The Modern Hotelier - Episode #3 === Welcome to The Modern Hotelier podcast presented by Stayflexi.. I'm your host, David Milili And I'm Steve Carran. David Milili: Steve, who do we have on the show today? Steve Carran: Yeah. I'm really excited about today. We have Ellis Connolly the CRO from Laasie Ellis has worked in a few other companies like Sabre, Sundine and Zingle. Really excited to have him on and share his experiences with us. Ellis Connolly: Yeah. Hey guys. Happy to be here! Steve Carran: Hey, Ellis. David Milili: So Ellis, we cover three areas on the show. So first we're going to ask you some short questions so that the audience can get to know you a little bit better a second, Steve and I are gonna discuss your career Lassie. And then finally, we just want to get your thoughts on some of the industry trends and really just the industry as a whole. Ellis Connolly: okay. Sounds good. David Milili: All right. Thank you. So we'll start up. So what was your first job in hospitality? Ellis Connolly: My first job in hospitality. So I worked for a barbecue pit restaurant through ninth and 10th grade in high school. So first job in hospitality, it was called red hot and blue was the name of the, I still remember that it was the name of the barbecue place. and it was out in Virginia. And oddly enough, like I had this grandiose idea that I wanted to be a restauranteur, you know, and ended up kind of shifting me to go into culinary school, got a degree out of there. and then I realized that that is a very tough business to be in. so now I sell to hotels, right? Cause that's, that's David Milili: It's even tougher. Steve Carran: right. I have actually had their barbecue Ellis. I used to live in DC and Ellis Connolly: no, Okay. Steve Carran: been there before. So a small world. David Milili: What's your favorite hotel? Ellis Connolly: What's my favorite hotel? Uh, I mean, that's a super broad question and you're kind of going to put me on the hook because we have a lot of great customers. You know, I can tell you, I've got family and kids and we've, we've been doing a lot of stay-cationing I would say over the last few years. We lived down in Southern California and I'm typically an independent hotel guy, but I got to tell you the Omni LaCosta, just for where we are our point in our life, where our families at the ages of our kids, the proximity to us, it's been a savior to our family, I would say, over the course of the last two years. So that would probably be my, my kind of close to home, close to heart, let's call it my west coast. And then I have this great affinity for the Archer hotel in Midtown Manhattan. I've had drinks there with my wife many, a times, staring at the empire state building, you know, in, in some of our escapades out in, in Manhattan when we get a chance to go out there. So I'd say those, those two were kind of my, my top one and two, but I've, I mean, look, I've stayed at hundreds of different hotels and I could probably find something about each and every one of them that would be my top pick. So David Milili: Makes sense. Uh, what's the sh the, the question was either what's the best, worst, or weirdest thing you've seen in a hotel, but I'm really more curious to what's the weirdest thing you've ever seen in a hotel? Ellis Connolly: The weirdest thing, the weirdest thing that I've ever seen in a hotel? So I've seen some pretty weird like people in specific that's L's so if that's, if that's in, if that's one of the question, if that's the question, I have a lot of answers for that, like specific to that hotel, something weird. That might be harder for me to try harder for me to pin down, but I'll tell you this, I'll tell you a story about a hotel that I will never forget. And if you're from New York, Dave, as you are, you probably know this hotel. I don't know if it's still around. It's called the Carter. David Milili: Oh yeah. And it's, it's, it's it's changed, but I know, I have stories about the Carter also. Ellis Connolly: It's changed probably, probably at the time when I was there as New Year's Eve in like 1997 ish. Right. and I can remember to this day, Kind of going up to our floor and I was with a bunch of other friends, you know, we're packing was like 18 people in the elevator. We kind of get to the floor, the elevator starts sinking. Right. So we're like, you know, people like jumping out of every floor. But here's the thing that I remember the most about it. And mind you at the time were, you know, 21, 22, so kind of somewhere in that range. Right. So young and dumb at this point. Right. And I remember kind of coming down into the lobby of the Carter to like go out to the festivities, close to Time Square and do the whole, you know, New York thing. The stair case kind of cascaded down into the lobby. And it was probably like 40, 45 50 steps or something like that. And this guy obviously was impaired right from the day. But this guy tumbles, literally the whole fight flight down the stairs, right. Holding a drink. Stands up, like not a thing happened. Didn't spill an ounce of this drink. Takes a sip, takes a bow. And walks out the door. I swear to you, God, this is something that my friends and I like my close group of guy friends that were on that trip with me. We still talk about that guy, like to this day. So I don't know if that was weird, but it was definitely something that I like distinctly remember from, from a very specific hotel. Steve Carran: Do you think he distinctly remembers it? probably not. Ellis Connolly: I actually, I'm pretty sure he doesn't remember. I'm pretty sure he doesn't remember David Milili: So if, what would you be doing if you weren't in hospitality? What industry do you think you'd be in? Ellis Connolly: I think maybe. I think I'd probably be doing something around, I don't know, like healthcare, you know, I'm a, I'm a technology sales person leader. Right. Like I get excited about the strategic thought process of how to help people with technology. And, you know, I think I could find myself, in the healthcare side of the world, I think I could find myself on, on, I was going to say restaurant, but that's hospitality. So that kind of puts me out of there. So I'm, I don't know something in healthcare, I think maybe help helping people kind of, you know, being, being a conduit to connecting folks to creating better lives or better healthcare. I don't know something in that space, I would assume. David Milili: I can see that. So if you could trade places with someone for a day, who would it be? Could be dead or alive Ellis Connolly: Oh man, easy, easy. I'm not going back in time. I'm staying right here in the present. My son and I, and my mom and my dad, my mom's from, from England by the way. So we are huge, huge, huge Liverpool, premier league football fans. That's soccer for the Americans.I would trade places with Juergen Klopp for a day in a heartbeat, to spend some time at Ann Field and sing Never Walk Alone and just do all the things that a quality manager of the best club in the world does. And I would take my son with me because we would get, we would get a kick out of it. So. Easy easily, hands down. If I, if I was, if I would take you into my son's room or into my garage, you would see the shrine of Liverpool, like memorabilia that we have strong throughout the house that my wife has consolidated into the garage, into my son's room. Um, yeah, exactly. David Milili: Great. No good answer. What's a secret talent that you have? secret talent that I have. Look, I, you know, I think like I have an eight year old and a two year old, right. So I negotiate more deals before 7:00 AM just to get these kids to school. Then most sales people do in a year. I think I have a way of just connecting dots with people, places, things, ideas, concepts, hotels, technology, you know, my secret talent is, is being able to string together siloed conversations or happenings or events and, and bring together a strong, you know, kind of strategic thought process around it. I think I've, I've been able to do that throughout my career. And I think that's probably one of my stronger suits. Steve Carran: And are your kids more tough negotiators than, uh, other people you deal with on a daily basis? Ellis Connolly: I mean, so my, I have a two almost three-year-old daughter and th there's, you know, she's like, it's like dealing with a terrorist, right? Like we, we don't, she doesn't negotiate it's her way or no way. That's really the life. And for those who have had a two-year-old or have two year-olds now they'll fully understand that comment. I think my son is, is getting smarter. And he's eight so as he grows up and gets more educated, understands social nuances of the world and how people react, I can see him becoming a very smart young man in just being able to.. He's very observant. He sees a lot before he does. And when he does, he knows why he's going to do them, you know? And he's, he's no, he's kind of been that way for awhile. He gets that a lot more from his mother. I like to move fast, challenge things, create wedges than points of, you know, conversation. And my son will just kind of hang back and, and go get what he wants sometimes. David Milili: Okay. All right. So last question, you can answer it for yourself and your son. Who would you rather be? Superman, Batman, or Spiderman? Ellis Connolly: Yeah. I mean, listen, my son asks me this question, like twice a week, if you could be a superhero, who would it be? And it never really changes to be honest with you. I tell him these reasons why, right? Like Batman, no real superpowers. Right. It's just a rich dude who built a lot of really cool toys and is, you know, a, bad-ass essentially. Uh, Spider-Man, you know, happenstance, you got bitten by a spider and then you're, you kind of like evolved your powers into shooting webs. And depending on which Spiderman, you, you look at either producing your own web or you're shooting it out of a web Slinger. so it's, it's, it's Spiderman, right? It's it's a hundred percent Spiderman and I'll even tell you what my kryptonite is, right? it's pizza and beer. Steve Carran: we come from the same planet. It looks Ellis Connolly: Yeah. We are. There's a lot of us that are, that are on that planet and, and, you know, 10 or 15 pounds overweight. Steve Carran: it's COVID is not. helping, you know, I tell ya. Ellis Connolly: yeah. A lot, a lot of pizza. We actually do pizza Fridays. but yeah, we, yeah, it is. It is definitely a kryptonite for us here. Steve Carran: So now I got to ask what's your favorite pizza? Ellis Connolly: Are you asking like, just in general, like the topping arrangement, are you asking like New York style, Chicago style, Steve Carran: company, Company, company, name? I'll let you do frozen delivery. Just your favorite pizza out there. Ellis Connolly: Oh, my favorite pizza out there. So. I mean, it's the pizza up the street from us. We we've got a pizza place called. Yeah. We got a pizza place called Pacino's. The guy's from Brooklyn. He's been out here in Southern California for probably 15 years now. Just good, good, good place. Steve Carran: Awesome. Awesome. So I'd love to learn a little bit more about you and your background, your, based out of Southern California right now. Is that right? All right. Did you grow up there or where'd you grow up? Ellis Connolly: I did not grow up in Southern California. And I would never leave Southern California at this point now. I think once you come west it's hard to fathom digging your car out of snow. You know, it's 70. I can look out my window it's 73 and sunny today. I know some folks are, are a bit colder these days. I grew up for the most part in the Washington DC area in and around. Yeah. In and around kind of Northern Virginia, you know, the wife and I, we had a condo in downtown DC right behind, it was the MCI center at the time in Chinatown. Probably not the safest. It was a little sketchy back then. But you know, we go back there now and we take our kids and we show them where we live and they're like, oh, it was amazing place on these lights and all this, you know, this is great stuff. Northern Virginia DC, and then we moved out to kind of Southern California, San Diego and north, Ooh, 12 ish years ago. Steve Carran: Okay. Awesome. So are you a DC sports fan? Ellis Connolly: Unfortunately, yes. So I am a, I am a commander's fan. And, and by way of geography, a Rams fan, right? Like every single person in my neighborhood, are Rams or Rams Dodgers, you know, that, that kind of were chargers, I guess. but since the chargers left San Diego, there's, there's a bone of contention there for, for some folks. Yeah, I'm a nationals fan. I'm a, I'm a caps fan. So for us, you know, from like 2017 until now, like we had a great run, right. We had a world series, we had a Stanley cup. You know, now if, if, if Daniel Snyder could just get his shit together, we might be able to get a championship, you know, in the next 20 years. But I highly doubt that. David Milili: Well, you're in the you're in the NFC least I'm an Eagles fan. So I know Ellis Connolly: Yeah. He's got a good point. I don't think anybody's going to, I don't think anybody's going to get Dak in Dallas. I don't think any of us can do it. So Steve Carran: a packer fan. So if Aaron Rogers comes back, you know, we'll see how he handles NFC. But we'll see, but it's so, so how did growing up in DC shape you? My wife is from the, from DC. I lived there for eight years. It's, it's a very transient city. Like how did that shape you, to who you are today? Ellis Connolly: I've always been an outgoing social type of person. And I think that in that type of city it kind of lent itself to having a pretty broad network of colleagues and friends and associates that led me into and, or down different paths. And those paths, you know, whether it be through career or investment opportunities or just doing really fun things sometimes, you know, going to different shows. I don't know, just whatever. I think it's shaped me to, to have a little bit more acceptance and potentially appreciation for different things. I also kind of look back and I, I think about like just the sheer, the sheer kind of grit and determination and slugging through things and living in the city and not having a car and having to take the train and like those types of things. Also, I would say shape you as a person, just give you some resilience and you know, other, other, I don't know, just other, I would say hardened life lessons, right. As I say, but I say that like, you know, like I didn't grow up in, you know, my parents were well off. My dad was a VP at IBM. My mother was a real estate agent. Like we were, you know, middle-class America living in Northern Virginia. Like we, you know, we were good. But I think now it just, it is, it is a little bit different, right? Like you could sit down at a restaurant in DC at a bar and pretty easily strike up a conversation with a couple of different people, fairly easy. maybe that doesn't necessarily happen as easily in California. At least we didn't find it to happen as easy when we moved out this way. That's changed now over time, but, you know, I think, we were a little culture shock when we came out here, Steve Carran: sure. David Milili: And I think it's, I mean, I, for me moving from east coast to, to Phoenix, I think the weather and growing up in diverse weather changes people. It, because when you come out to, uh, a sunny place, especially coming from the Northeast, you just feel like, wow, everybody's so happy here. Ellis Connolly: You know, it, David Milili: people who are happy. Ellis Connolly: It's funny that you say this I'm actually in school for my master's right now in communications and part-time. And I'm, I'm in this, it's like intercultural type of communication class that I'm taking right now. And it has an entire chapter devoted to this concept of how climate drives culture. Right. And it's very interesting because I think a lot of people just naturally assume it. But there is some truth behind if you grow up in a cold, hardened type of climate that there's cultural differences, there's different ways that you act, there's different expectations. So it's, and I'm, I'm, I'm not a teacher, so I'm not gonna go into it more, but you know, it is, it is an interesting thought. David Milili: Well, what I tell everybody is that it's this for me, the key is 60 degree. So when it's six, when it's 60 degrees in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, short sleeves, you know, shorts, people are like, have this hope. And in Phoenix, LA 60 degrees, boots, a park on, yeah, I had, I mean, I used to see people getting on an airplane. I'm thinking, where, where are they going? I thought we were going to Phoenix. Are they connecting and going somewhere cold? , Ellis Connolly: You're so spot on. There's a family on my son's soccer team that moved out here a couple of years ago from Wisconsin and you know, they yeah. Shout out to Wisconsin Steve Carran: you for putting that plug in there. I appreciate that. Ellis Connolly: They're out there, you know, during the winter it gets cold here. Right? It's it gets down into like the forties, you know, it was like 30, it was like 37 this morning, but it's 70, you know, it's like 70 day, you got a pack for three seasons. If you live, if you live in California, you hear that. But you know, I remember the first season, like, you know, games in the evening or practices in the evening, this guy is wearing like shorts and flip flops and you know, maybe he, maybe he put the hoodie on and then this year he's got like a heater he's just complete 180. you know, a blanket I'm like, all right, man, you, you, you got soft like very quickly. Steve Carran: It happens. I'm not, I I'm so soft right now compared to when I used to live in Wisconsin. So it happens. It Ellis Connolly: No, I don't. I don't care. I, I, you know, when I'd take my kids to school and I, I I'll wear a ski jacket, you know, sweat pants, jeans, whatever, if they say it's 62. Yeah. Oh yeah. Breaking out the big coat. Steve Carran: There you go. I'd love to hear a little bit more about what, what makes Lassie unique, you. know, what, what makes them different from other rewards or other loyalty programs out there? Ellis Connolly: That's a big, broad question that I I'll happily answer. Yeah. Let me take a step back and just maybe set the stage a little bit first, right? So we are undoubtedly at an inflection point when it comes to loyalty, the evolution of loyalty and what loyalty means to people, right? At Laasie we fully believe that the ability to instantly gratify someone for taking an action or transacting with a brand and rewarding them immediately creates loyalty and creates brand affinity and creates more of a slope model in a loyalty scheme, where there are no more tiers where someone has to earn and burn in order to create or get value. Right? So lastly, we really have two products that help us to do this So we have a product that lives right at the bottom of the booking funnel that helps convert web traffic into direct bookings helps convert web traffic into, into direct bookings that products called convert. Right? Keep it simple. So within that product, we're integrated into web and we're integrated into the booking engine and we're integrated in like 45 plus booking engines. So pick your poison there. And we surface reward content that's encouraging people to book direct and receive rewards. It's a pretty straightforward concept, right? After they book, we serve up a screen. You select your rewards. Lassie handles a hundred percent of the operational lift in order to deliver, select and announce the rewards back to the custom. If they have questions about any of it, Laasie customer support handles it from soup to nuts. So technically no operational lift from the hotel in order to create or leverage a Lassie reward incentive program. It's very slick. Now, that is our convert product, which leads its way into our loyalty program or loyalty portal product, which is what we call retain. So if you guys saw the news earlier this week, I don't know when this will be aired, but earlier this week on Valentine's day, Margaritaville resorts and hotels announced their Margaritaville perks program, which is a far cry from your normal points-based loyalty. Right? So, and you can maybe link up the press release to, to that in here, we power at Lassie that entire program. So everything from the signup to the reward, redemption to the surfacing of Margaritaville on property rewards, to the redemption of those rewards, both on the merchant side, which we handle, and as well as from an operations perspective, redeeming on-property rewards as well. So we've built this amazing platform that continues along the lines of consistently rewarding our members or our guests by doing the behaviors that we're asking them to do that at the end of the day, do what? Drive more revenue, incrementally or not, and drive more brand affinity and loyalty to the brand. And at Laasie we really think that this is the model that the world will expect moving forward. And we also really think that there is a world where we can parallel to existing points programs, because we don't need to sit in, and own the entire infrastructure where there's technical debt and pride and years, and years and years of work that have gone into these massive loyalty programs. Right? So how do we offer the independent hotel space and the small groups that don't have the ability or money let's say to go and build out a robust points-based rewards program, right? There's studies out there that will tell you, you know, unless you have 30,000 rooms in your portfolio, a points based program, just technically doesn't make sense, right? Operationally fulfilling, whatever it may be. So for our independent friends, Hey, it's loyalty in a box, right? Open this thing up, we're going to drive conversions immediately. The day you stand it up. And we're going to create a portal for you to collect loyalty members that you can engage with them and have some stickiness and start building brand affinity and loyalty. And then in the bigger point space program, why aren't you offering immediate rewards? Why make somebody earn and burn or wait to get seven nights or 20 nights or 65 nights or whatever it may be, right? Like let's incrementally reward them as we're getting to those. Right. Cause look, points won't go away for the big b We don't believe that will happen. We do believe in those big programs that there's an area of opportunity to drive much more satisfied loyalty members by leveraging an instant gratification engine like Laasie. Steve Carran: Awesome. What type of rewards are we going to? You know, our guests going to be able to redeem, through Lassie. Ellis Connolly: Yeah. So, you know, we've got over a thousand merchant partners, partners, where we've gone out and negotiated the offers. Right? So first and foremost, you're not going to find the same offers on the sites out there, retail me not, and these other types of things where people automatically may go and assume that they will. That's not going to happen, right. Now, the rewards span the gamut. Steve, they span the gamut from gift cards to subscription service discounts, to mystery gift box deliveries, to $10 in Bitcoin from Coinbase, to charitable donations, plant a tree carbon offset. You know, we've really gone out and done a really sound job of creating an environment or a catalog of merchants that can fit for any type of segment in the hotel spectrum. If you're, if you're an economy brand, we've got a commie style rewards that are going to play into your customer base. If you want luxury, right. That's where some of that charitable and philanthropic type of offers will start to make a lot more sense as well. Right. At least that's what, that's, what brands normally think. Here's the interesting thing. A lot of times what people think isn't what the AI in our engine delivers and then is most successful with. So, you know, there, there's always a component of, we want to maintain our brand. We want to make sure that we're serving out the right offers, which we can do, right. We can gate and fence and make sure that they're getting those specific offers. But the reality is people see a higher perceived value from the offers that we give. Versus a 35% night off on your third day of your stay, or cash back. Like who cares about 5% cash back on a 400 night stay like $8 or whatever the number is like, come on. I mean, imagine that, right, $8 to $16 or whatever the number is versus a $25 credit to the ticket network where you could go to sporting events where you can go to concerts or shows. So that's the $25 value there. A $25 credit to Lulu lemon. Steve, I know you're shopping there. Right? So now, now you're sitting at $50. And then we throw in a $30 credit to Wink Wine where you can go and get yourself a nice bottle. You look like a Pinot Grigio guy, or maybe a Cab SAV. I don't know. Okay. So now we're sitting at $80 that's pure value that you will walk home with today, Steve Carran: Just for staying at a hotel. Ellis Connolly: Just for staying at a hotel. Steve Carran: That's awesome. That's awesome. David Milili: Ellis, you know, you don't have known each other for a couple of years now. Respect you. Hopefully we get to work together someday. What do you think is the number one trait you look for in a sales person? Ellis Connolly: Oh, number one, trade I look for in a salesperson. For me, there's really two answers to this. I like salespeople that like to make money. Right. and then usually the ones that do, and the ones that are successful at it are relentless in their pursuits. So that, that, and I've got a, if I turn the camera and I could show you, but it's, it's, you know, one of the mantras that I always have lived by is, you know, relentlessly pursue everything right. That you want. And if you relentlessly pursue leads, you will win. If you relentlessly pursue deals, you will win. If you relentlessly pursue accounts, you will win. Right. And that mantra kind of spreads itself across all different areas of your life, whatever it may be. But I think in sales, you've really got to be relentless and dedicated and self-disciplined to get up and relentlessly grind it out every day. And I tell my team at Laasie and I've, I've been having these conversations. I'm new here, right? I'm 47 days in, at the organization. And, you know, it's, it's the little things that compound over time that help salespeople be successful. And that little thing could be sending out 15 notes on LinkedIn on a Sunday night, every Sunday night. Right? Whatever that little thing or whatever, that thing that you relentlessly do all the time, it just helps you win over and over. And what's really cool is I've been able to show that here within Lassie fairly quickly. And we can't share any of it right now, but we we've already in these 47 days, obviously the Margaritaville stuff was way in play before I got here. But we've, we've already got some big wins that we're going to be ready to share with the world here over the course of the next few weeks and few months. And it is, they've all accumulated out of these little things that we've been doing over the course of the last 47 days. David Milili: I agree with you a hundred percent. Cause you can, you can see someone present a PowerPoint. You can hear someone give the pitch, but that's just such a small piece of the overall effort that goes into it. So I agree with you a hundred percent. Was there a moment you kind of realized like, Hey, I'm good at selling and I want to be in sales. I want to be managing people. I want to be running a sales organization. Was there any time where you just kind of felt like, Hey, I'm really good at this. Ellis Connolly: Yeah. Steve Carran: If you care to elaborate, elaborate on that. Ellis Connolly: Yeah. I mean, look, I think anyone that knows me well or has spent a good amount of time with me is going to know that, you know, I I'm, I'm usually not one to hold back. I'm usually not one to, to pull punches. I'm usually full force. And I have a motor that runs and runs and runs and runs very fast. And that's me. That's always been me from day one, right in sports when I played, you know, through high school in life. And it gets me into trouble sometimes. Like I'm a hundred percent or nothing. You know, my wife will tell me that all the time. When I first realized that I was really good at sales, was when I was with Aramark. And we're selling corporate dining services in the DC area, and that's not an easy sell. I mean, there's, it's not a, it's not a heavily competitive space, but the competitors that are in it, you know, Sedexo, Aramark, Canteen, like it's, it is. And then Aramark took a stake in a company called seamless web at the time, which was a corporate meal delivery service, which then was acquired by grub hub. And, you know, they were kind of the New York city, like lawyers were ordering their food from that service. And it was, yeah, it was amazing. I still know people that are great, great organization. It's part of grub hub now. But when I started interacting with that team and getting that product into some of the DC market, that's where it kind of clicked for me to shift my career into technology. And then shortly after that, I got picked up over at Cvent. Crushed it there with, with bar at my whole truck and Reggie and Brian Ludwig and that whole team there who by the way, have just built an amazing company and culture. And they just recently IPO-ed again on the NASDAQ. So, you know, they are an amazing group of guys and I owe a lot of my career to some of the things that I learned while I was at that company. Some people don't like it, to be honest with you, but the culture that they created, the hustle metrics, the drive, the, you know, just the, the passion to be successful. It was a fun place to be at at the time. It was, it was right when insight invested, you know, almost $200 million at the time. And, you know, we were, I think like 350 400 people. And now they're, you know, almost 3000 people it's, you know, Steve Carran: To. Ellis Connolly: It was a fun ride, that one. Steve Carran: Awesome. Awesome. And as you've grown, obviously since C vent, and now your CRO, what tools are you using to continually learn? Any books that you're reading or how are you continually staying on top of your game? Ellis Connolly: Yeah. I mean, look, I always get worried if my blade's going to get dull, you know, so yeah. So I think that's the context of the question. I feel like, coming to Lassie and I was advising with Jen, our CEO, who's amazing, by the way, she's built a phenomenal company, great products, smart, smart, smart. I say wicked smart, cause she's from Boston. So we always get a kick out of that. I just continually get excited about being in the trenches and going out and getting deals done. Whether it be from a color commentator perspective from helping a rep, whether it be from strategically assisting with the deal from an executive sponsorship perspective, you know, just really getting into the nuts and bolts of structuring deals and account strategies and tinkering right. And figuring out what works, what works. And that that's always gotten me excited. And, and the great thing about where we're at now, as it relates to Laasie is I'm out there again. I came from Sabre you know, I was there a couple of years, amazing organization, great company do what they do extremely well. I was a GM and, and kind of over a sales and account management team. But was I in the weeds every day, tactically, like in every deal? No, you know, I was, I was at Sabre. I was forecasting and, and, and sitting on committees and, you know, planning, kickoffs and doing that kind of stuff. This really brings me back to some exciting time. For me personally, it's, it's been, and I was, you know, I was talking to Jen, we, as I said, we signed a massive contract this morning. And first person I called was my wife. And then I called Jen and I was like, Hey, you know, we were, it was like that feeling, that ecstatic feeling of closing a million dollar deal in a startup was like, ah, that's great. Steve Carran: It's not Ellis Connolly: So Steve Carran: like it, there's not there's not. Ellis Connolly: no, there's nothing like it. David Milili: It's so funny because when you look at it sales, it's always explained to my wife, it's like sports because there's no greater high than when your team wins a game or wins at all. And there's no greater low than when you think you've got that sale and you lose Ellis Connolly: well, David Milili: and you think you got it? Ellis Connolly: you, you know, you, you hit it on the head. And I was, I was talking to the, our company just last week. Some of the things that we've talked about here, right? Like the, the compounding effect of just doing things consistently and relentlessly.It's that thing where, in general, whether you're picking up the phone and calling, or whether you're rattling off 50 emails, or you're connecting with people on LinkedIn, or you're mingling around at a conference, you know, whatever, whatever arena you're sitting in, if you start to find your flow in the ebb and flow portion of sales, if you start to find your flow, double down, right? That is the time to put in the extra email to pick up the phone 10 extra times to send those seven different request connections on LinkedIn, to try to find two other people at that conference to talk to, because it's not just the sales mojo or the sales karma, which I believe in a hundred percent don't get me wrong, but the better your conversations are, the better your confidence is. And the better you're relaying information to customers. And it res it usually will begin to resonate better. So when you find yourself in that flow, you got to try to stay up there as long as you possibly can. This is the part, you asked me what's my special talent? If I have seven conversations across the course of the day, obviously my seventh conversation should be the best conversation of the day, right? It's like laying hardwood floor. If you've ever done it, I recommend paying someone to do it. It's a pain in the ass. But I will tell you the last piece of hardwood that you lay is going to look much better and be much easier than the first piece of hardware that you lay on that floor. So, you know, you you're able in that context to string together, those six conversations prior to that seventh, take the information and filter it from what the responses from those people have been and give that seventh person a better answer or ask that seventh person a better question. You guys are going down the sales route. You didn't tell me you were going to be doing this is, this is because I live, I live in this. I love this. Steve Carran: We're going to have you on again, just to talk about sales. So don't worry. David Milili: Yeah. It is funny. You say that because a real quick story for Christmas, my son is 14. He's into jigsaw puzzles, which is weird, but he is. So I go out and I buy him some jigsaw puzzles, not, I don't know, jigsaw puzzles. So I buy a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle and he's, and he says that that's too much. I can't do that. I'm doing like a hundred pieces. And it says, so you're not going to do it. He said, no. So guess what? I did it. Ellis Connolly: No. David Milili: that last piece in, it was like the best feeling of the world. I mean, it was like, and it was, it was, it was a lot, but there was two points there. One to your point that, that satisfaction. But two also, it's that where that leadership kicks in, where you're trying to get your sales team to follow you. I'm trying to get my son to say, look, it's, it's not too hard. I can do it. You can do it so Steve Carran: Yup. I love that too. Oh, when I, my first sales job was selling Cutco knives and my boss told me, and I still live by these words, his enthusiasm is contagious, you know? So the youth you're talking about getting on that high once you're there, you're excited, you know, your enthusiasm sells sells itself pretty much. So I love that. I think of what you said was dead on, so perfect. David, should we get into some industry stuff here? David Milili: Yeah, jump Steve Carran: Let's go. So, Ellis, what's some advice you would give somebody that's just starting out in hospitality maybe, or maybe not even starting out somebody who's like, Hey. I've found my passion. I love hospitality and I want to grow my career here. What would you, what would you recommend them? Any advice? Ellis Connolly: Yeah. I mean, look, it is a, it is an amazing industry that takes very specific people that like to serve in a humble manner, right? on the hospitality side, that's what it is being hospitable. If that isn't something that you enjoy doing, then it's probably not the right, the right business for you. I think there's all different types of directions as you're getting into hospitality, where, this could go. I was guest speaking on Monday night at NYU for the hospitality masters program. And I think that nowadays with on property above property technology, services around hotels, I mean, there is just a ton of different avenues in which you could go down, right? The finance route, the REIT route, the asset managed route, the marketing side of it, the tactical sales portion. you can pick your poison for whichever way you want to go in this, in this business. The industry does truly come back to its people, right? When you're presenting technology to hotels or when you're trying to sell a franchise flag to an owner, everyone for the most part are in it together, right? I mean, it's, it's a big industry. It powers a lot of jobs across the world. I would just say, just, be mindful that you have the opportunity to chart your own course. if you start out on property, and find that that doesn't suit the type of outcome or lifestyle or financials that you want to do, there's all other types of opportunities to stay connected to the industry. So, explore them One of the biggest things that you start seeing from hotel technology companies is going and finding people that worked in hotels that used their technology and can tell a great story behind it so that's one area. Obviously, I'm a technologist and sell travel tech and have for many, many years. So that's kind of my view on it. But, I would say just don't think you're pigeonholed into, one of the industry. because it's broad Steve Carran: like that. I like that. David Milili: There's a lot of talk of it, contact-less-ness and all these things. What do you think, the guest experience should look like in hotels? What do you think hotels should be doing differently around the, guest experience? As you said, you've, traveled a lot, stayed a lot of hotels. What do you think that just needs to change, that hasn't changed? Ellis Connolly: I mean, look, when I was chief revenue at TrustYou we actually acquired Checkmate, which was a messaging company. Now we're going back eight years now. So some folks have been thinking about contact-less and, and kind of managing through messaging for, for many, many years. I don't think that the contact-less part of what the guest journey looks like, I don't think that we'll ever go away. I think what we need to do as an industry is understand the balance and understand the preferences of people around what that balance needs and should be. Because it's not a blanket experience or guest journey that we put out there for everyone. We segment right. We put ourselves in the CRM world, we segment our guests by that specifically. But I, you know, I think, I think we're going to continue to evolve. I think COVID gave hoteliers an opportunity to look at their technology stacks, go back to the vendors, ask for better pricing, you know, all of the stuff that we went through. If you were in a technology company through COVID, I'm sure you get what I'm saying here. All those things that we went through, you know, kind of opened the door for a lot of folks. And there were actually companies that killed it through COVID. COVID is going to be a thing, you know, at least we'll be talking about it for a little while and the impact on the industry. But I think there is an element of transparency that we've got to adopt full force. Especially, managing guest expectations prior to arrival. Just managing guests expectations from the onset. I think that's probably the biggest thing, right. why do hotels get bad reviews, outside of bad service, right? Okay. You have bad service, something happens. Okay. I understand that. there's always this story and when I was a trustee, you, or, you know, review aggregation platforms, social analytics, and we would always tell this story about not being transparent and, having, a right expectation set. it's, the story of a gentlemen with his family who got an extremely steep discount to go to the Ritz Carlton and instead of paying your 600 a night, he got it for, you know, $199 on some, you know, whatever it may be. And this is a made up story guys, by the way. So just know that. So he's paying 199 bucks for his night stay but then he goes to the restaurant and it cost them like a thousand dollars. Right. So he gets off and he rattles off a review. Like how on earth are you going to charge me a thousand dollars? And the moral of the story is, they never should have sold that rate. Or if they did sell that rate, they should have set the expectation around what the rest of it was. Right. So, I think transparency is going to be king and queen, as we run through the next evolution of what the guest journey and the guest experience will begin to look like. Steve Carran: I love that. I love that. How is the metaverse and web 3.0, you know, any idea, you know, big question here. There you go. Any idea how that's gonna affect hospitality? Ellis Connolly: I mean, look, there's already companies that are doing this, right? Like Don Berger were from social tables, created a venue diagramming software that would allow planners to come in and view a hotel in a simulated environment. So, I mean, you know, when you think about it from, from that perspective, there are some things in that vein that have already been done or are still being done. Right. I don't see myself and I'm speaking personally for me, like I'm not going to pay for a vacation to put on VR goggles and go walk around and fake put my toes in the sand. Right. So from a pure travel experience perspective, I don't know that there, there could be some things there, but probably not up my alley, I would say. I do think there are going to be some areas of opportunity, you know, to create experiences within that at hotels.to leverage the metaverse in the kind of path to purchase journey potentially around, I don't know, like getting people excited about a brand or getting people excited about a property. So I think there'll be some ad marketing type of things that would happen around there. I just think that we're our industry is typically, and when I say our like hotel hotel, we're, we're typically a little bit behind what the quicker moving markets are doing. This is usually what happens, right? It's usually. Let's see what one of the big brands does. Then another brand will say, oh, that looks interesting. Let's do it, but we'll call it something different. Right. And then they'll get their things going. And then the independence, at least the forward thinking ones will be like, okay, well we could, can we afford that? Maybe we can afford it. Okay. We'll do it. We'll do it. We'll do it. We'll do it. And then that trickles down and then, you know, now you've got an industry trend, right. That usually is, is, is typically how that kind of waterfall works. I would say , on the metaverse, for me, I'll wait and see, you know, what what's Marriott going to do with it? What's Hilton or Hyatt going to do with it? And then from there, you know, see, see what, see what kind of trickles down. And I know that's an easy answer to give, but unfortunately that that's, that's the best answer that I've got for Steve Carran: you guys. That's all right. I'm curious about this. You think the Hiltons and the big brands will lead the charge and not more like, like a small group or? I'm just thinking of a few, I don't want to name, drop them here, but you know, so those forward thinking hotel groups that are might have a five hotels, but Hey, let's check out this Merck metaverse and use it for marketing. Ellis Connolly: Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. A hundred percent. You're always going to have the first movers that come from the more progressive, smaller, agile types of organizations. But the reality is to create a global trend within an industry. It's not going to be that five hotel group. That's that sets it. Right. So while I think there'll be those types of movers that'll happen. And I agree with you, those will 100% be the ones that start tinkering around and making it happen. Just from my experience, I usually feel like until something at scale happens, Steve Carran: Sure. That makes Ellis Connolly: It, it, It, won't happen. I mean, think about mobile key, right? David Milili: Yeah, Steve Carran: Absolutely. David Milili: a hundred percent. So we're up on the hour, you know, re really we'd like to know kind of what's next for Laasie Let everybody know how they can find out more about Laasie and we'll give you the PA the last couple words of the podcast. Ellis Connolly: Oh, well, awesome. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I hope I didn't embarrass myself too much.no, I, I thought it was good. I had a good time. It was fun. Look, Laasie you know, we are really sitting at an inflection point in this industry of what people think loyalty is and should be. And there will constantly be a battle between, you know, points versus no points, instant rewards versus having to earn and burn. And we sit very nicely in the middle of that conversation. We are working on a myriad of different things that will allow us to go out and support an incentive engine or a reward engine within different environments of hotel. So right now we're sitting on web and the booking engine at the bottom of the funnel to help drive conversion. So as a hotel marketer, your job is to fill the top of the funnel with ad social ad re-targeting Metta, maybe I guess med is probably a little bit further down the funnel, but you know, you're spending op ex in order to do that every year, there's a line item for it, right? So why not protect that investment with a product that's going to help you drive more conversion? Right. And I'm not talking about an, like an attribution Hijacker, like a pop-up that says there's 20 million people on this website right now, or like a rate parody component that sits up. All those things have value, but we know we're driving the booking because people select and redeem the rewards, right? Like when we put our AB test up and we will happily put our money where our mouth is on any environment. When we put our AB test up, we see in a versus ,. So non-exposed Lassie content versus exposed Laasie content we see on average 41, 42% increase in direct bookings, 40%. Right. So you think about that from a perspective, right? You think about that from, okay maybe on a good day my booking engine currently is getting me 2%, two and a half percent. Right. The really good ones may get three, three, 4%. I mean, believe me, I know I was at Sabre. So I know I, I'm not going to share it, but I know I know what the numbers are. If you can take 2% to two and a half percent. That is massive. And that's, uh, that's one hotel. Think about your 40 hotel portfolio, your 60 hotel portfolio, your 200 hotel portfolio. That's magic right there. Steve Carran: That's awesome. Ellis Connolly: The other piece is that's the direct booking channel, right? So if you're getting 20% of your bookings direct, where are the rest of your bookings coming from? Okay. What's your channel strategy? So your OTA, right? Wholesale, maybe what's the other big one call center. Right? So we have created a product that our reward engine plugs into call center environments. So an agent, while they're on the phone with someone can offer reward upon booking or can offer a premium value reward, if the sale is starting to slip, to keep them engaged. So now we're, we're adding a component to the Laasie product suite that that's driving conversion, not only on web, but now also in another direct channel through voice. And then you will also begin to see other channels that we are looking at currently, to drive more behaviors that hoteliers are looking for. I'll just give you a, a kaleidoscope of, of ideas, right? So you want more people to set, to fill out your surveys? How would you do that? You want somebody to buy something on property, you could incentivize them to do that. Talk track could go on forever and ever, and ever. there's a lot of different ways that, we, as a product, as a company can be leveraged within and across the entire hotel ecosystem. And if you want to talk to us, you can reach us at hello@laasie.ai, and it's Laasie like the dog. So I don't know if I'm old, so I know who lassie the dog is. So loyal, loyal dog. Right. So always loyal. and then L a S I E so last loyalty as a service, right? So that's also a component of, of, of what it is. We are on the forefront of loyalty. And if, if you don't have a loyalty program and if you don't think that you can build one or support one, you should have a look because we're one line of code Steve Carran: Awesome. Ellis Connolly: plug in for our convert product in the, in the web and the booking engine. And we can stand up the loyalty portal fairly quickly. And if you want to take a look, sign up for Margaritaville perks and, and, you know, click around in there, cause that that's all powered on on Steve Carran: Awesome. Awesome. So if you want to increase direct bookings, conversions, bring in more revenue and increase the guest experience hit up Ellis at Laasie. We'll put his, email down below to make share, or maybe not maybe your email. Hello. Lastly, we'll put one of them in there that you, somebody will be able to reach you. Ellis Connolly: Perfect. Perfect. David Milili: home address, but thank you very much. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for the time. Congratulations on the Margaritaville announcement and congratulations on your win, which, think when we, release this, we'll be able to put information on that. Appreciate your time. We know you're busy. Those of you who have made it all the way through and watched it, there will be more episodes of the modern hotelier presented by stay flexi. And we appreciate your time. Thank you, Steve. Steve Carran: Thank you, David. Awesome. Thanks David Milili: Thanks guys.