Defining Hospitality

DH - Rob Blood
===

Speaker: [00:00:00] What I do is inconsequential. Why I do what I do is I get to shorten people's journeys every day. What I love about our hospitality industry is that it's our mission to make people feel cared for while on their journeys. Together, we'll explore what hospitality means in the built environment, in business, and in our daily lives.

I'm Dan Ryan, and this is Defining Hospitality.

This podcast is sponsored by Berman Falk Hospitality Group, a design driven furniture manufacturer who specializes in custom case goods and seating for hotel guest rooms.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Today's guest is somebody with over 20 years of hospitality leadership and management experience who has uniquely worked every position in his hotels. He got his start in hospitality as the innkeeper of an eight room bed and breakfast in Massachusetts. Now he manages almost 100 hotels and over 30 restaurants throughout North America. His design firm, Elder Ashe, won HD Magazines designer of the year in 2023. [00:01:00] His team recently won seven Michelin keys. founder and chairman at Lark Hotels and also principal at Elder and Ash. Ladies and gentlemen, Rob Blood.

Welcome Rob.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: Hi, Dan. How's it going?

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Um, everything is really good. It's a nice snowy New England day. Let's just put it that way. I did. I got, I got my exercise shoveling the driveway and snow blowing. Snowblowing the driveway and shoveling all the stairs everywhere. So it's been good.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: I did not this morning. I, uh, I just barreled out of the driveway.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: A couple of people did that before me. So it made the snow, uh, the snow blowing a little bit more difficult. Um, but regardless of the snow and whatever mother nature throws at us, I'm just happy to be here. I know this conversation has been a long time in the making. Um, just to let all the listeners know, I. Met Rob, I think through independent lodging Congress, and I think that's a theme that we'll kind of cover throughout this conversation. And Rob [00:02:00] is just, and, and the, his team and the, and the company that he and his team have built just really dives in and focuses into that independent luxury lifestyle space.

Um, and found this really incredible niche that all the big brands are also seeing as like a real revenue driver and value creator for their. Brands. And there's like, they're doing a good job, but there's something also about just rolling up your sleeves, getting in there and being the boots on the ground to really deliver that independent experience.

Um, that I think Rob and Lark have really fine tuned as they continue to grow, um, which we'll talk about in a second. But Rob, um, when it comes to thinking about hospitality and what you love about it, like, what does it mean to you?

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: So Dan, I've been in it for a while now. Um, and it's obviously something when you're in, in this world, you think about a lot and sometimes it's in the, [00:03:00] sort of in the background and sometimes it's in the forefront, but, um, when I started Lark, I felt like there was a need and this is 10, 12 years ago now.

But even before that, when I got into, into smaller, smaller hotels, I felt like there was a need to create an environment where hospitality and service wasn't prescribed by the host, but, um, was really more of a meeting and eye to eye meeting between people, um, creating genuine experiences. And what I really didn't want to do is overlay my thoughts and my wants on guests, because I really feel like, In small owner owned, owner run businesses, it's often there, there are multiple motivations for being in the hospitality industry.

Sometimes people are doing it for themselves, and other times they're doing it for others. They have hospitality soul. They're willing to give, and that's [00:04:00] what willing to serve. And so I think for, for us at Lark, what we, we think about it, what we're really proud about. Bringing good people together and creating great outcomes and experiences for good people for all people And when we think about it, we we naturally think about our guests But it's important to our company ethos and our whole sort of being that we extend our hospitality philosophy outside the guest to, um, host world.

And we pass that on to all of the stakeholders in our ecosystem. So it might be our team members. Uh, it might be hotel owners that we work with that might be investors and stakeholders in Lark. but it's really to me about. Uh, approach about, um, the desire to serve and the willingness to meet people in an eye to eye, um, level.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: And on that eye to eye level, I found that it's very difficult to [00:05:00] scale and you and Lark, um, have developed these new brands. You've merged with Lifehouse, um, you're building your portfolio. How do you maintain that eye to eye kind of stakeholder level of hospitality as you, as you grow and is there an upper, do you find that they're like that scale kind of rubs up against what would that be like some kind of an event horizon that you can't kind of break through?

How do you, how do you balance that?

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: you asked a few good questions there. I think, um, first though, is the question of how do you scale, um, in this space and the sort of independent spirited sub 150 key space, where like we could, all of our rooms, we have, we have about 3000 hotel rooms across North America. That's like a convention center hotel in Dallas, right?

Like one hotel. So, um, it's harder, but the trick, um, it's really not a trick. The, the, the way that we [00:06:00] do it is by having really good retention, um, and really good people that we work with, um, who, are attracted to working in this smaller, um, very independent, spirited space because it allows creativity, um, and nimbleness that might not be allowed if you're working at a Hampton Inn.

Um, and it really allows personality to shine through. And so what we found is when people come to us and they're working with us, they stay. Um, and so you look at Scott Hopps, who's our senior VP of ops. He's been with us for, For almost seven years now, um, you look at :Amanda Wallace, who handles all of our transitions.

She's been with us for 10 years. I think she was employee number two or three in the company. And there are examples that go on and on like that. And so, The ethos we developed was when we were very small, right? When we had a handful of hotels that were very geographically, um, centralized in New England.

And so we've built a [00:07:00] team, a bench that, that, um, believes in what we do and believes in our philosophy and really helped create it. And so really, because they have a stake, they have an emotional stake in what they're doing with us and a connection. It's more than just like a paycheck. It's able to propagate out.

Um, and I would say if we had a tremendous amount of turnover, either in portfolio or owner relations or staff, we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing now, and so we're really careful about extending that philosophy of hospitality to our team so that they want to, they want to stay and propagate the work that we're doing.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: did Scott always know that he wanted to get into operations? Because Scott hops in ops is pretty rad.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: He's a really, he's a really great optimist.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Oh, there we go. Dad jokes. Bring him out.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: Scott is one of the most unique people I know. He is a Harvard graduate. He has his master's in civil engineering, I think. And after that, [00:08:00] he met his wife working at Club Med

and

left everything else behind. He became a hospitality guy. He's through and through a guy who's always thinking about other people.

And Scott started with us, he stalked me on LinkedIn a little bit. I have a couple of stories like this that happened with Peter, the CEO. They, they kept trying to date me on LinkedIn. And eventually I, I sat down at our restaurant in Salem, Massachusetts with Scott, we had a beer, had a great, great conversation.

He ended up joining us as a director of hotels. Um, became the VP of ops a couple of years ago, and now as a senior VP, um, and has a, has a purview of about a hundred hotels. Um, but it all goes back to the people for Scott. He worked, he worked at a great hotel out in Denver before us. He was at the Lennox.

Um, he worked for Saunders Hotel Group in Boston. He was the VP of ops and sustainability. Um, but I know that Scott is, Oh, I [00:09:00] want to, I hesitate to say the hardest work in person in our company. But hands down the most enthusiastic hospitality person I've ever met. And,

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: to Scott.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: Yeah, I know. You should talk to him next.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Yeah, we'll get him on the docket. So the real question is, is he went to Harvard, which is awesome. And then if you say, Hey, where did you go to college? Does he say, Oh, I went to school in Boston or does he just own? I went to Harvard.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: He's not like a Cornell hotel guy, Dan. So he's not like wearing it on his sleeve all the time, like he's the best in the world. He does have his diploma up in his office, uh, at home, but it's not behind him. So it's not like every time he's on a Zoom meeting, Harvard's right there. No, he

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: a squint. No, I know a bunch of people who've gone to Harvard and of that bunch, I think two or three of them only said, when you say, Oh, where did you go to college? They said, Oh, I went to Harvard. And I'm just like, God, I love you. Thank you for saying that. Because

most people who went to Harvard, they say, Oh, I went to Boston, they're like embarrassed about it.

I'm like, Oh, [00:10:00] that's awesome. You should be proud of it. And just, I don't know, let your radiant energy shine over all of us that you went to Harvard, haven't. Well, I, I would, I do look forward to meeting with meeting with Scott. Um, He sounds really interesting. And I love that he is a civil engineer and then totally did kind of like a 180 and went into hospitality, civil engineering or engineering.

It's all, it's math. It's precise. It's you know, load bearing. It's all of these things. Whereas hospitality, there's that. Okay. Yeah. You're operating a business. I get it. But there's all so much of that soft side of things that it's just like more art than science, I guess I would say.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: that's so true. And I, the thing I love about hospitality is it's such a level playing field. You can have Scott with his master's in civil engineering and Harvard next to someone who worked their way up through the business. Like for me, I was an innkeeper, right? I, I learned how to do it. I, I have a bachelor's degree in English, but that certainly didn't help, uh, with what I'm doing.

I think [00:11:00] it's, it's a really level playing field and opportunity exists at every level for people. Who have the right approach, have the right, where we continue to call HospitalitySol.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: this podcast, I've been doing it for three years. And one of the interesting growth channels of audiences on our entrepreneurs and it it's entrepreneurs that are within our hospitality and hospitality design industry. Cause there's a lot of us. Um, but then there's also just outside entrepreneurs because there's something about, I don't know, that kind of more art of hospitality, that All businesses can benefit from. And I think to, to go back to your, your idea of like what's made you successful is that is retention. Um, if you think about from you as that early innkeeper to the business that you on your growth path over the past, I don't know, let's just, let's look at the last five, let's go before COVID because it's just, we'll normalize it.

So let's go from like [00:12:00] 2018 to now, um, the past eight years. What do you think tactically? You and your teams have done or do to retain,

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: That's a really good question. I think, I think we create stakeholders. And rather than just having employees, we create collaborators. And we, we, we are better because of the ideas that other people bring to the table. You know, nothing good happens in a vacuum from my perspective. I, I might have a good idea every once in a while, but it's just an idea until other people help put it together.

And so I think that, when people feel involved and, like shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye with other people in the company, they, they look for more than just a means to, it's like Mavs, Mavlov's pyramid, right? So like, we want to, we want to help people get past their first and second levels to like, get.

Into like transcendence, right? Where people are like achieving more for themselves personally than just a paycheck and [00:13:00] a way to, you know, buy a beer at the bar or whatever we want to create. Like I've always believed that hospitality is a lifestyle. Um, from my very first job on Nantucket, where I had a backpack with the tape chart in my back and the cell phone at the beach when I wanted to take a break, but I could still take reservations.

It's a lifestyle. And so I think that, people enjoy working with us because we create a great environment and they get to make decisions and make an impact. And they can, it's very tangible, the impact you can make in hospitality.

You see it on people's faces. You receive thank you notes from folks. If you are of a hospitality mindset, uh, there's really, it's really hard to go do other things and be rewarded because we're not. As much as we validate other people, they validate us in return by allowing us to create experiences. And so I think that our, our retention piece is not just luck.

It's hard work, right? So if Peter, who is our CEO is [00:14:00] always thinking about how to elevate the employee experience. And it's also not boring, right? What we do is exciting. We it's kind of sexy. It's kind of exciting. And it's like, it's not. In a box, you get to do fun stuff and you also have to clean a lot of toilets.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: yeah, you've seen a lot of toilets and kind of going on that front. It's also, um, if the, all those rooms could talk, like, I just think that it like everyone talks about storytelling, storytelling, storytelling as business owners, marketers, just leaders, but really. A hotel with 50 or a thousand rooms.

If those rooms could tell stories, like, and, and not everyone who works in the hotel knows the stories. But you get a, I guess some of the cream rise to the top, so to speak. So like there, but there's always something interesting because people are just awesome. And they're, they're, they're [00:15:00] wonderful. They have, you know, they have their, their, I don't know, all the things that they're good at, they have their tremendous faults.

And I feel like. These boxes where everyone kind of comes in to share these moments provides a lot of entertainment to everyone.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: It's, uh, people are wildly unpredictable, which is keep, keeps every day sort of interesting in, in hotel and restaurant work. And what's I think about, I think about the one night a week I go out with my wife and how important it is to our relationship and the experience we have just going out for two hours and leaving our three children behind.

Um, And the bartender can make a big difference on that night or whatever. Right. And so those are not like foundational monumental occasions for us, but they're relationship things that matter. And we have the opportunity in our industry to impact those small and large moments in such meaningful ways.

If we just remember, you know, if we just remember, it's not about changing the sheets. It's not about, you know, getting the [00:16:00] heart on the latte or whatever it is. Those are important things. But if we remember that, Our hospitality creates memorable experiences and really makes an impact. Could be a pivotal one, or it could be like a stacking one that adds up to something really good.

I used to say it's not rocket science or brain surgery. I believe it is. I believe it is as important as that, um, doing what we do. So I think, I think that our people believe that too. Most of them.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Yeah, I agree. And I feel that that level of importance in our vocation, and whether you're a taxi driver, a teacher, a, an engineer, a hotelier, a furniture salesman, there's a vocation, there's a craft, there's a, there's like a certain art and dedication to just continually improving.

And I think many people who are top in their field definitely do when they make that a practice, but I think so many people just go through, um, oh I'm going to bring up some Thoreau, like what is that? Live lives [00:17:00] of quiet desperation, just kind of getting through.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: Yeah. That's not a good life.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: no. And, um, but I think that the study Of the vocation and kind of elevating it and also finding those other people and putting 'em on that path of showing them, and they probably already know that this is the path that they want to be on, but to be able to, like you were saying with the pyramid and getting them to their. Just that higher realization. There's tools and tactics to get people there, um, and teams there. At what point did you realize that you needed to build a bigger team and attract more people as you were on this path?

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: Running a small business is challenging, right? So for us, it was, it's always been important to me to have Lark as a management company and, and brand company to be profitable. Um, you know, I always wanted a black number at the bottom of the P& L. It was important because for me, until [00:18:00] we came together with Lifehouse, I was the one, sort of the one owner of Lark.

And so at the end of the day. It's either you fund it or you make some money. And so I'm, I'm a Yankee. I'm new England guy. My dad was a penny pincher and I was like, I have to make some money at this. And, and so it was always a question of who can we add? And if we add that person, what's the outcome?

there was like a, a seesaw where at a property, at a person, at a property, at two more people. And so pre COVID we had built up to 22 properties. And I hired, I hired Peter Tuchman, who's our CEO. He was another LinkedIn stalker. Uh, early in the day, we joke about this now as he's one of my best friends now.

And I'm very lucky to work with him, but I invited him to join the company about four years in as the chief operating officer. And he said, no, he said, you're not ready. I'm not ready. Uh, let's talk again. Um, [00:19:00] And he called me just before COVID, obviously we didn't know it was coming. And so I'm ready now, um, but I'd like to be the CEO.

Um, and I think we'll do great things together. And so I said, that sounds great to me. I don't want to be the CEO. Um, and I think that, you know, that's one of those things that caused. It was a, I look at that as, when we were at ILC, there was a speaker who spoke about, it was a moment that created great outcomes.

That moment in time, I peg as that decision. It's one of the best ones I've ever made because, um, a founder and a CEO, they're not synonymous, um, but they have to be for a little while. And so I hired Peter, he became the CEO and then COVID happened. He, I hired him in November of 2020. November of 2019. Um, and so very quickly after that COVID happened, we shut everything down. And during that time, we. We're very fortunate to have exceptional owners who continue to pay their base management fee. [00:20:00] We also had PPP. And so we were able to plan strategically for what we thought would become an economic hardship after COVID.

It didn't turn out to play that way, but there was a psychological impact that created opportunity for us. And so during the COVID pandemic, 15 months, 12 months, whatever it was, we planned and we staffed up to be ready for what we saw as an opportunity. Um, and since then we've doubled and then doubled again in size.

So, um, pre Lifehouse, we went from 22 to 54 hotels. And then when we brought on Lifehouse, it doubled our portfolio. Again, we couldn't have done it if we hadn't had. I don't think we could have done if we hadn't had that pause, the COVID pause. And, you know, I, I think the government did a great job at that point in time.

They like funded small businesses, kept us alive. Um, And, um, so the question is now, you, now we're a big [00:21:00] company, right? Now we have almost a hundred hotels. We've got 3, 000 rooms. We're in 25 or six States, two countries. Question is the same. Uh, what's next? How do we, how do we continue to grow our infrastructure, our people infrastructure, which we have 90 corporate employees now and about 1500 across the portfolio.

Um, but what's next? And the questions just get bigger, right? We have a really great team that's, that is That we've built over the last five years to get to the point where we're able to say yes, and to get to the point where we felt comfortable taking on LifeHouse. Um, and now we kind of feel like, Hey, we can, we can do pretty much anything, but we're also thinking about who do we need?

Like who's the next person we need? Uh, what talent is out there? What, what perspective do we need to bring in to the company to help us where we are now?

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: well, I have a question on, [00:22:00] um, on that because,

okay, so you're growing, you're acquiring. You're, you have that really great eye to eye. You've said it a couple of times, like it's, I really get the feeling of that, it's that interpersonal, interpersonal interaction with all of the stakeholders, guests and employees in your, in your company, as your geography expands. Right. It takes time to go to see all of those people and have that eye to eye moment. But you build infrastructure and management to help alleviate that. But how do you keep that kind of that spark that made LARC so

special? Uh, how, how do you do that as you scale, as you, as you rub up against that

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: the days where I could go, um, to every property and help make breakfast and do laundry are past. And, you know, my mom was a big advocate of, uh, she kind of taught me, you work, you work side by side with people, people don't work for you. They work with you. [00:23:00] Um, and I, that, So by doing that, you create agents, create advocates.

Um, and so it's unrealistic to think that I can form direct personal relationships with. Everyone, um, that's a stakeholder at Lark right now. Um, and that would be, you know, 50 different ownership groups. Um, you know, hundreds of investors that invested in Lifehouse and now are de facto investors in Lark.

and this is what we talk about with our, our VPs and our leadership team a lot is figuring out the best way to work through people. And, um, you know, I'm sitting here in my home office, which is unfortunately where a lot of my work happens now. And it's easier post COVID because we're all used to talking to each other through Google meet or zoom or teams or whatever it may be.

And so I think we're, we're super selective and right now what we're doing. [00:24:00] We've great relationships with the owners on the Legacy Lark side. Right now, Peter and I are working very hard at forming connections and understanding goals of the owners on the Legacy Lifehouse side, forming those relationships and, and understanding what, what outcomes they want.

While at the same time, Scott and the rest of the team are really building bridges and forming relationships with the 22 people that came over from Lifehouse and just sort of wave of this three month integration plan that. We're a month and a half into, uh, where we're essentially trying to propagate the culture out that we've built over the last 10 years in a short, short period of time.

And so I guess the short answer is Dan, it's really important. Um, when, you know, now that the company is much bigger, that we're effective at working through other people. And it's hard. My, you know, my mom, when we, when we had four hotels, [00:25:00] my mom was our, our first employee, uh, she retired recently and she's like, Rob, you're gonna have to let go of control a little bit here.

You know, you're not gonna be able to do everything. And that was when we had four hotels. So I think the way that we're lucky enough to do it is because we have such good people, um, and. They all know, uh, who we are. And the other thing that I think is important, and it might not relate directly to this question, but before we left our region, you know, New England's, in my opinion, the easiest area to do business in because it's so compact.

Like there's, there's rarely a time when I have to be in the car for more than four hours to get to something that we work with. So we had to really hone our skills here where. If I had to go do something or Peter had to go do something or Scott had to be somewhere quickly, we could. And now as we expand geographically, we have our, our toolbox.

We just have to make sure we're using it well, um, so that we don't have to hop on a plane if there's [00:26:00] emergency. So we know so that we, we can allow our playbook, which is flexible and nimble to do some of that heavy work for us.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: And then that like is it a literal playbook that you've developed or is it just this we kind of we know how the three of us can kind of divide and conquer, and when things get escalated or prioritized in such a way, like we know how to

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: We have a woman named Karina, who is our Director of Learning and Education, and Karina was, started with us in college as a front desk or guest service associate, and has only been with us. She's only worked at Lark. Um, and so Karina has created this amazing program called Lark University. That is Like the core of who we are.

she has a lot of little videos and there's a lot of like remote meetings and then she goes and does orientations and, you know, So [00:27:00] the playbook is sort of our, we don't have like strict SOPs, like you might at a, at a courtyard or something like that, but we do have a set of operating principles that we teach to our onsite teams and we support through like a really great team of regional operations managers.

So it's kind of boring.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: it's actually not boring because I've been thinking doing a lot of thinking about this. I have a meeting on it later today actually, where you have your employee, your, let's say you hire a new employee and you have your 90 day onboarding where you give them, I forgot what you called them, the operating principles.

Like, okay, they get it, but they're also, they got their mouth on a fire hose. It's It's all coming. And then, then they're kind of like, they got their feet under them. They're like, okay, I'm doing my job. Whether it's cleaning rooms, running projects, doing billing, like they know what they're doing. And what I was thinking, like, I love this idea of Lark University because it's all my, my metaphor was like, imagine Frodo's [00:28:00] journey through middle earth or the Appalachian trail or the Pacific crest trail, where There's like a, a, a roadmap of all the different areas of uh, let's use yours as, of a hotel, and you, you, so you're there for one year then you're given this roadmap. This could be Lark University for instance, where it's all those big Functions within a hotel or managing of hotels where you get to kind of go and experience What all those are through the little videos or or whatever and it just gives you a much more rounded um perspective of what you're working on but do it out a year a year and a half and It just because you're like, okay.

I love this one job I have but wow This is interesting, but you never really have a way to learn What cleaning a room is like, or because you're not actually doing it unless you're doing it in those first 90 days, or billing or guest services or concierge. And I think that it's an interesting way to kind of cross train. As the employee is on their journey so that they [00:29:00] can say, and I think it would probably also help with retention a lot because then if they get bored of that one thing that they're doing, it's like, Oh, let me try this other thing.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: Yeah, it's true. We have this gentleman, Mario, who has been, he's a, an H2B employee, comes every year. He's worked at the Kuhn Messe at summer camp. And I spent, I spent a bunch of time out at summer camp on the vineyard in the summer, and he always asks, Rob, can I get half an hour of your time before you go home?

And he's a wildly ambitious guy. He's been in hospitality his whole life and he's looking for his next steps. Um, and so he was part of last semester of Lark University and through that you get access. And so he had one on one mentoring meetings with Peter, the CEO. constantly takes advantage of opportunities to present himself and learn more.

And that's exactly why I think people decide to stay in jobs that they're in because they have, they get access, they get opportunity. Um, and they show if they're accountable that that leads to [00:30:00] a great path forward.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: I'd love it. Um, let's pretend I either own a hotel or I'm considering buying a hotel. Um, and I kinda, I want it to be in that independent feeling world, but you know, there's the big brands that have all their luxury lifestyle. Um, and then there's, Someone like you at Lark who, you, you really love those 50 to 150 room hotels.

Like you're, you've niched out like in kind of more interesting places. How would you pitch someone who's choosing between management companies or brands to give you guys a whirl?

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: That's a really good question. I would ask you, Dan, how would you pitch yourself to us and see if you get, could get into the, into the group?

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Ah,

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: I'm just kidding. No, I

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: no, that's a, that's a fair enough question.

Speaker 2: Hey everybody. We've been doing this podcast for over three years now. [00:31:00] And one of the themes that consistently comes up is sustainability. And I'm just really proud to announce that our sponsor Berman Falk Hospitality Group is the first within our hospitality industry to switch to sustainable and recyclable packaging, eliminating the use of styrofoam.

Please check out their impact page in the show notes for more info.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: there are a couple important distinguishing points, right? If you, if you have a lifestyle hotel, say it's 120 room lifestyle hotel that you're either thinking about investing in, or you have, and you're not happy.

There are some choices for you, right? So there are choices. You can talk to Hyatt, you can talk to IHG, you can talk to Hilton and Marriott, and they probably have a brand that will work. The question is, how much say do you want? Um, Do they have hotels that look like the one that you have? Do they feel like the one that you, that you're thinking about?

Are they operated in a way that expresses the soul and the story of the hotel? [00:32:00] And can it support a fee load of. You know, 10 to 15 percent just going right up the flag pole to the brand. And what do they deliver for that? if the answer is, Oh, I don't know. Maybe then talk to us, right? Because Lark has a lot of different options for owners and developers.

We have a completely independent space where we are simply third party managers. Where we bring our entire ethos of, um, creativity and storytelling and soul making and. Community building to the project. Uh, we've also done this, like for me, I'm a real estate developer as well. I've developed 30 hotels that I've had ownership in.

And so, for you as a potential client and an entrepreneur, I think there's some comfort. Forming a relationship with someone who's put it on the line and done it for himself. I know what I want from a management company, and I can give a really good reference for Lark because they manage all [00:33:00] of my hotels.

Uh, and I, I, I say this all the time. I literally built this company initially so I could develop hotels and have someone I trusted. Or a company I trusted take care of it because you build value when you're developing the real estate, but ultimately it's just a whole bunch of toilets and beds and sheets and there's underlying value.

But the, the management company builds the value beyond the value of the real estate by driving the real estate.

And so when you work with us, you have access to people, to me, to Peter, to our executive team directly without any intermediary. So, you know, you have a problem at your hotel, you can call me. You need an idea. I was just talking to a group in Vermont about F& B concept. They called me and said, Hey, can I talk to you for 20 minutes?

Yeah, of course. there's also this really cool family of brands that we have that drive tremendous [00:34:00] value for owners. So in our Lark brand, um, which is, I say this, uh, just for people who are only associated or understand big box. Lark is kind of like the autograph collection or curio. Upper upscale.

More Autograph Than Cure because everything's independently named, the brand and story of that property is primary, and LARC is the thread that runs through it. Approachable hospitality, great design, iconic locations, um, and a fierce loyalty program that only has 100, 000 people. But drives about 33 percent of the revenue front to our portfolio from those hundred thousand people.

So these folks are fierce and loyal and they spend more money at our hotels than all of the other people. And so, you know, I'm often asked to talk about value of brand or not. And while I, you know, I have to be honest, brands do bring value to owners. Um, you know, Marriott will [00:35:00] deliver a tremendous amount of value through their distribution, but they also take a big chunk.

For Lark, we don't deliver 50 percent direct through our loyalty program, like Bonvoy might. 33 percent non commissioned direct revenue from, uh, repeat guests in a loyalty program is a great way to start your day.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Do you classify that as recurring revenue or would that be something different? Or I guess it's like quasi recurring revenue,

but it's a tremendous value builder.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: talking in robot terms, the cost of acquiring a new guest is much greater than keeping a repeat guest. And, um, so if you're opening, let's say you're opening a hotel in Greenwich, right. And, um, you know, Lark is prolific in this region. You're going to get an immediate lift from being part of one of our brands by virtue of being part of our loyalty program.

And then the other tangible benefits are. You're part of a larger ecosystem of an online presence. And so [00:36:00] if you're like, if you create a, uh, something out of a void, uh, where there was nothing before it will create a little bit of its own demand, but it's going to take time to get visibility, to get recognition.

And so being part of a larger group like Lark or one of our other brands like Bluebird or AWOL or Blind Tiger, press is interested. You know, you referenced very kindly the Michelin keys that we earned last year. I mean, that it was such an honor to have, have collected seven Michelin keys and it's a tribute to our team, but also like just simply the fact that people in the media know who we are.

And so when you have that and you're able to start with it, Rather than starting with nothing, it gives an advantage when you're ramping your hotel. And so it might take less time to stabilize. Um, it's, you know, our, our brand and brand marketing fees are not nearly what the big, big boxes are. And so I think that there's a lot of very tangible value that comes [00:37:00] from working with us, um, because we understand small hotels, right?

Like I, I always tell the silly story that my first one, I had no money. So I had to know what a square of toilet paper costs from Shaw's or Cisco or Sam's club. Um, and that's still like, you got to manage the middle of the budget in small properties. Cause every dollar that drops to the bottom line is meaningful in a way that's different from a 400 room hut.

And so we get that. We get that on the operating side. And we also really get like at our core, we're creative company. We see things that I think that takes a little longer for other people to see an opportunity. Um, and that's, that's sort of like that entrepreneurial spirit. Like you were talking earlier about how all of these entrepreneurs, like it might be, you know, a couple that's owned a couple of Airbnbs and now they want to own a hotel.

So the entrepreneurial spirit is like alive in this company. So I got to stop.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: No, I don't want to say, cause I want to, I want to go back to something that you, I think you said [00:38:00] it two or three times throughout the conversation. And for the listeners that don't know, um, you own hotels, you develop hotels, you manage hotels, but you also design hotels, right? You have Elder Nash and you were designer of the year. I have a feeling that that idea of soul making, which you referenced a couple times, I think that design element and branding element really plays a huge role in that. Um, tell me about what you mean by soul making, because I've never, I haven't heard it packaged that way, and I really like it.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: we believe that every, every project has an essence or soul that needs to be drawn out. And it's drawn out through design, architecture, music, scent. Um, service culture, um, and just general ethos. And it's, I liken it to this. Like if you, if anyone can sort of think about a really great dining experience they had.

Um, I have, I have a bunch that I reckon I sort of think back [00:39:00] on. And I think that what has to happen is it can't just be the food is good. It can't just be that the server is nice or the decor is nice. It has to be like a confluence of all of these. They seem to be intangible factors. But they're deliberately done.

And so like when you walk into the restaurant, if there's a fireplace, it's on if, and the lights are all the right temperature and the right light, the music is, uh, at the right level. So it's not, you're not like wondering what it is. You're hearing it. The server's on point. They're dressed well. Um, all of those things create a soulful, memorable experience that people form an emotional connection to.

And through the different levers that we pull through design and development and building service culture and operations, we think about all of those things because Meg and I, my wife, Meg is my partner at Elder and Ash, and she's the direct creative director at Lark. We value those things so much in our life when we have them.[00:40:00]

Um, they create, they create experiences that make us feel closer to each other that validate our lives and all of these things. And so our, by able, by being able to have our hand in all these different parts of the whole process of creation, we feel like it's easier for us to create a whole product, a whole experience that exudes the, the soul, right?

Cause a building doesn't have soul. Um, all of the things you do within a building, create the soul and the story. Um, still, I would say you can do all of that stuff. All of the design. All of the thoughtful stuff around, what does it smell like? Is the fire on if you don't have the right people doing it, it's still just a building, right?

And Bashar used to talk about this all the time, but a hotel is just a hotel without the people, the people bring the soul. And I think that's true. But one of the things we're able to do, because we start at the [00:41:00] conception of the idea and carry it all the way through the execution. Past the pretty pictures, we're able to operationalize the idea or the story or the soul through the people.

And that's when you get a lodging experience and a stay experience that can rise to the level of that last great dining experience you had. Um, it's not, it's not easy. It's sort of abstract.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Well, I I can share, I speak to that from my personal experience. Just staying at the Fieldhouse up in Stowe a couple of years ago, where if you're just driving up the mountain or driving up the road to get to Stowe, the Fieldhouse, it just looks like an ordinary building. On the side of the road, right?

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: it's brown. We shouldn't have painted it brown.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: But regardless, when you go in there, it just feels different than what that building would normally look like from just those kind of mid century fireplaces to just the, um, the kind of the the thoughtful rugs and the, just the low seating everywhere and just the lighting. [00:42:00] And it's actually. I don't know, almost opposite what I was thinking I would expect walking into that ordinary building. I was like, wow, this is really cool. And I think that that is a tremendous, um, value unlock for so many different small, what would be seemingly ordinary hotels. If you just put a little bit of thought into that soul. I know it drops to the bottom line.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: Totally, totally. Because people come back and again, like people come back, they evangelize it. It's not to say that everything is perfect because everything is not perfect there. but we work towards it, right? I'm in there every week. Fortunately, I'm in Stowe on the weekend. So I get to get to be in there and, um.

It's constant. We have like the constant attention to these properties is really where they start to shine because, you know, people have flaws. I have flaws. I'm sure you do. I haven't identified any yet,

but the truth is like. we have to continue paying attention to the details because, and that, and that requires [00:43:00] constant attention from our regionals and our GMs and all this stuff. But yeah, it's, it's really fun what we do. It's really rewarding when we get it right.

And we, I think that's where, you know, Meg and I really love, um, the opportunity to work with a project from the very beginning. We're doing a really cool one on Harvard on the, uh, on Cambridge Common right now. Only 16 rooms, but it is. It's going to be a LARC and these guys are amazing, amazing people to work with.

But they gave us sort of a blank canvas to, to create their, their hotel. And so because we were able to start on day one before construction even began. And we'll go all the way through to actually making it work. Once it's open, I think we'll, we have the opportunity to create a really special, special thing.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: you mentioned the Hyatt's and the IHG's and the Marriott's and the Hilton's. They all see how these, I guess this soul building, I love that. [00:44:00] The soul making of these independent hotels. It also, like I said, it drops to the bottom line. It drives revenue. It drives profitability and they're on like the big acquisition path. So how do you deal with that? Like you want to stay independent, but then like all of this institutional money is just flowing.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: it's interesting. And I think brand consolidation has created opportunity. Like we see, we see like once, once standard and bunkhouse and, you know, Kempton and all these ones have been absorbed into bigger brands. It creates a space. That good things will happen. It, it allows us, it allows Lark and Lifehouse to come together and continue to create compelling stories and, and build great properties and form great relationships with folks who they just don't want to be a Hyatt.

They don't want to see a, they don't want to see world of Hyatt at the top of their. They're beautiful, independent hotel. Not that there's anything wrong with what those, the big brands are doing, because we have to take lessons from them. Just like they're taking lessons from us. Um, I think that [00:45:00] we will continue to see good things popping up, you know, see great things happening at Paley society.

Um, there's really, really interesting stuff happening, um, all over the place. And I think that. Because the sort of the bigs and the independents are now, now part of the big brands, we're going to see some good stuff happening.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Um, I want to go back to that, um, hypothetical entrepreneur. I like how you said, you know, that maybe they have a couple of Airbnbs and they want to acquire a bigger property and turn it into an inn or a hotel aside from hire Lark. Um, what advice do you have for those entrepreneurs that are looking to get into the independent space

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: I guess I can only give the advice that I would take myself. And I was like, I did it right. You just do it. And I think that it's smartest to learn it. I was like, try it before you buy it. Um, Airbnb world and hotel world is very [00:46:00] different. Um, and we, we work with lots of owners who discover that quickly.

Um, you might be able to patch together a design on your own, um, by using Wayfair and, and other resources. But it's a really fundamentally different thing when you go from, um, running a house or series of houses to getting into 50 rooms and all of the things, they're just different. They're at a bigger scale.

The budgets are different. The considerations are different. Sometimes the laws are different. I think one is talk to a LARC. You don't have to hire a LARC. It could be a LARC or whoever. It could be Haycreek. It could be, um, I don't even know who's out there anymore.

There, there are some other companies, but learn a little bit, do your research. Make sure you're making a smart decision about what you're buying, not just based on basis, but based on a whole bunch of other factors. And I always take it back to, uh, you know, Matt, that one year on Nantucket taught me, taught me the obvious lesson [00:47:00] that location is king.

Um, and we've built Lark in destinations. Where people want to go. And so I, my initial thought was like buying in for 300, 000 along the side of a road somewhere that can, my girlfriend can work outside to help support it. And we would have failed immediately. Instead, the first project we bought was in Kennebunkport, Maine, stretched really hard to buy it, but then it paid for itself from day one.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: location?

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: I think location and. Obviously basis is important, but there's no substitute for being hands on and learning. Um, and if you, if you're not going to, we, like we ran into some entrepreneurs who want to scale quickly and so they might have a portfolio for, that's a really good time to talk to us. because I always, I think, and this is, this goes back to me deciding I shouldn't be the CEO anymore.

What is your best purpose and what is the best use of your time? Is it making beds? Is it worrying [00:48:00] about having to hire your staff or is it developing? Is your, is it finding value? Is it building value through real estate growth? If that's your answer and that's your why and best use, we should definitely be talking.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: You know what, as you were thinking, and I, or as you were thinking, I can't hear what you're thinking, but as you were speaking, and you're like, try it on first, I think you said something like

that. And then I was like, wow, I wonder if this model would work. Let's say there's a couple of entrepreneurs out there, they have a couple of Airbnbs, or they have that four property situation, like you're talking about, I don't know. actually the four properties probably isn't the better one because they're, they're, they're baptized by the fire of operating a hotel, right? They're already in the, in the weeds, but the people who are thinking about it and they have the capital, they're like, okay, I want to take this next step. Have you ever had someone like that come work with you at Lark, learn the system, and then you could like kind of co GP on a, on a project that that could be really [00:49:00] interesting and

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: It's a possibility. Yeah. I mean, I think that we. We haven't had that exact model.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Like, would that even work? I'm just thinking out. Yeah.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: that's a two headed monster, right? So you have a management company of an owner, very active, and the staff just doesn't know where to go. Um, and I think the other thing, Dan, that I think is important is before you come talk to a Lark or whoever, before it was Lifehouse, before you talked to Lark or Lifehouse, you got to understand.

It has to be, there has to be a certain economic return for it to work in that situation. So typically for us, our threshold is, does the property, it's probably going to gross a million and a half or more. And if it is, we'll pay for ourselves and more. If it's smaller than that, it's really hard to make it work because ultimately there are costs that a management company has that an owner [00:50:00] operator doesn't.

Cause an owner operator is the controller, the marketing department, the revenue manager, the groundskeeper, the pancake flipper, all those things. And all the money that would go to those people goes into your pocket. you know, for us, like one of the reasons we're able to out compete people is because we have expert revenue managers, dialed in controllers, a great marketing department, all this stuff that are experts in their field, and they don't have to be an innkeeper.

An innkeeper is a generalist. Otelier is someone who does it all. And that's how, look, fortunately I learned by doing it all. And now I have these great people around me who are smarter and better at their, their tasks, their, their sort of sphere of influence. And so we're better because of that. Um, and so I think it's really appropriate for those million and a half to 10 million revenue projects to be talking to us.

Um, and. Even if you're not seeing it, we're still talk to you. We're still going to help you. And we'll maybe do some underwriting [00:51:00] for you. We do a tremendous amount of underwriting. For free. That doesn't lead anywhere for us because we like, we like to have market data. We like to form relationships. You never know that that person who's getting into a 10 room in today might be in a 50 room hotel three years from now.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Life happens in lots of amazing ways. And again, it brings me back to that idea of being eye to eye and talking and building those relationships. And you know, it's that founder's dilemma from where the founder brings on a CEO. It worked out really well for you and it allows you to probably spend. Your time, your valuable time building those relationships and surveying what's out there so that you can continue to grow your portfolio.

Um, as you look at the map of the United States, New England, California, other spots kind of segmented. Where are you like pretty bullish on these days?

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: it's really [00:52:00] interesting. I feel like there is a great opportunity to continue to model what we've done in new England and every meaningful region. Right? So we're growing. Nicely in Texas right now. There's a ton of interesting stuff in Texas and you have huge population centers that are two, three hour drives away.

I love the Southeast is, you know, the, we, you know, we're in Asheville and, you know, that's where actually where we met, we met in Asheville. Um, so feel, feel bullish about the Southeast, Rocky mountains. We've got a, by virtue of coming together with Lifehouse, a really nice portfolio of properties there.

I think that California is always my favorite. Um, it has so many perils, like constant, constant, like, look, are we going to have an earthquake today or a fire or a mudslide or, um, not be able to get insurance or whatever it may be, but we, I mean, tremendous opportunity there, um, I think Pacific Northwest is right.

I really like the opportunity potentially to go over our [00:53:00] Northern border into Montreal and Vancouver. One of our, one of our projected growth verticals is Mexico, like hubbing out of Mexico city, where we have three hotels now. And you can get on a puddle jumper and go to either coast really quickly for 50 bucks.

So our general idea is we're not just trying to put dots on the map or we're trying to create a hub that we can spoke out from.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: a hub. You're trying to create many hubs, like regional

hub. Oh, that's pretty cool. Cause then you, then you can build up the, um, the people, the bench there, and then you can kind of like. I don't know, move in reinforcements when you need them and grow and recruit locally.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: So Denver is a great hub because not only is it a major airport where we can get out to other spots from, we can fly. And we have people, our, our executive team is all over the country where we're fully remote. So we've got VP of marketing in Vancouver. We've got our VP of Market, our VP of revenue in Montreal, [00:54:00] VP of finances in New Orleans, another marketing team member in Austin.

And so, you know, one of the, even though everyone works in their own expertise, they all have an understanding of everything we do. So if I, if I. Need Allison in New Orleans to take a three hour drive to go look at something for us. She will, gets excited about it. So anyway, I don't know. I think we we're still going back to the idea of building value for stakeholders that we talked a little bit at the beginning.

We're still in the roadmap of what that means when you get outside of the property level, because we, we understand very inherently how to create value at the property level for the owner, for the staff, for the guests. And now for the first time, um, I am in the position of thinking very carefully about how to create value for the stakeholders in the umbrella company.

Uh, because as I mentioned, until this, until December 15th, [00:55:00] I was the only major stakeholder from a financial perspective in Lark, and now we've got, you know, Inovia Comcast and Kayak and Booking. com and all of these people who invested in Lifehouse that are now invested in us. And so the value we create for them, um, needs to be financial, right?

It needs to be, uh, we need to create optionality and, and to do that, we're going to be working on growing our brands, um, and partnering with real estate developers to do that. you know, building out AWOL, which is our, uh, Edge of Luxury brand and Blind Tiger, which is a really bespoke, awesome, small brand and Bluebird, which I think is probably the most scalable one.

Cause it's, it's a mid scale brand. That's like a motel conversion situation, the modern hotel, if you will. Um, and then, and then. Re imagining the Lifehouse brand. So there's a lot of great creative stuff that I'm looking forward to driving value in, um, as we kind of look at the [00:56:00] horizon.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: before we wrap life house, I, I remember their kind of competitive advantage was they had a really interesting kind of revenue management system, right? Or they had like a whole model where they could really do introduce dynamic pricing. And like, How did, how did that tech kind of open your mind to, I don't know, what's possible at all of your properties?

What was, what was the big takeaway or the biggest value add for you?

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: So I'll tell you, first of all, Lifehouse was the company that made me sharpen my pencil more than anyone else, right? Because they were, they created a very straightforward value proposition. We run smaller hotels with better profit margins through great revenue management and back of house services. Our hybrid tech and hospitality company. And so it made us think, made Lark think, who are we? What's our value proposition in relation to our number one competitor, Lifehouse, because we were always competing for management contracts. And so [00:57:00] that's when we really refined our human centric philosophy. And it is, it is not exclusive of the use of tech where we differ.

And Diamond is a great product, by the way, that's the spinoff of the Lifehouse revenue management platform. It's really good. For individual hotels, especially individual hotels that are owner operated because it makes revenue management super easy, um, dynamic pricing and really drives revenue. I have not, I don't have a stake in that at all,

but I can speak. Yeah, we spun that off. we believe that in optionality in tech, and so we use Muse as our booking engine in many ways, because it has an open API that we can plug anything into easily. And so, uh, we use Flywire for hospitality, for revenue management. We use HIA, hotel investor apps for our, um, accounting and they all plug in to Muse.

And so my philosophy on tech and ours is tech is to streamline [00:58:00] things. It's to make our lives easier. And make everything more transparent for every stakeholder. Uh, because if a GM doesn't know what their P& L says, they can't effectively run their business. An owner can't measure the success financially if they don't have on time and accurate financials.

And technology enables that and takes away the friction points. Um, we don't want to have transactional moments. In our human lives. We want the tech to take care of the transactional moments to allow us engage in hospitality. And so that's what I've been learning for life from Lifehouse for five years.

We have a little bit of a different philosophy now as a combined company than they did prior to joining Lark. Um, but it's certainly like the main takeaway that I have is that, that it's important to stay on the cutting edge, which is why I don't believe in enterprise systems that do everything. optionality is key because if something better comes along a better tool, I want to be able to flip out and use that because that's how we [00:59:00] drive value.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: and that's the, the Muse kind of umbrella. And then all these other as technology systems or whatever the offering of the property puts in there, you can always, Oh, let's get rid of that part and plug this part into Muse. And then we have our full,

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: that's and that's another area where, like, if you're making a choice between IHG and LARC, IHG is going to make you use Opera and that's expensive. Like we talked to them at one point, it's going to be 60, 000 to install Opera. Muse is cloud based installed for nothing. And I think that when you, when you work with Lark, you do have to use our, our tech suite because that's how we're efficient and operate and keep costs down.

But. It's, it's so inexpensive. It's insane. It's like a per room cost for each of the things. And

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: mean, that's, That's

that

There is this flexibility because so often I hear tech in hospitality is just so antiquated and so hard to switch over and I'm glad to hear that [01:00:00] MUSE is really making some great strides in making this really an easy button for independent hotels and I don't know, that's pretty exciting.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: I like them a lot. I, and I have to say, I'm not, I'm, I'm fortunately not involved in like the weeds of those decisions or the implementation, which is really great. but it's been, it's been smooth and it's, an exciting move for us.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Awesome. Well, um, This has been really wonderful for me and I'm sure for all of our listeners to just get that owner, soul building, soul designing perspective, um, in the independent space. And I think that we all can learn from it as entrepreneurs, as designers, as architects, as developers. And, um, I just thank you for sharing your experience. Um, if people wanted to learn more about Lark or connect with you, I guess they can try and, um, swipe left or right on LinkedIn with you.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: know. They can certainly connect with me on LinkedIn. I [01:01:00] think. best place, you know, for our, as our web presence. So for our management company and family of brands, it's larkhospitality. com for design, it's elderandash. com and then Lark Hotels is larkhotels. com.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: Perfect. Um, well, I just know how busy you are. Thank you. I'm so grateful for this time and thank you for sharing your experience with all of our listeners. I really appreciate you.

rob-blood--he-him-_1_02-03-2025_094223: My pleasure, Dan, you too.

dan-ryan_46_02-03-2025_094223: And I want to just say thank you to all of our listeners. If this changed the way you think about hospitality, please pass us along. Uh, we grow by word of mouth. We're approaching 200 episodes. It's very exciting. Uh, don't forget to like comment, subscribe, do all that stuff you hear on all the podcasts. Thank you all. And we'll catch you next time.

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