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Each episode of GAIN Momentum focuses on timeless lessons to help grow and scale a business in hospitality, travel, and technology. Whether you’re a veteran industry leader looking for some inspiration to guide the next phase of growth or an aspiring executive looking to fast-track the learning process, this podcast is here with key lessons centered around four questions we ask each guest.
GAIN Momentum episode #17 - Never Get Distracted from Your Core Vision | with Frank Trampert
[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the GAIN Momentum podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from global industry leaders about how to grow and scale a business in hospitality, travel, food service and technology. I am Jason Emanis here with my co host Adam Mogelonsky. Adam, how you doing?
[00:00:25] Doing great.
[00:00:26] Today's guest is Frank Trampert, SVP, Global Managing Director, Commercial for Sabre Hospitality. Hello, Frank.
[00:00:34] Hello, guys.
[00:00:35] Good to have you.
[00:00:36] Thank you. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:38] yeah, you bet. Adam, take it away.
[00:00:39] So Frank, our format today is we're focusing on timeless lessons that we can learn from senior business leaders such as yourself who bring a wealth of knowledge to help other aspiring entrepreneurs and industry veterans learn how to navigate the ever complicated world of business today. So with that, we're going to dive right into our first question for you, which is, When it comes to scaling a business, what is the single piece of advice you would give entrepreneurs, from your perspective, as a professional in hospitality technology?
[00:01:13] that's a, that's a loaded question. You can take that any way, any, any direction. So, it's all about, I guess, to stay focused. And I think that would be my answer, don't get distracted. in a business environment, you have many things coming your ways, and, you have all sorts of requests that you will be asked to address for your customers. But it's really important that you know what you're trying to fix, what kind of problems you're trying to solve for your business. And getting distracted is the worst. I remember when I was working for a startup business in the hospitality space. And when we interacted with customers, we got asked all the time, Oh, this is great.
[00:01:58] You're trying to solve a very cool problem. But I have all those, also the other problem, which is very much related, would you, would you be able to address that for me as well? In Bain and company style where you have a core competency and when you think about sort of the further you move away from an adjacency perspective away from your core and you get distracted, your ability to really perform at peak. And to really do, what you have on set to do is going to be dramatically diminished and reduces your ability to really be successful. So I would answer that in the context of, don't get distracted, stay true to your core, know what you're good at and, associate yourself with that and then find the customers and talk to your customers about that. do I have only one answer to that or can I, can I have multiple answers to that?
[00:02:43] Go.
[00:02:44] As you want.
[00:02:49] Yeah, because it's the single piece that makes it a success. I think the distraction part is a big part. I think the second part is, I have learned that it is, not advisable to try to go on your own, so you, you can't be good at, at everything and, having the right partners to grow. And, really, really investing time in finding out how they can complement your core business and to what extent that can accelerate your growth. Because at the end of the day, it's all about scale that starts with people who may be able to fund you. That may start with people who may getting to introduce you to the financial community and to the PE community. So I think you, you have to build. You have to not bet on that one single horse. You have to be really broad in your ability to reach out. Be in the community, understand what people's and companies roles are and how you can actually leverage that, in addition to what you have to offer. So I think those two are key to that for sure.
[00:03:50] Any practical step you could give us, with regards to, like, making sure two different entities, let's say, are on the same page? Going towards the same goal. It's like, the first thing that popped in my head was like, bands. Like, bands are fine at first, then about that third album, these two guys want to go that way, this guy wants to go that way, and it's a mess.
[00:04:12] And they still want to create great rock and roll, but their, minds are in different places.
[00:04:17] Yes. Yeah. So that, that's a great question. I go back to what I said initially, don't get distracted, know what you're good at. When you know what you're good at and you know what your core competencies are, then you should have. a plan and a vision and a strategy that is aligned with that, right?
[00:04:35] So you, you have an objective. Hey, I know this, this is what I do. Where do I want to go? What are the different steps that will get me there? And you formalize that plan, right? The vision doesn't change, right? The vision is something that is there for a longer period of time. And with your business partners, if you're alone or with partners. You agree when you start off that, hey, is this the vision that we want to accomplish? And you will have, you will be tested all the time to, to change that vision and that's the dangerous part. See for us, for example, in, in Sabre or in Sabre Hospitality, we have a work, very clear vision to build a marketplace. We get tested all the time by customers, you are a platform you don't customize, but we need customization. Can you go this way or can you go that way? Well, we can enable you to do that because we have APIs and you can build on top of that. But what we do at the core and what we're investing into in terms of our retailing capabilities and marketplace, that's what we want to do. And I think that's very important that when you get tested in between. You review your vision and say, am I still truly aligned with that vision that from the onset I said will be a very important criteria for me to be successful. And that's, that's really what that's all about. See, from, from, I'm from Germany, as you can tell, I have a funny accent. And, we Germans, we like spreadsheets. So, I go back to my spreadsheet and I say like, Hey, I wrote all of these things down, does it still really apply? So I have a, a memory like an elephant. And it doesn't mean that you cannot change the course on how you get there, but the vision is important, right?
[00:06:13] And there may be some deviations in it, but you should never distract, detract, from, from your core competency. It's going to be a very difficult thing for you to be successful. So that would be my practical advice. You have to test back again. Am I still truly aligned with that vision?
[00:06:29] Has there been any cases where, when you've tested that core vision, you have pivoted?
[00:06:35] No, I think what, has happened is that your, Priority order of things that you do that has changed, right? So when you have, you get 259 things that you need to do in order to be, to get there and to be successful, and they have to come into a particular order because not everything is important. So, there is some things that make you more successful and faster successful than others. And as circumstances and your environment is changing, you then go back and you test that your assumptions are still the right ones. And what you thought would have been a very important thing in Q1. May have become secondary because something else that was on place number nine now becomes more important and maybe you prioritize that over the other but your vision that you have embarked upon and you started investing in some time ago and in which you have built your environment and your competencies and your people and your direction doesn't necessarily change.
[00:07:37] Frank, we're going to move on to the second question here. What are some of the common pitfalls or failures you have witnessed that business owners should look to avoid when scaling their business?
[00:07:49] Yes. So, this sounds maybe a little bit repetitive, right? But it's, it's, it's related. And, and I would say be everything to everybody. It's a very tempting thing in a business environment, right? So if you have, you're either a business hotel or you're a resort hotel, you're rather, you're not both, right?
[00:08:07] And then you may, maybe you have elements of that, but you're, you're either better at this than that and, and your location maybe is helping you with that. Right. So you, you can't be both. And if you're both, well, then you would have to have all the parameters that fulfill that premise. So you maybe have a resort destination, but you also have an amazing conference center that allows you to do that business and you can combine both, but you can't be a resort hotel with a breakfast room that you convert into a meeting room and you claim to be a convention center. that doesn't work usually very well. You can't be everything, to everybody. You need to be, you need to be decisive, right? And I've seen that in many ways, that the pitfalls of people who are not as successful in the business, they're probably less decisive. They may know that something smells and they're, they're procrastinating a little bit, because maybe it's a difficult thing to solve, or maybe you upset an investor, or you maybe do not get that client that you always thought would be that wonderful client that you need to have, but you know, and learn over time that this is not good for you. Right, and it distracts you actually from your mission, and to, to actually achieve your vision. And in that context, you, you're better off making a decision early on, course correct, and then, full steam ahead. perfection is the death of growth. I have worked in an organization who have been trying to solve problems and by the time they were ready to solve the problem, that problem was no longer a problem.
[00:09:31] What was so big that you could no longer solve it and there were other problems that were, were occurring, right? If you, if you have 60%, 65-70 accuracy or an understanding of what you need to do, you got to go. Like walk, crawl, run, and then you fix things as you go along, you address them.
[00:09:48] Otherwise, there's no progress. You have to have a certain comfort level in embarking on a journey where you are, where you know that things will go wrong and you have the right people and the right structure and the ability to address them as you go on. You have the relationships with your partners that there will be an acceptance of that. Because you manage it proactively, because you know about it, you have a plan, you know the things that, that you will likely face, and with that you are prepared for it, right? Yeah, those were sort of some of the comments, I think, that are big pitfalls.
[00:10:22] Talk a lot about distractions, Frank. Is that... A common problem with you or is it a common problem you see and that drives you bananas?
[00:10:31] I don't think, I don't think it's, it's related to, to me specifically, Yeah, my, my career path was sort of evolved in helping, in particular U. S. companies to, expand their business globally. And all the American companies I have worked for, including the one that I work for today, they're really good in their own home turf. They're really good, right? but when you go outside, there are a lot of unknowns and there are certain territories and things that you're not as good at. Right? But if your bread and butter business is being served from home and a large portion of your business is continuously being fed by that, you are probably less, less enthusiastic or a little bit more reluctant to embark on new journeys. So that could be perceived as a distraction and it might be a massive opportunity. So, you need to have a very good business plan and a justification as to why you may direct resources from a core competency into something else if the business opportunity is larger. But you need to be able to articulate, why do you feel firstly that there's a distraction?
[00:11:37] It could be a worthwhile distraction. But then it would have to be backed up with a great business plan and a solid foundation information as to why that is important for you to deviate from that plan or to make a little deviation. Yeah.
[00:11:51] So Frank, I wanted to pull out one point you made there about, I guess Voltaire's perfect being the enemy of the good. And you mentioned a 60 to 70 percent confidence interval. How did you arrive at that specific? number for going ahead versus a 80 to 85 percent?
[00:12:11] I worked for a guy called Tony Fernandes. Tony Fernandes is the founder of AirAsia, which happens to be the largest low cost carrier in the world. So Tony was my boss for a long period of time. He had intuition, lots of intuition. He had intuition to the degree that, that were very distracting for the people who were at the receiving end. Because he has had great foresight and he has a great business sense and, when he came up with ideas, many people could not relate to the ideas, but when the debate occurred or when we went into it, I would say in 99 percent of the cases, they were worthwhile exploring and they're all. Most often led to a better outcome. So I think that's, that's, another learning, right? So you have to, there is no perfection, right? If you strive for that, you will miss opportunities. You have to take some level of comfort that things are not perfect. You will never have enough resources, for example, or you don't have enough money, but it doesn't mean that you cannot achieve your vision.
[00:13:18] There's many different ways and how you can get there. And you have to take a level of comfort that maybe along the lines that may also lead to that some clients do no longer, up, may be part of that journey. I think that is acceptable, but that's a judgment call that you make at that point in time. And it needs to be managed. And, if that is a lost business, you have to replace that with something else. But I have worked in organization that have strived for perfection. And they have missed a lot of opportunities.
[00:13:47] Frank, we're going to move on to the third question, a little bit more focused on the future. What do you see as the key opportunities and challenges for hospitality technology companies in 2023 and beyond?
[00:14:02] this is a place that's close to home. I work for a tech company. I'm not a tech guy. I'm not a sales guy. They always tell me I'm the sales guy, I'm not a sales guy, but I happen to work for a tech company, but I'm a hotel operator.
[00:14:14] That's the place where I come from. So I come from hotel operations. I'm the first to admit that when you are working in an industry for a long period of time and you become the subject matter expert, you can also have blinders and you can also maybe not see, the opportunities that sort of offer themselves down the road because you are confined by the thinking and by your experience. The opportunities for this industry is to start thinking about the industry in different ways. and I think one, one way I can best explain that is, as a hotelier, where your core competency has been, with serving customers first and foremost, but also, providing accommodation.
[00:14:59] So it's, everything is around the hotel room. But when you really think about it, you are, offering so much more. Now, to date, in most cases, you are only able to offer and sell those kinds of services and experiences and, and things that you offer for a customer when you have arrived at the hotel, Shopify for hospitality doesn't really, it doesn't really exist.
[00:15:25] You can't really take those offerings and those services and digitize them in a, in a very elegant way and fashion today, including them into the booking path that the availability of that particular thing that you want to buy associated with your stay is also confirmed at the time of booking. That sort of capacity and ability doesn't exist. And it's a hard thing to grasp for the industry today, who is so traditional in their execution. there's a room, there's something attached to a room, and there's a booking. To remove themselves a little bit from that thinking and say, Okay, if things were to be different, if I had to work if there were to be a white piece of paper. What kinds of other skillset would I have to develop and to embrace? What other kind of technology would I have to introduce to open up new addressable marketplaces that I didn't have today? So it's about that, dare to be different and try to do something different, right? I mean, make a trial.
[00:16:19] Don't conclude just because you don't know how it's going to be done today, or that you haven't done it in the past, that it may not be good for you. You should give it a go. Right. You should make a, controlled trial, where, where you embark on a journey, you, you have one hotel that you may choose to do that.
[00:16:37] And then you learn from it. And as you learn, you course correct, and then maybe you adopt, or you may find out that's not for you and you move on to something else. So I think that is an aspect where I feel the hospitality industry struggles a little bit with.
[00:16:51] How do you do it at Saber? Do you have, I don't recall, but maybe you have Saber labs or something. I mean, because it takes, a lot of times it takes a different team, a different set of people to go explore and then figure out.
[00:17:04] Yay or nay, or left or right, and then kind of pass it off, right. to, to people. Yeah, okay.
[00:17:10] That's a very good observation. You're very, it's very true. See in, in the commercial world, in large scale businesses where we sell something or where we advise our customer about, a particular service that they should. So, that they could utilize to fix a particular problem that they have, right?
[00:17:28] We don't really sell something. We're sort of solution oriented, talk to our customers of the key problems they have, and then we look for ways as to how we can help them to solve those problems. So in that context, we can really not execute without having a functional organization that supports all the elements that make this a success. That's product invention to development to the delivery aspect of the business and to the ongoing support of a product in particular. So all these components will have to work, very well together. And I have found that in many ways, organizations design things without the customer in mind. they have a very preconceived notion to say, like, I think this is something that's missing. And there have been examples for that where it was successful, but I do believe that it is important to have the customer's perspective in mind and has to have the perspective of mind of the subject matter experts who actually do that stuff, who either coded or who have done the research and they see a particular trend that the hotel industry doesn't see. Revenue managers are in the weeds. They think about how do I sell my hotel today better? they think about should I change the rates one time a day or three time a day? But they don't, look into, 2024, five and six and seven. They don't necessarily see that. They see that I have a problem to address today.
[00:18:50] I need to meet your budget. That's what I'm going to do. Our responsibility is to look much further out and say, With the signals that we're getting in the marketplace and how we're looking at how this is going to be developed, will we be still in a position to help our hotels to solve those problems? And if the answer to that is no, then what do we need to do to get there? And it's a combination of multiple inputs. So it's the customer perspective. It's the internal perspective. It's the outside market perspective. It's the experience. That has taught you that certain things work or don't work and then there is a, plan that you develop around that.
[00:19:23] So there are multiple inputs and they have to come together. That's how we do that. It's not scientific. It really isn't. What, What is maybe scientific is the way how we then draw the conclusions as to what we're going to focus on or not. The inputs, how we value those inputs and how important they are. I come back to what I said earlier, all these inputs, they have a connection to the vision, right? and that's how it all fits back together again. So if that need does not align with us addressing and solving the problem to create a marketplace, it's less important.
[00:20:00] You come from a hotel operations background, and now you're talking about inputs and the weighting of those inputs. And Have you ever helped to guide a project using your experience from the operation side, from the customer side, to change the weighting of those inputs?
[00:20:21] When we have acquired companies, for example, and we have, made a market acquisition, maybe we acquired a technology business, but we didn't acquire the technology. We acquired the marketplace, and then we folded that technology and we implemented the customer onto our platform, onboarded them onto our platform. you will have a huge risk because the people who have bought that product in the first place believe in that product, right? So, in a scenario like that, you need to sell Right, to that audience, the reasons as to why it is better for them to embrace something new. And you have to build the proof points and the path to how that is going to be successful. So you need to be the one who is providing the necessary guidance, the proof points and the reassurance. And that happens with, bringing the first one on board and making that a success, for example, give others through that, the reassurance that this is very well thought through, that they can embark on that journey. And then at the end of the day, everybody needs to make more money. Everybody needs to improve revenue streams. And that is the biggest proof point that you can deliver, right? So if you can influence customers ways of thinking, demonstrating that a new path is creating either a less costly execution, a more improved revenue profile, or accessing a different marketplace. It is much easier for you to get that buy in, and the people at the end of the day who work in an organization who have to do the hard work. never underestimate the influence that they have onto a decision like that. They can be a huge obstacle for you to move forward. So you, you always must think about how does my actions or what I'm about to do affect the people that actually will utilize the product and work with it and have these interactions on a daily basis?
[00:22:29] How do I bring them on along on the journey? It's complicated, but There's a process for that.
[00:22:34] There always is, or there, there always should be. Frank, we'll move on to the fourth question here. What are the key things innovative leaders and entrepreneurs should prioritize and focus on to gain traction for their business?
[00:22:49] Keep it simple. Sometimes have a tendency to overcomplicate matters. there could be many influences for that. Well, if we could, if we make a commercial model, more complicated, we have probably more avenues to achieve revenues, right?
[00:23:02] Because we differentiate X, Y, and Z, but at the end of the day. Does that really sell? Does it really make a difference? Or, the notion that hotels still think they need 758 online travel agency sites and websites to be represented on, whereby, 95 percent of the business comes from three sites. So, I say, like, if you, if you take the time to manage the 700 and you were to manage three and you would redirect that attention to do something else more innovative, would you not be better off? Question mark, right? It's a fair statement. So, I'll boil that back down to, People, process, and tools.
[00:23:43] If I embark on a journey to do something, I look at that in these three dimensions. You need people to execute and they have to be the right people with the right places, with the right mindset, the right skill set and experiences. And you, if you have them, man, that's more than 50 percent of getting the job done because people will find a way to get it done.
[00:24:02] Right. So that's a very important component. Process. A lot of people hate process. Right? You write out an SOP. Really? Do I have to write out an SOP? Yes, you do. You know why? The franchise business lives on SOPs. They have grown to 10,000s of hotels because of SOPs. Because somebody who didn't have the experience working in a hotel knew exactly how to check somebody in and check somebody out because there was a document, a piece of paper, that tells them exactly what needs to happen.
[00:24:30] Step one, step two, step three, step four, right? And although that is cumbersome, It is very helpful in cases when you get distracted to get you back onto the path of this is what I need to do to be successful. And then the last part is the tools available to you to get that done. a phone is very important.
[00:24:49] we only know that when the phone doesn't work. and I was supposed to go on a conference call and I was on a remote. area. And then suddenly I do not have access. Well, I can't get that conference called. And now I can't close that deal. Now I lose that 3 million worth of revenue, right? So tools are important. The way, how you do your business and, and the way what, what kinds of tools and systems you're utilizing to do that. So those three components. And keeping it simple. I do believe is a very core key ingredient to get traction faster rather than over complicating issues. It's a very difficult thing for people to do to simplify a problem statement. Right. And, and sort of, I have with my team, we have this thing, it's a McKinsey thing, right? So, an SCR analysis, what's the situation, what's, what's the complication and, what's the resolution. It's a very simple thing that, you know, but if you now have a big problem with a customer or a big technical problem. When you actually sit down and you break it down into these three simple components, you would be surprised as to how much faster you can get to an outcome. So that would be my, my number one thing.
[00:26:05] He took it back to distractions. Don't get distracted.
[00:26:11] It's hard to make a decision, right? I mean, people just like, I don't want to make decision because I don't want to own the, the outcome of it, but it's, it's true. It always boils down to the back core themes. And if you manage them well, there is no way that you're not going to be successful.
[00:26:25] You will be successful come.
[00:26:28] I want to pick out one thing you said there talking about 700 OTAs down to three and what that frees up in terms of just time management and refocus and keeping it simple. Reminds me of the 80 20 rule or the power law of of just processes and to
[00:26:52] Travel, hospitality, technology, that are, people are dealing with right now that could really help them to refocus their own businesses and their processes.
[00:27:02] Yeah, when, when the environment changes and things are getting tough, you have a tendency to do all sorts of things in order to compensate for what's no longer working. I find that to be dangerous. Some entrepreneurs love that, right? So they, they invent 15 different things and they do 15 different things. But I question if it's the three things that you have embarked upon in the first place. If you would spend more time in figuring out how you can do that better, more cost efficiently, and maybe with partners to accelerate and add new TAM, wouldn't you be better off? And, and that's what I believe is really differentiating the people who have more success in the future. So, boil it down to the common denominators of what you're about to do or what you have to offer and think about if you can do that better, with less cost, with a higher level of service and maybe with a higher level of personalization, our industry today is very much influenced by retailing and you and I, let me talk about me first because I assume. When I came to the United States, again for the second time, two years ago, I became a lover of, Amazon Prime. I think these guys have like, send Frank another email to buy something because he will buy it. These guys really have a down path. It's so easy to do things. With Amazon, it gets delivered to your door.
[00:28:28] It's very easy to execute. It's very simple. And what they have really done well is if something goes wrong, boy, they can fix that so easily. They just say, just send it back. Don't worry about it. We'll get you the money back. if people were to think about that, what would cause most distractions for customers or dissatisfaction and how they can improve personalization, make that a sticky experience. I think that would be worthwhile more than venturing often other territory, like in the context of Bain, getting away from that, further from the core, in the outskirts of that adjacent kind of business, where success becomes less likely. And I think that, in itself is going to become always boils down back to distraction,
[00:29:17] I think, I think we got the title of this podcast.
[00:29:20] Yeah.
[00:29:22] And if I, if I were to, if I were to mention, a really important ingredient in all of this as sort of maybe a final comment, if you allow me, it's empowering the team, in many ways, some leaders, some managers have a tendency to be too controlling or to be too, like this is my success or, I just, I just need to be so closely to it. I said earlier, if you have the right people, they figure it out. And if you empower the team to go out and figure it out, they will surprise you more than you think. And, again, so team is super important.
[00:29:58] Yeah. great place to finish off. Don't get distracted. Keep it simple. People, process, tools.
[00:30:06] Absolutely.
[00:30:07] And Frank, can't thank you enough for coming on. Those just very valuable lessons. I certainly learned a lot.
[00:30:14] Well, thank you very much. It's a great, great to be here. Thank you for the invitation. And it's always nice to chat with, like minded industry peers and well respected industry peers. So I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you very much.
[00:30:26] Thanks, Frank.
[00:30:27]