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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 #12 - Breaking Through the Vendor Noise | with Eva Fayemi
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[00:00:00] Jason Emanis: Welcome to 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'm Jason Emanis, here with my co host Adam Mogelonsky . Adam, how are you?
[00:00:26] Adam Mogelonsky: Great as always.
[00:00:28] Jason Emanis: Good. Our guest today is Eva Fayemi, GAIN Advisor, Co Founder and CEO of Bond Agency, a Growth Agency for Partnerships for Hotel Tech. Hello, Eva.
[00:00:43] Eva Fayemi: Hello, nice to, nice to be here today.
[00:00:45] Jason Emanis: Take it away, Adam.
[00:00:46] Adam Mogelonsky: So Eva, our format is we've designed this podcast around four key questions that are designed to help startups and scale ups to navigate the ever complicated process of growing a business, particularly internationally. And in your case for hospitality technology, which is not an easy field to play in by
[00:01:13] by the least, so we're going to go right into the first question here, and that is, Eva, when it comes to scaling a business, what is the single piece of advice you would give entrepreneurs as a professional in hospitality and technology?
[00:01:31] Eva Fayemi: Right. Thank you for, for this first question. When scaling up, um, you need to diversify, your sales. It's really hard to do it alone and to do only direct, especially when you, uh, move territories and you try to reach a new market and new culture, a new language. So my advice would be to definitely bet on, on channel sales.
[00:01:53] But you know, your partners are your best advocates, but your clients too, also, by the way. Um, so my take on this is that by finding other opportunities, um, via indirect sales, such as finding influencers or resellers or, uh, just people who love, your product, they will help you to expand your reach, they will help you to, get in touch with the right decision makers. So I think that's definitely, yeah, my advice for a company that is looking to scale and that is looking to scale abroad.
[00:02:28] Jason Emanis: Do you find in Europe that tech companies they do a lot of leaning on each other as they go to market. Um, do they try to go at it alone or what's the landscape look like?
[00:02:43] Eva Fayemi: Well, it will depend, I would say, on the size of the company. Um, Like in startups, the founders do everything. So it's, it's difficult to have one area of focus and most of the time partnerships is a bit left aside. So there's not a real strategy regarding, which partners are the right ones for me and which ones could I Capitalize to help me grow, you know, integrations are there, but they are not, there is no time or strategy invested to make the partnership fruitful and interesting for both parties.
[00:03:17] So sometimes some of, some of those companies and startups arrive a little bit late in the game and realize, oh, but I actually have partners, but they don't know who I am, you know? Yeah, to reply to your question, try to have a focus on partnerships as early as possible to build an ecosystem around your brand, around your product because once again, those partners, will help you and will be the best advocates if you have a good value proposition and all of that, which is also another thing. It's a fierce market. It's a fierce market.
[00:03:56] Adam Mogelonsky: Not to plug what you do at, at Bond Agency too much, but could you explain how on the ground you could help facilitate those partnerships?
[00:04:08] Eva Fayemi: first of all, I think when we started Bond, it was because we had the network. My previous experience was actually working in partnerships for a PMS company. Um, so for me, it sounded like everybody was doing that. I thought everybody was doing that, but actually not. So the first step was to, Just educate those companies on what partnerships is and the different type of partners that they can reach and have.
[00:04:38] And how also different type of partners have different expectations and different goals. So, any case, with Bond, what we try to do is to take a step back and to understand what are the company's goals and the growth that the company wishes to have in a specific territory, in a specific market, and we work with that and we tie in our strategy, our partnerships, expertise based on that as well and based on the resources that that are available.
[00:05:11] Adam Mogelonsky: Do you ever find when you're talking about growth that you have to temper expectations and sort of rein them back and go, Whoa, I know you want to conquer the world, but here's a more realistic strategy.
[00:05:25] Eva Fayemi: Yeah, well, actually, I love when people want to conquer the world and when they say it, because it means that they have the grit and the passion to make it, and I think it starts from there. If I meet a founder of a company and he's you know, he's not passionate or he's not willing maybe to, to do that.
[00:05:44] I think that that's a shame and I'm a bit, um, yeah, I think that's maybe not the, the right perspective. So if you're a tech product and you're on the cloud, you should want to conquer the world. Doors are open. but then of course, to your point, You need to focus because, uh, you need to find one or multiple areas which will, you will tie your, your growth strategy on.
[00:06:10] So the best is to have achievable, you know, milestones and results and, and have that strategy followed on every quarter and, uh, every year. So yeah, focus is really, is really important. But I like when founders tell me I want to conquer the world because that's important.
[00:06:30] Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. Well, on that note, we'll move into the second question, Eva. What are some of the common pitfalls or failures you have witnessed that business owners should look to avoid when scaling their business?
[00:06:44] Eva Fayemi: Yeah, interesting question. Of course, multiple answers, but, um, what I find is, uh, frustrating when I see a company that is scaling, that is growing and that they start to hire people, procedures start to come in place, you know, okay, like this person is going to manage this team and this person, this team.
[00:07:08] And so, obviously, the company is growing with more people who have a decision making process in the company, in the organization. The risk here is when you put too much procedures in place that you lose the, the, the freedom of letting your employees be bold and take some bold actions because there is
[00:07:31] too much, time in the decision making process. Example, um, I'm Eva, I have a good idea for the business, right? I have a good idea to grow the business and I'm going to speak about it to my manager. The manager needs to talk about it to this person and this person and this person.
[00:07:48] You need to follow certain procedures and some of some companies even have some sort of you know paperwork that they need to draw if you want to propose an idea and I think that that's just slowing down the business actually instead of helping to scale up. I think it's important to keep the start up mindset, which allows you to do A B testing, to make mistakes, to say, hey, let's do this, and then we will figure it out.
[00:08:16] And unfortunately, what I see sometimes is that decisions take too long, and then ideas or activities that could have been, maybe interesting got put on the side. that's one aspect of it. I also see a lot of, um, founders when companies are growing who are still overlooking everything. And you need to, uh, delegate, you know, you're hiring people because you believe in them and you believe that, they can do the job. So you need to trust those people and, and let go of certain things. because when you do too much, you actually don't do anything.
[00:08:54] Jason Emanis: Yeah, the old founders trap.
[00:08:56] to tell my team, it's okay to make mistakes, go make mistakes. Hurry up. Hurry up and do it. Let's,
[00:09:03] let's go hurry up and learn stuff.
[00:09:05] Eva Fayemi: If you need to take a train, like if there is money in the company, right? If you need to take a train to reassure one of your best customers because they don't understand the product or they need more support, but you as a company, you say, no, we do everything online. We're not going to spend money for you to go and see this customer.
[00:09:24] Well, I think that's a shame because actually your customers, once again, you need to cherish them. You're trying to avoid a churn. So Yeah, prioritizing the actions rather than, the thinking and the, oh, could we do this? Could we do that? No. Just, just do it. Hmm.
[00:09:44] Jason Emanis: Yeah, cooperation.
[00:09:45] Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I was going to ask, uh, it's difficult to find that balance between the ad hoc way of doing things and really what needs to be done and the proceduralizing where every time you add a layer underneath the founder, you are in essence proceduralizing or creating more red tape, but you need a lot of that to keep everyone in line as the company grows from
[00:10:11] the family, to the tribe, to the city, to the, uh, whichever terminology you're using to describe the scale. How do you help companies to maintain that balance between the startup mentality and the need for, operating more like a, like a military, like a true company unit?
[00:10:35] Eva Fayemi: Me personally, you mean?
[00:10:37] Adam Mogelonsky: Oh, you, you personally bond, uh, do you, do you advise on that or, or what have you, what have you seen?
[00:10:43] Eva Fayemi: so our clients are Bond, we've bond at Bond, sorry, we have a very honest relationship and they trust us because, um, they want us to tell them what's wrong, what's right. And I do really love that we have that type of relationship because that allows me indeed to say these kinds of things or to give advice.
[00:11:03] However, at the end of the day, um, and it is their business, right? If I have, yeah, that trust and that confidence with the founders, because actually I work with the founders and the CEOs directly, right? I would, I would definitely tell them. Um, and I think sometimes it's nice to look around and see how other companies are doing it and not necessarily in, in hotel tech, you know?
[00:11:28] Uh, how is Uber doing it? How is Apple doing it? I mean, There are examples, um, of companies, who thrive into making their employees, like I would say free and autonomous and, uh, giving them the power to express their ideas. So of course you need the procedures, but what are you doing additionally to your business that would help your employees be creative and, and not feel that it's a nine to five job.
[00:11:56] Organizing a hackathon on the side to see what the devs have in mind and maybe pick one of these ideas to say, Okay, actually, it was a great idea. I'm going to implement it. I don't know. There are things to do, I think. It depends what is the culture in your company and how you want to put that forward.
[00:12:18] Adam Mogelonsky: Well, when we're talking about companies, uh, and you mentioned hackathons as a very good example. Really what we're talking about now is we're looking ahead to the future, which brings us to our third question. Eva, what do you see as the key opportunities and challenges for hospitality technology companies in 2023 and beyond?
[00:12:41] Eva Fayemi: Yeah, once again, a very good question. So many topics I could speak of, like the, the key components or the key benefits in hotel tech at the moment is that, um, companies and hotels are looking to digitalize, uh, to provide guest experiences that are digitalized and to have technology that will help the guests have a more personalized experience as well.
[00:13:08] I think since COVID, we could definitely see that people got scared because they had all the ways of working and they had to actually implement the cloud or change DMS or so on and so forth. I think it helped actually a lot of businesses to have that change. So it's, it's positive, right? Technology is there, discussions are happening.
[00:13:29] Then, you know, obviously some hotels are much more inclined to that than others, but I feel that the discussion is, is open, is on the table and, and hoteliers of today and tomorrow are definitely receptive to that because they know that if they don't adopt the change now, they will have to do it later anyway. So it helps everybody, right? Now, with the, the downside more or less. So now the question is, it's not who can build because everybody can build a new product, right? A new guest communication app, a new guest experience tool, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm seeing so many hotel technology right now that I've never heard about before.
[00:14:20] And, you know, there is the landscape that we all know that are the players of today. But in each of those different verticals, in PMS, in channel manager, in booking engines, in guest experience, there are some new companies arriving. So, what I'm wondering is that the openness, you know, when we say that PMS is open now, is it really truly open actually to accept all those new technologies that are coming into market?
[00:14:50] I feel that the Open is not so open, actually. Open APIs is, is not so open. I see more and more companies restricting the integrations because they have 700 partners as of today, and they know that in three years they might have a thousand. So we'll end up with marketplaces of applications that will be crowded of products that competes between each other, right?
[00:15:16] And they can, they are all different in a way, right? They will all say that their value proposition is different, but they are still competing in their own vertical. So now, how will partnerships work, and how will partners find the value in your product when they are too many playing in the same ecosystem.
[00:15:41] That's what I'm wondering on the tech side. And I think there will be new layers of open platforms because they will not be able to accept everybody, to do marketing with everybody, to send lists to everybody, and I already see that. Yeah, there are some restrictions in place, you know, we have an open API, but.
[00:16:04] So, I think the game is, is gonna be more and more difficult for those new players.
[00:16:10] Jason Emanis: Yeah, there's so much technology out there. I don't know how a hotelier, for example, can keep up. And know where to invest their time and I suspect or I'm getting a sense from talking with different people, they're not.
[00:16:26] They're just They're ignoring it.
[00:16:27] They're
[00:16:27] Adam Mogelonsky: percent.
[00:16:28] Jason Emanis: just heads down trying to get the day to day done as Cumbersome as it is as expensive as it is and just get through the day get through the week instead of lifting up being able to assess the landscape that you described and say I should really look at that or at least those three because I feel like you know if I could just automate this because it's such a pain you know whatever it
[00:16:55] is I I don't know it's it's a tough environment.
[00:16:59] Eva Fayemi: Yeah, and there are so many tools that are really, really helpful, I think, not only actually also for the guests, but also for the staff efficiencies in, in hotels, right? To remove all those repetitive tasks in operations, in a lot of, uh, tech, centralize everything. I mean, it, it does make your job easier as a hotelier, right?
[00:17:21] When you have everything in one place. But then, connecting all those integrations together, there's still a blocker. There's still a blocker in the different tech that you want to integrate to your PMS. Sometimes it doesn't work the way you want it to work and there's still improvements to do in that.
[00:17:41] And a lot of support that needs to be handed to hoteliers. And, I mean, on the side note, I think that's why, like, it's great that, uh, you have advisors at GAIN who can do that, you know, who can take your hand and help you to navigate the new technology concepts of tomorrow, um, because right now, it's not just plug and play.
[00:18:05] And, uh, a lot of tech companies want to be plug and play, but it's not, we are not an Apple marketplace yet.
[00:18:12] Adam Mogelonsky: Well, to build on both of your points here about this crowded hotel technology marketplace, what would, what would you advise for helping companies cut through that noise?
[00:18:25] Eva Fayemi: Well, I think that once again, you can't do it alone. The value of, um, finding your ambassadors, with, you know, your, your clients, your, your customers who are once again, your best advocates who can, uh, recommend your solution to their friends, because they love it, or finding those people, uh, on specific markets, who would also find the, the value can, can be really helpful.
[00:18:53] You just need to get out there and to try to find your differentiator. Uh, how is your brand, making that, that, uh, entry point compared to the others, you know. Where is the open door where, as a brand and a product, I can feed in? And it means that it might not be everywhere, but, um, trying to find opportunities based on where your best, best interests are.
[00:19:21] Adam Mogelonsky: On that note, Eva, we're going to move into the fourth question here and final question. Eva, what are the key things innovative leaders and entrepreneurs should prioritize and focus on to gain traction for their business?
[00:19:38] Eva Fayemi: Yes, I think, you know, founders, entrepreneurs should never stop to innovate. having one step ahead, right, because things move fast. And as we said, new products also come in. Um, so innovation is key. Innovation in the sense of you still need to think about what your customers want. So working on use cases, right?
[00:20:01] What do my clients, it's not even, it's more than want, it's need also, but they don't know what they need. So you need to try to understand that, , on their behalf and build, innovative ways to, to help them. So as a startup, as a founder, as an entrepreneur, innovation is key, finding new ways of generating, uh, interest from, from customers.
[00:20:25] Second point, when you're an entrepreneur or founder, you need to be out there. You need to communicate and you need to take that role of being behind your brand and sharing your vision on and on and on. I think that would be my advice, you know, any representation and speaking events or podcasts or things they can do to share who they are, what type of company they are building, more than the product, like who do you want to be? You say you want to be the best product in the world, but why, what are you, what do you, what are you trying to change actually for, for hoteliers? Having a voice that, uh, speaks, , and spreads also, not be scared of asking your customers for feedback.
[00:21:11] Yeah, traveling if necessary to see them and understand that face to face also. I know a lot of things happen now online, but I still do believe that face to face is actually also a good way to get your point across and
[00:21:27] Jason Emanis: Yeah, you've got to be different. You've got to find your different and lean into it. And maybe you don't appeal to everybody, but... Find your different. Lean into it. And I love what you said about the founders getting out there because, and people might not want to admit it, but the communication of your company and what you're doing and achieving just moves so much faster and farther. If a founder, a, a, the lead gets out there and talks to people, answers questions, you know, is interviewed, will make statements, will talk with clients, will do joint whatever with clients, you know, it just moves, it moves better.
[00:22:10] Eva Fayemi: I agree. I agree. You know, what type of company you are building, what's the vision behind the product, and even You know, of course you have that role, but also show your teams and the culture that you have in your company, you know. Are people happy to work with me? Because that can be an indicator as well for clients, if actually a lot of people are not staying in that company, they are moving around, uh, it's not steady.
[00:22:37] It doesn't show the right, uh, the right path or the right, intention for, for growth. So if you show that you have a healthy company with happy employees that people also like to work there, I think it, it shows a lot.
[00:22:51] Adam Mogelonsky: Well, my last follow up, uh, you mentioned the founder, CEO, really trying to get the word out and almost becoming the chief evangelist officer for the company
[00:23:03] Eva Fayemi: Yeah.
[00:23:03] Adam Mogelonsky: and going on the road, you know, arranging for podcasts, meeting and traveling and going to conferences. That's a full time job. How does a CEO or a founder balance being on the road and promoting the company as well as managing the product back in home office?
[00:23:24] Eva Fayemi: Is it, is it not passion that drives you to do that?
[00:23:27] Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I guess.
[00:23:30] Eva Fayemi: I mean, you know, I don't know, I think, uh, if you like what you do, you like to promote it, you like to meet other people to talk about it, I think that's the best part of the job, uh, for me. Of course then you have other responsibilities, um, but as I said again also earlier, maybe you do have people around you, who can endorse, uh, those responsibilities when you are not here and you can trust those people to continue promoting the vision, uh, if you're going on a one week trip to the US, you know, uh, but I mean, eventually everybody works really hard to do everything at the same time.
[00:24:07] So finding the balance is, is, is hard. Try to go to the gym sometimes and unwind and read a book.
[00:24:15] Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah.
[00:24:16] Jason Emanis: Yeah, if you're, if you're not that person, you still have to be out there, but you can, you know, as you hire and bring on other executives, other directors, if you will, even, you know, and encourage their involvement in panels and, you know, podcast, uh, interviews and things like that and, and make sure your message is unified, but they can carry your message as well.
[00:24:43] Eva Fayemi: Yeah, yeah, if you share that vision, you know, with your employees since, since day one, with your team since day one, and that you have this culture of being transparent as well on your growth, on your vision, et cetera. I mean, people will naturally feel involved and, and know how to represent the best interests of the company,
[00:25:04] Adam Mogelonsky: Wow, Eva, can't thank you enough for coming on. These have been fantastic answers and, uh, I'm still myself just thinking about everything you've said and processing it because there's a lot to take in and some very valuable advice, particularly, particularly for hotel technology companies and it's an endless, endless issue where they're trying to break through and you've given a lot of good tips for them to, to, to nibble on as well.
[00:25:31] Eva Fayemi: Thank you so much, Adam.
[00:25:33] Jason Emanis: Thank you, Eva.
[00:25:35]