting here in a few months for all the general managers. We've got in-person conferences and, you know, just really want to continue to have those conversations. I think it's really unique that every owner likely has Ryan's cell phone, Matt's cell phone, my cell phone number, and we're just accessible. And, you know, it's so important to have that transparency and to have that type of conversations and connections with your owners, because it's more than just a business transaction. It's a partnership and a relationship that we're looking to build.

Josiah: It's a partnership and you're also driving results. You mentioned it's really important to think about driving those bottom line results. I feel like profits are very elusive in the environment that we're in now. What are you finding useful in driving those bottom line results for your owner partners?

Sarah: If we think about the bottom line results, and we go back to, there's so many different things in hospitality. There's so, I mean, you and I were just at high tech a few weeks ago. And, you know, there's a lot of different things. There's a lot of really good technology. There's a lot of really good guest experience things. And it's really kind of defining who your brand is. who your guest is, and how do you stay true to that? You can't be everything for everybody. And so really, who are you as a brand, and then staying true to that, the core of who you are and what you do. And, you know, there's a lot of expenses that can come into play. But if you kind of stick to the core of who we are and what we do, and you make those decisions of like, how is that going to impact, you know, all of the things, including the bottom line, that's been really beneficial for us. We've tried and we've experimented with a couple of things that it just didn't work and it wouldn't have made sense to enforce that cost onto our franchisees. So we're very intentional in trying things, you know, we'll put any product, any technology into a beta at a handful of locations. And we want to have those conversations with the operations teams and with the owners to say, Hey, what is your experience with this? Did it create any efficiency? What is the value that it's bringing? And then how is it going to impact the bottom line? And then we can make that decision on whether or not, yeah, this is, this is an option to you. If it's something that you're interested in or that you see the value in and you can, you know, make sense of it to your bottom line, it's available. There's other things that are like, yeah, we tested it. It's going to drive some real great efficiencies. It's going to, you know, improve bottom line. We're going to roll this out brand wide, but we've at least had the buy-in and we've got the feedback from the operations team. So this isn't me making this decision here in my office, it's we put it out into the properties, we tested it, we tried it, we trued it, and we can make an informed decision on the why. If you can't say the why behind it, or you can't share results in a positive way, then why would you make the decision to make every single owner or property participate?

Josiah: Well, I think what you just described is a masterclass on how to evaluate and buy and implement technology. Like you said, there's great technology out there. If it just sits there and no one's using it, you might as well not have it. And the lens for deciding which technologies to use, I find really interesting too, because again, if you work backwards from you have to drive bottom line results for your owner partners, and then you get into, okay, well, you can spend money in a lot of different ways. What you described around clarity around who is the guest that you are looking to serve and what do they expect of you and how do you take care of them is a real good forcing function, right? Because it kind of eliminates a lot of things that you could do and focuses on what do your guests need and how do you delight them in that environment? Because you and I saw each other at high tech was like hundreds and hundreds of hotel tech companies. Not everyone's going to be a fit. So I love that way of thinking about things. And I think some of our listeners are in different parts of the industry and are going to have a different way that they take your advice, but I think it holds true across sectors and around the world.