How To Take Over Management Of A Property Well - Sloan Dean, Remington Hospitality

Josiah: What does it look like to take over the responsibility of managing and leading a new hotel? I can think of few better to answer that question than Sloan Dean, CEO of Remington Hospitality, because it seems like every time I open LinkedIn, I see another photo from him or someone on their team of a new property that they're leading. Stay tuned to hear Sloan's thoughts on what it takes to do this well. 

Josiah: This is such a pivotal moment when you're beginning a new relationship, new operating relationship with an owner, with a property. And I'm curious on kind of the aspects that you really focus on when you go through that transition, because it seems like there's so much excitement kind of coming through the other side of it. But when you're heading into that, what are top priorities for you?

Sloan: Well, first and foremost is the associates themselves. I mean, anytime you're taking over a large hotel, you're assuming the hourly and almost all the managers, if not all the managers. And so, you know, we're just getting ready to take over a hotel that's got 500 employees. You know, we're probably keeping 495 of the 500. But what I've realized, and this is just the human experience, any change scares people. And so if you can come in and we're going to honor your tenure. Here's our benefits plan. Here's how much we promote from within. And so we always, particularly for big hotels, we do town halls and rallies and I try to participate in those. And if I can't, an officer does it because they want to hear from the bosses, you know, of what's going on. And you calm the fears and then you get them excited. You know, we took over a hotel in California. And it was a Marriott in the greater LA area. And I came in and did the town hall. You know, Remington spent about $10,000 doing it, giveaways, lots of things. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it is. Because, you know, we had people that worked there for over a decade. They don't know if they're going to keep their job. And you just, when you open air it and get them excited, because they're the ones who are going to go execute. It's not the CEO. It's not even, in some cases, the general manager. And then we're very intentional who we have in the general manager seat, because they're the mini CEO. And so pre-takeover, we do an evaluation process to make sure they're high culture, high performance, and they're part what Remington needs or wants, and the owner needs and wants. And in a lot of cases, they are. We just need to coach them up. In the case that they don't, we have somebody ready to go. And we have a task force, high culture GM bench of about 10 or 12. I think that's paramount. What a lot of managers do is they come in with a few bodies, they do reconciliations, they reconcile the balance sheet, they get the data in the payroll system, they get everybody signed up for benefits. You got 20 bodies at the property for the first two weeks and then they go away. And then now what? What's different? What we do differently is that we have a GM who's indoctrinated in our culture They have a buddy. We key people at the property for weeks and weeks, and then we iteratively come back, train. It's an iterative approach. And then we get the energy level up with the folks. And that's why you see me on LinkedIn doing those rallies, et cetera, because it matters. And people want to hear from the CEO. That's the most important thing. Of course, we have a labor management system that we use. We've got a proprietary BI and that stuff matters, but It's ultimately those team members that are the differentiator. And I think also too, when you're high energy and you're a pro-associate employer, you recruit the best. And I think we're in this position now that we're seen as the best in class employer. And you know, if we can bring in a GM, a director of sales, an executive housekeeper, a head of food and beverage that are absolute superstars, that hotel is going to perform. And so ultimately, what are we? We're a recruiting platform. Yeah. I sometimes refer to myself as chief recruiting officer. Yeah, I can't touch, do everything, but if I can attract the best talent, they can.

Josiah: Well, I'm going to link in the show notes. You and I actually did a deep dive episode into that, the backstory of kind of all the things that you're, you kind of invested in over the years around operating this way and to become that powerful recruiting platform. So I really want people to hear that link in the show notes.