Sean Riley on People-First Culture: Delivering Popsicles, Protecting Values, and Positively Impacting Lives

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspoti and today’s guest is Sean Riley, CEO of Main Course Hospitality Group, a partnership based hotel management company with a people first culture.

Founded in 1986, MCHG delivers strong financial returns for owners while supporting teams who bring hospitality to life. Now over the years, the company has grown from one property to more than two dozen hotels across the US. Under Sean’s leadership, they have expanded their footprint and embraced a culture rooted in integrity, respect, family, and fun.

Now Sean began his journey with MCHG in 1992 as a general manager. With more than four decades of hotel management experience, he is known for reaching out personally to associates, handwriting notes of appreciation, and engaging with employees during holidays. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team,

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contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, the CEO of Main Course Hospitality Group, Sean Riley. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Sean (02:01)
Well thanks, Anthony. This is great to be chatting with a professional. I mean, you’re good. And you look good, you act good, and I love it. we got a lot of fun stuff we can talk about. We chatted a little bit before, and I’m just ready to jump in. Let’s do it.

Anthony Codispoti (02:14)
Let’s

do it. You know, and actually, I’m to go a little bit out of order here because before we started, you were talking about something that really caught my attention. We’re recording this on December 18th, 2025. So right heading into the holidays. And I was asking you what your plans were for Christmas. And what you answered really surprised me. What is it you’re going to be doing on Christmas?

Sean (02:38)
Well, I do this every Christmas, and it’s probably one of the biggest pleasures I have. We have over 700 associates in our company, over 28 hotels, eight states. And there’s people working on Christmas, and that’s a commitment on their part. Now, we pay them extra for it, and there’s benefits for that. But they’re working on Christmas. So I call every hotel, every shift, on Christmas. Now, we have 28 hotels, 27 hotels, and three shifts.

midnight shift, day shift, night shift, and just say, Merry Christmas and thank you for working today. I know it’s a holiday, but I really appreciate it. And the fun thing is, know, some of these people say, you know, Sean, this is the 15th year we’ve talked. You know, that’s good for a night audit. You don’t want to lose night audits because I don’t want to that shift. But, you know, those are the fun things that, to me, I get so much pleasure out of and enjoyment, and ⁓ it’s just exciting. And so we do that. then, you know, it’s like I’m an overachiever. said, OK, well, my Santa suit.

from when I go visit my grandkids when they were younger. And so I started doing that and I’d go out and visit six or seven hotels within a couple hours of us. Again, I’m an early morning guy, so I go in and I go, ho, ho, Sean, I was wondering if you were gonna show up this year. Santa. But it goes back to these people are working on Christmas. It’s a holiday. I make the calls on Thanksgiving as well, but I don’t visit the hotels. And ⁓ they deserve it. And they just, they come to expect it.

And I guess that’s an okay thing. The first time I did it was when we had one hotel and I called three shifts. But when you get 27, it takes a bit more time. But it’s one of the biggest joys I have over the Christmas holidays.

Anthony Codispoti (04:16)
So what are you

just like up all night?

Sean (04:18)
No, no, it’s 3.30. I mean, I get up at 3.30 anyway. So I just call him up and I’ll say, you know, and I’ll make some of the calls in my car if I’m dressed as Santa. So I did get pulled over once and the guy, a police officer, and I’m in the Santa suit. And he said, what are you doing? And I’m thinking, what the heck do you think I’m doing? I got Santa suit on. So I didn’t get arrested though, he was okay. And I did, he asked me, said, wait, can I do a selfie? I thought that’d be so cool for social media. And he said, no, no, I can’t.

He got a little upset when I asked to do a selfie with me, but

Anthony Codispoti (04:49)
Well, I have a feeling we’re going to talk a lot more about company culture as we get into this conversation, just based on that little bit that we covered there. But before we get to that point, I want to understand kind of your entry into the industry, because you actually started out, I believe, as a teacher. Is that right? How did that experience kind of influence the way that you mentor and develop talent today?

Sean (05:05)
I did. Yeah.

Well, know, that’s a great point because you have to think about your career and what you did. And then all of a sudden, start, you know, I’ve had my, I’ve been doing this for many years. I’ve been graduating from the same school I went and taught to, taught at. So I taught kids with special needs, ⁓ but bright, bright kids just had little quirky things going on with them. And I learned from that, those years that you take someone from where they’re at. You know, if this kid could only do math.

It may have couldn’t do math, you let them use the calculator. It’s the concept of what you get now. Or if you couldn’t read, there’s ways to work around that. And you take that student from this point and go to another point, and they learn. So when I look back at that, how did it help me? So when I, we have housekeeping teams that I need to, we need to take from where they’re at. They may have a language barrier, they may have personal issues, they may have life issues. And so you take them from where they’re at, and no two people are alike. But then you take it up a level, you go to assistant managers. It’s the same thing.

General manager, same thing. We’ve got a general manager who’d be so good at the numbers. Someone else who’s so good at loving the people. So it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing. And even when you get to ⁓ the senior corporate people, they’re the same thing. They’re all operate different. They have their strengths and weaknesses. You just got to take them from where they’re at.

Anthony Codispoti (06:26)
And how do you, maybe this is the wrong way to ask the question, and I think you’ll let me know if it is. How do you understand where somebody’s ceiling is? So you can get an idea of where they are now and where they can get to.

Sean (06:40)
I don’t think we can determine that right away. think you have to do it’s the Peter princel. I mean I shouldn’t probably shouldn’t be in the role I’m in. I rose to my level of incompetence a few jobs ago. But I think what I have is the ability to read people and look at it. to me my job I can’t read everybody we have on a company because that’s too large. But it’s reading the people in between and helping them understand. I think they I’m real fortunate to be surrounded by people that are really good at that. And when it goes back to what our values are is the positive purpose is to positively impact lives.

If we keep that as our focus, we’re going to look for ways to take it to where they want to go. Now, some people are very happy just doing what they did, and they’ve done the job for 20 years. And that’s great. But we want to make sure that we ask that question. When they’re doing the reviews, are you happy with what you’re doing? Do you want to do more? And that’s part of the way we get people out of that. And there are other people that are raising their hand all the time. Those are the ones that easy to pick out. But it’s the other ones, kind of the sleepers. like, jeez, we should have said something to them years ago. Or we have pushed people into a role that they probably weren’t ready for.

Anthony Codispoti (07:40)
Mm.

Sean (07:41)
That’s

the other thing. So that’s why you have to be really cautious because you don’t want to set them up.

Anthony Codispoti (07:44)
Yeah. So whether they’re raising their hand or you’re kind of identifying them as folks that, you know, could use some advancement, could use some help in getting from here to there. What does that then mentoring or that coaching or that teaching process look like at main course?

Sean (07:59)
I think it’s taking it step by step. And some people raise their hand, they might not be ready. And that’s okay. And that’s where the coaching comes in as well. And when I was a GM or a front office manager, I was doing those things on a daily basis and sitting by side. But I think a lot of our senior leaders are doing the same thing. They’re sitting down there coaching and they talk about that and they write it down. What do you want to do? And then you kind of map out a plan. We’re not going to say you’re a housekeeper today or a front desk person. We’re going to give you a map through your…

the general manager and corporate entity. We’re not, gonna say you’re gonna be, let’s get you, are you helping the people you’re working with? You know, mean, a lot of this doesn’t mean a job change. It just means if you’re assisting your coworkers, if all of a sudden you earn the respect of your coworkers, then it’s like you’re kind of get doing the job without getting anything about it and all of a sudden you’re proving yourself. And that’s one of the things I think most of the senior leaders in our company, including me, I was doing the job whatever level I was at.

before I got the title, before I really had the job. And that’s when it’s like, you’ve got a safety net there now. If someone’s raising their hand, they’re doing the job and they’re already doing it, then it’s easy. Then people will say, well, it’s about time you should have had that job. And that’s what they’d say to me. And they’d say, okay, well, he should have had that title, whatever it is. But there’s a lot of people who done that. And then what you do is you’re not afraid of, oh, what happens if they don’t make it? Now you gotta cut them back and put them in a different role. So you’re kind of giving them that, letting them get their feet wet. And they may find out they don’t like it.

And that’s okay too, because then they can do what they always wanted, what they always did.

Anthony Codispoti (09:32)
I mean, life is as much about figuring out which hats don’t fit as which hats do fit, right? So let’s talk about your own path. How did you get from being a teacher into the hospitality space?

Sean (09:36)
Yeah. Right.

Well, teachers need summer jobs. And I had a gentleman ⁓ we talked to, he would go to our church and he said, you know, I’m thinking of buying this little motel. And the name, we’ll just tell you about when it was in the hierarchy of hotels. It was called Slumberland. It had a seahorse on the sign. There was 19 rooms and my wife and I were teachers and we were just gonna have a child. So I left teaching, I mean, she left teaching and was gonna stay at home with the kids. And we ran a motel.

And it was only open summers and weekends through the fall. And so we did everything there. had like one housekeeper to help us, and we did everything else. And we had one night a week off. We were wealthy at that point. I mean, we were getting $4,000 a year for two of us to run that motel. But it taught us the things. I I did the plumbing. My wife did the accounting. She did the housekeeping. We both did these things. And we learned a lot from the ground. And then we had one employee. So that was how we learned how to deal with employees.

But that was the start. And then each time we moved on to a little larger hotel, a little larger hotel, we’d get more of the interaction with associates. I wrote something somewhere recently. was on a blog, I think. And the things we did when we had one employee and the way those employees reacted, it’s no different than having 700. It’s just there’s more of them. And so it was, they want the same thing. They need the same thing.

If you treat it as if you’re talking, if you’re a one person hotel company, that’s the way they want to be treated. Even though there’s 700 of them, how can you make them feel like this company’s revolving around them? Now, I don’t have all the answers. I can’t do that with 700, but if that message comes across, and we’re always talking about that, and impacting the lives of our associates, then maybe 600 of them are going to feel impacted and positive.

Anthony Codispoti (11:38)
That’s really cool. So how did the opportunity to join Main Course Hospitality Group come about?

Sean (11:44)
Well, so I was moving that career and I finally gave up teaching, gave my notice and I actually had to leave abscess to make sure it’s what I wanted to do. Yep, I liked it. And then as soon as I gave my final notice, the placement on the market, I had to find something else. I had to move my family and that was probably one of those down times. know, people when you’re in a position like mine, it’s, you all this guy’s done this, he’s done well and he’s done all this and he just got there easily. And that was a tough thing. I had to move my family. I didn’t know what we’re going to do. And I took a big step.

40 % cut and pay, moved to a different area. And ⁓ when I got there, I OK, I’ve found my place. This is going to be it. A little bit later, the guy I ended up having financial problems, the guy that I moved to had financial problems. And he turned the hotel over to the bank in lieu of foreclosure. That was during the savings and loan crisis. so then we worked for a bank for two years. And then these two guys, were, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (12:38)
So the place stayed open. It was just under control of the bank, okay?

Sean (12:42)
It did very well. I mean this was this that was one of his the crazy things the savings and loans crisis people just calling You know loans and this place always did well, but so then my these two guys who are Young bachelor the older bachelors and just having a blast and they were restaurant guys and they say hey Let’s buy this boat listen by this hotel and they bought it and that was the introduction to main course that was the free port and I was back in the 90 I guess somewhere in the 90s early 90s inch and they

They all of a sudden, said, you know what, we’re making more money in this hotel than we are in any one of our restaurants. And then we did two hotels. And they said, jeez, these two hotels are making more money than all our restaurants. And we’re losing money in some of the restaurants. So they said, let’s stop moving down that path. And so that’s how we kind of get going. And over time, we divested of the restaurants and just focused on hotels. was a business decision. loved the rest. I love the restaurant business. It’s exciting, but it’s a lot of hard work. We go home smelling whatever food we were serving that night. ⁓

And when you sell a restaurant, it’s different than when you sell a hotel. hotel, you have an asset. When you sell a restaurant, you’re selling the business and the name. And so isn’t necessarily as you don’t get a good exit strategy. So that grew. And we did our first Marion in 04 and our first Hilton in 06. And then we kind of focused mostly in those ranges with Hilton and Marion franchising. And so that’s kind of how we get into that. And then the main course was something. I had a boss. He was the president of the company. And he was a great mentor.

great man and when he chose to leave and I took over, I was scared to death. I mean he was the most positive guy and the inspirational guy and I had big shoes to fill. you know, we did and we talked about it a lot as a group and we did okay. We became a hotel company.

Anthony Codispoti (14:29)
So I want to back up. First to the time where you were sort of in limbo, right, in between. You had entered the hospitality space, tried it out for a year, then put in your full notice, great, this is what I’m going to do. And then all of a sudden you’re without a job. And we kind of glossed over it. You touched on it a little bit, but that loss of…

employment, loss of income, loss of identity, that’s a real struggle to get through, especially, you know, you’ve got a young family at that point.

Sean (15:00)
Yeah, exactly. I think, I guess what you do is you look back and you say, okay, we didn’t do anything wrong. It was the situation we’re in. And I mean, there were two of those back to back because the first one I lost, I I left the job because it was gonna be sold. And the second one I went into, you know, it wasn’t bankruptcy, but in the foreclosure. we ended up, each one of those things, yeah, we just kind of had to take it day by day.

And it’d be gut wrenching. thinking, what am going to do with my family? What’s going to happen? my kids, they were kind of young. I’d take them to school and drop them off. And I had a little Ford Escort wagon. And it had a backup beeper. And it was a sick sounding thing. And I’d pull up to school and go, ⁓ My kids, dad, don’t get anywhere into the building. But we had nothing. And we were afraid of losing what little we did have. And it just really took us, my wife and I, we worked together. And it was really hard to.

say we’ve got to get through this and we’re going to be fine no matter what we do. In the worst case, we know we can get a job. We just don’t know where or what it’s going to be. And I think we just had to believe in ourselves and we had to believe that this was going to be okay. what’s I think a byproduct of this is when we buy a hotel now or a hotel is for sale and we’re looking at it and we’re going to buy a hotel, which we do at least once a year, I can relate to those people and what they’re going through.

Because I went through that without not knowing if I was going to have a job any day someone came through for a tour and I didn’t know what to say to them. I don’t want to make it sound too good because they might, you know, I don’t make it sound too bad. And it was really, really gut wrenching to go through that. And our associates did too. And so I can relate. And when we’re talking to the teams and I said, I know what you’re going through. It’s not because I’m trying to say I’m empathetic or anything. I went through that. I know what you’re going through. And I got through it okay. And we did fine. And I think you will too. And I promise you, we’re going to earn you respect over this time.

you know this time because that’s what’s going to make a difference and you join in our family, MaineCause family.

Anthony Codispoti (17:00)
And so are you owning all of the hotels that you’re also operating or do you operate as a manager, management company for some other folks that own the hotel properties?

Sean (17:10)
We do both. So when we began, was two guys beating Paul. I mean, they crazy. mean, the corporate name was Dorks R Us. And then they had a separate one that’s Dorks Unlimited. And then Twinkie Maker. I mean, they just, they were crazy bachelors. Had fun. You know, as we started getting a little more size in business, mean, if you go and pay a credit card at a restaurant, have to give them the whole story about the restaurant, Dorks R Us. Go to insurance, here comes Dorks Unlimited. So I lost the question. Oh, the…

What was the question? I just get killed on that. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (17:42)
I lost it too. I don’t

know. You took me down with you. ⁓ are you a management company or do you do your own properties?

Sean (17:46)
It docks it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so when we started out, was just the two guys and everything was 50-50. And then we started saying, one of the guys bought one and then he bought another. And so we started a management company. I mean, we’re all kind of, we’re all dogs, but we started a management company. was a little, that was make or a hospitality group, just the entity. so then we had somebody ask us if we’d manage for them. And we said, sure. So.

Right now, I think we have eight managed properties. We have sliver equity, and we put equity in every one of them because we’re showing that we want skin in the game. But the other ones, we have majority interest between multiple partners, myself or the other two partners, or a CFO. We’ve actually opened it up to other leaders in the company, too, if they’d like to be in the acquisitions. so we manage for those people. We manage as if we own it. I think that’s what kind of separates us in some cases. A lot of times, management companies are purely management companies. But we know what it’s like to

have to pay the mortgage. We know what it’s like when things go awry or there’s a hurricane. You’ve got to deal with things. It’s not a big corporate thing. We know because we operate hotels. And so that, think, is a benefit. I think that’s appreciated by our third-party partners. And what’s nice is that most of our partners, they had one hotel when they started with us. And now they have two, or they have three, or they have four. And that’s a nice thing. And actually, few of them are buying into the hotels that we have. And they’re buying in. So it didn’t start out that way. It started out we were a management company.

know, a percentage of, you know, the percentage we charge them. And we have a contract. Some of the contracts we have now, we just, you know, it’s like, there’s no outs. We don’t need it. They want to get rid of us. They do, but they don’t, and we don’t go. And so it’s just a great, it goes back to that, the culture we have. And I think they believe in what we believe in. And that’s a nice thing to have. When you choose partners, you want to choose people who are going to be no one like you, and you no one like them. And you don’t have to worry about, I mean, I just don’t shake a hand saying, go, let’s go get it. Let’s go start a business, but you got to get legal. So, but so I’d say,

Anthony Codispoti (19:42)
Yeah. ⁓

Sean (19:43)
the majority but we operate them you wouldn’t know none of our people probably some of our people don’t even know that it’s third party just because you know within our company.

Anthony Codispoti (19:51)
Yeah, interesting. So what are some of the personality traits that you’re looking for in a business partnership?

Sean (20:00)
You know, when people call and say, hey, I want to talk to you about Manage That Place. And they said, well, how much do you charge? And I said, well, I don’t know. I said, let’s get together and talk. He said, well, I just want to know what you charge. I said, well, it’s going to depend on what you. You’re going to find out if you like us. It makes no sense to talk about money if you don’t like us or vice versa. And I think we try to look for people who have the same way they want to treat associates. mean, obviously, it’s a big deal. We want to make more money by having more revenues.

but not if it’s not gonna work. We had one recently that, I probably shouldn’t get too deep into the story, but the guy was quite outgoing. you know, Jonathan and I, the guy that was, we’re not drinkers, and he kept wanting us to drink with him. And we said, this is truth, sir. And I said, well, we tell the truth either way. But at the end of the day, this was six, four hours at a dinner, which was, you know, we weren’t drinking, but someone else was.

But when we left, Jonathan was new to us. he said, Sean, what do you think? He said, there could be some money there. said, yeah, I know. do we want our people to be, when you go to one of our galas with our leaders, to have somebody feel uncomfortable with a partner who doesn’t fit who we are and what we believe in? And he said, that’s the healthiest thing. He’s like, yeah, so we lost a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. It didn’t matter to us because it didn’t infect the people we really love and know on our team.

Anthony Codispoti (21:22)
That’s powerful. Yeah. I mean, OK, if this guy wants to have a drink with dinner, but for him to be pushing it on you because he wants he wants the truth serum, he wants the truth to come out. That’s saying something.

Sean (21:30)
⁓ that’s even nice.

And it

wasn’t even a wonder. I’ll get offline and tell you the rest. But ⁓ it taught us something about we stand for our principles, we stand with our people, and if we do that all the time, then they can count on us. Now, we can make mistakes too, I’m sure. We could partner with someone who’s not. And we’ve had partners who have done that, but not in this part of our company. So I think just stand true to our principles, what we stand for. And then it’s kind of going back to that and say,

Anthony Codispoti (21:40)
Okay.

Sean (22:04)
Is this going to help our culture to join with this team? And if it is, then we don’t want it.

Anthony Codispoti (22:08)
Yeah.

Well, I mean, part of your mission statement includes positively impacting lives. Can you wrap that in like a real life story that helps to illustrate that?

Sean (22:23)
Yeah, couple so I we we acquired a hotel and we had it about five years and I write birthday cards for all our associates and that you know, so we Well 700 that work for us and 300 who left the job and came back or that kind of thing This is about a thousand a year and someone else pulls them together for me I don’t do the mailing and all that but you know when you come in your desk and get 70 birthday cards And I don’t just say John I don’t stamp it. I mean I say hey Anthony

Anthony Codispoti (22:34)
All 700 of them.

Sean (22:52)
Happy birthday. Hope it’s a great one. It great talking the other day or sometimes it’s pretty generic because I might not even know who they are with 800 people, 700 people. So I do it every year. And I went to this one hotel and the housekeeper, the laundry lady comes in and she’d been there for 20 years or something. And she came out, I need to show you something. I’m like, oh God, she’s going tell me she needs a new washer. She’s not happy with the table or something like that. And I go in and goes, look at that. Look at that. She’s tapping on the wall. And I went around there and I looked up closely.

It was the birthday cards for the last five years. And then a couple notes that she received from me or the general manager or something. She goes, that’s why I love this here. And it just, as I’m doing that 70 birthday cards, I walk in and I’m like, ah, shoot, look at all those things. But in reality, look what that did. She’s saving those on a wall. This is a 65-year-old woman that’s proud of getting a note from the CEO.

So that was one thing. The other one, relative to the birthday cards too, is that I had a, like I said, I do those things on a regular basis and I went out and visited a hotel and a lot of times they’ll say, hey, thanks Sean, they’ll see me. Hey, thanks for sending me a birthday card. Someone else will say, they’ll send me a text. Hey, I really appreciate the birthday wishes. Well, I went to this one hotel and the guy said, hey Sean, I just want to thank you for the birthday card. They all did that. I said, well, that’s great. really am glad. I’m glad you meant something to her. said, no, no, Sean, I want to tell you.

It really was important. I said, well, good, I’m glad. that makes me feel good. He said, Sean, I I really mean it because I come home every day on my birthday. Every time I have a birthday, I come home and I go to the mailbox and my mother’s always got a kind event for me. And she didn’t have one this year. And so then I’m getting, my God. And he said, the only thing in that mailbox was your card. And I still get choked up talking about it. It’s such a…

That guy needed that. And then he said, and furthermore, my girlfriend just broke up with me. And I came home and the only thing that was in there was your birthday card. So as much as I think, okay, there’s two hours of my life, every once a month on a Saturday, sign a birthday card. Those are the kinds of things that matter. And that’s where the positively impacting lies. We don’t know at my level or any level how we’re impacting lives when we do something, whether it be a note or a card or a call or a text.

you know, to someone who’s sick, or someone’s in the hospital, something like that. Those two stories really remind me of how important what we do every day for our team and for our family. Make a difference.

Anthony Codispoti (25:26)
So I have to assume that a big part of what makes all of this work, this ⁓ people engine, is that you’re leading by example. And your leaders, the folks that report to you, they’re seeing this, they’re following your example. But how else does this get communicated down through the ranks? That, hey, this is the way…

that we run main course hospitality group. This is the way that we treat people.

Sean (25:59)
You know, it’s not a 100 % success rate. I mean, it doesn’t get all the way through the organization. Not everybody does that. We have leadership meetings, and that’s always on the scub. Now, when I go to visit hotels, it’s always the conversation with the GMs. And if I run into the housekeepers, if I run into the assistant managers, I talk culture, I talk about values. And somehow I’m going to mention the word family, because that’s one of our values. And my behavior.

shows the fun. I always do crazy stuff. the integrity and respect is you go in there, you’re asked for it, we buy a hotel. One of the first things I say is my job now is to just earn your respect. You don’t have to give me respect. I want to earn it. And I think, yes, it does get passed down if people pick up on that. I think when we’re all in the same boat, we’re all believing the same thing, and we all talk about it, and we believe in it, it just oozes out of not just me. I mean, I’m part of it. There’s no question I’m part of it.

But I’m not the older guy. And I’ve said for years, if I got hit by a bus, would this culture live on? And I’m positive it will. we do social media within, know, in team social media, know, a main course Facebook, a main course website. do, so we have a gala, which has all our leaders with their spouses or significant others, vendors, and it’s a great event. We have like 200 people there. And we always do some, we do fun stuff. And…

I think what tells people about that kind of thing oozes our culture and what we stand for. I have a tendency to have fun and we do our videos. I’ll probably send you one. I’ll send you one of those. But the videos are really ⁓ just down to earth. Here’s the CEO acting like a geek. I was Bruno Mars one year. I was Justin Timberlake another year. This year was probably our best production because we used some people, some students from a college, and they helped put us through the recording. ⁓

I was cool in the gang. We were cool in the gang and I was cool. it was just, but you know what? It goes back to saying, and when I go out and we go recording some of these videos at hotels, I’m standing there side by side with the people and we’re having a blast. We’re laughing and we’re giggling and we’re watching someone dance silly. So it goes, so yes, I do that, but so do others. We have a thing that started, you talk about when we first started with the first hotel, I was a G, I was a front office manager. And it’d be a hot day in the summer. And I said, I’m gonna bring popsicles.

I’m going go out and get popsicles and go around and give it to each housekeeper and each front desk person. And you think that you’ve given them gold. And it’s just a popsicle. So you do one hotel, two hotels, 10 hotels. It started getting out of way for me to be able to do that. I to 15 hotels. So now we start our people that report to me, the ops leaders, and then they would do it. Now, when we do it, someone said one time, but you’re going out and say, here’s a popsicle. I know today’s really a hot day, but thank you for what you’re doing.

So one person told me one time, and I’ll never forget she said it, she said, Sean, you’re so cheap. It’s a Popsicle. It’s like 29 cents. And then I started feeling bad. I’m like, well, am I being cheap? And then I went back and I said, no. And I wrote a blog about it. I said, it’s not about the POP. It’s about the CEO or the corporate operations person going out and saying, thank you for what you’re doing. And it’s just, it’s crazy. So then we’d build a construction, a hotel right next to where we operate. I went and gave it to contractors. They almost started crying.

They said, thank you so much. And these are contractors. They’re up there spitting and swearing and everything, and they’re just getting excited about a popsicle. But it goes back to that same thing. don’t know what you’re Yeah. Thank you for what you’re doing today. I know it’s hot. And it’s a gratitude thing.

Anthony Codispoti (29:29)
It’s the gesture.

It’s a human moment. It’s an opportunity for connection, expressing your gratitude. I see you, I recognize what you’re doing and I appreciate it.

Sean (29:46)
Yeah, it’s authenticity, think. It’s like authentic. mean, what CEO or what corporate person is going to hand you a popsicle? And if you told someone that, you’d think how nutty we were. But it’s amazing the reaction you get, whether it be a popsicle, a birthday card, or a call at midnight. And it just goes back to that. You do things like that for your family. You give your kids popsicles. You write them birthday notes. You do that thing. And we’re just a bigger family than most. We’ve got 700 in our family.

And that word family is, we’ve got a family within, we all have our personal families and we value that and we try to make sure people take care of their families. But we have a housekeeping family at this hotel, we have one at this hotel, we have a whole company family, and we’ve got a corporate family. So that’s a big deal for us.

Anthony Codispoti (30:34)
I love this. I want to pause just for a second to draw even more attention to what we’re talking about here. Because, you know, whether you’re, you know, you’re in a position of leadership like you are, and you’re doing this for your company and your employees, or you’re just doing it for folks around you in your community. I mean, hearing your stories about how positively affected how emotional some people get because of a popsicle, right? It’s not the popsicle. It’s not the 29 cents that you spend at Target.

It’s the human gesture. It’s being recognized, having that authentic human moment. What a beautiful thing if we all did just pause for a second in our day and showed that kind of recognition to somebody around us with a popsicle, with a card, with a kind comment or a word, right?

Sean (31:24)
Absolutely. think and you know, I I look at my next career my next part of my life. I’m kind of mature now But you know, how can I do that? Maybe in some other way some other vehicle some way that we all can make the world better I mean that sounds pretty grandiose, but you know, takes one person It only takes that housekeeper who got five birthday cards on a wall or that guy whose mother didn’t send him a birthday card

In all those things, one person is really, and I’m probably gonna be okay for the rest of my life if I just impact one person a day. But add up, I use this example, add up 700 people in our company and they all impact one person a day. Times 700, times 365 days a There’s a lot of people impacted. And you don’t know if it’s that person you impacted or the person’s child or the person’s mother. Or you don’t know if it was just a funeral and you did something like that. So those things, it just takes a gesture and an effort.

And I know that my job’s pretty busy too. People say, well, I’m really busy. And it’s OK. But what’s it take when I’m driving to my car to call up and just say hi to a GM or someone who just had a gal on our team that just had surgery for cancer? Just call her up. Tell her I’m thinking. I’m going say a prayer for her. And she wasn’t there. And I hung up. But you don’t know. You don’t know what that’s going to do. Is that going to help her? Or is she just going to go, wow, I needed that today? You don’t know.

Anthony Codispoti (32:45)
Yeah.

You reference the next chapter in your life. Are you thinking about future steps here?

Sean (32:53)
I am. I, you know, I’m, like I said, I’m mature. If you see this is a video on right. So can see my gray hair and the wrinkles and all that. But yeah, definitely. Oh man. Yeah, I think I think we’ve started a succession planning. We have someone that could step into this role. And what we’re trying to do is make sure it’s right because it’s so critical for us to take care of people. The rest of the family. It’s not just Sean.

Anthony Codispoti (33:02)
We see how good looking you are. There’s no hiding it.

Sean (33:21)
moving on to something different or moving on to a different role within the company or whatever it might be. But we want to do it right. We don’t want people to be afraid that Sean’s going to leave a hole. so I prefaced, in a previous conversation I talked about, I walked part of the Camino de Santiago. It’s a trail and I spent a lot of time reflecting and thinking about it. And every day I kept going, okay, I put my hands up and said, there’s the epiphany. And it wasn’t the next day. Then the next day, no epiphany.

But I think what I came out of it was saying maybe I need to talk to the people within our teams and our company that really value who we are and what we stand for and say, what are you afraid of? Not that anybody can’t handle the job. We can get anybody to handle the job. We’ve got a great person who can handle the job. But what might make it a little easier for people to deal with that kind of transition? So we did, and I got 10 people that all gave me their real heartfelt information. And I think there’s certain areas that they don’t want anything to slip by. And one is the culture.

And one is that we are a management company that they came to join because of who we are and how we do things. Some of the people, I have longevity is crazy, and it’s like 20 years for a lot of our GMs. And those are the ones who say, we don’t want to mess this up. We got here because of who we are. Now we got to change. We have to evolve. We have to use technology. We have to do things differently. And the world is changing. But we still don’t want to lose that. And so how do we make sure that we don’t? Embrace that piece of our company, the culture.

the, you know, what we stand for. And that’s, it was really rewarding for me feeling like that meant that much to those people. wasn’t Sean, they were saying they don’t want there to be a hole. And so I think over the next six months or year, I’m gonna spend a lot of time working on filling the gaps or filling the holes and then embracing the people around it into a deeper part of our organization. So it’s not just Sean. Yes, someone has to lead it and embrace it and Jonathan will be able to do that. But it’s got to go deeper than that.

It’s got to go to the obsolete is but then it’s got to go to the GM’s and then get those GM’s general managers in our language it so the general managers have so much They can do for their teams and a lot of them brace it and a great at it But we just want to make sure more of us are so that when Sean steps away I could just step away because this is my identity. I’ve been here 37 years. This is my identity when someone talks main course they talk Sean and People recognize me as main course now it isn’t me. It’s all of us but

it’s still something I’ve got to get over. And the best way I can do that is to embrace the fact that maybe I can make it better when I do step away and make it better for them. And so they can take the culture to the next level. It could go much further, I’m sure, with them, 10, 20, 50 people embracing culture.

Anthony Codispoti (36:07)
So you’re trying to set them up for future success once you step into whatever the next thing is. What do you think the next thing might be for you?

Sean (36:16)
positively impacting lives in another way. And I don’t know what that is. I have to prepare myself for my future. I read a book called Strength to Strength. ⁓ I lost his name, but Strength to Strength. And it talks about different parts of your career. And the first part, you’re striving, you’re getting faster, and you’re doing a lot of stuff. You’re articulate, you’re fast, you’re quick with memory, you’re quick with everything you do, you’re creative. And that goes on to your 20s and 30s. And then you get into your 40s and it levels off. And then 50s, slows down.

But at that same point, there’s another curve that’s coming up. And that’s the things, the EQ, the emotional IQ, the ability to inspire, the ability to see visionary, think a little differently. And so it’s a different mindset, because I can’t remember. I probably say your name wrong three times in this thing before it’s over. But what I can do is impact you maybe and try to help you in some way or help you listeners. And I think those are the areas that I do have strengths in.

that have kind of been over it. I’m not moving the boxes. I used to work side by side with all the housekeepers and the maintenance guys and I’d move stuff and I’d snow blow outside. I’m not doing it anymore. My body’s not ready for it. And I can’t remember much, but I can use those new skills that I have and utilize them better for the betterment of our company. And so I think part of it’s gonna be for the benefit of our company and our legacy as a company, but also for maybe there’s something further than that. And I don’t know what that is, but I think

Right now I’m really exploring what I can do best for our people. 700 people, what will be 800 people by another year, 900 people by another. And how can I set that up? And maybe that’s still part of it is like, if we’re getting now instead of 700 people impacting lives, maybe we have 800. I am still somehow impacting people through that legacy.

Anthony Codispoti (38:02)
You know, you mentioned ⁓ people don’t want things to change, right? They love the culture that’s there. Obviously, in your words, you have to continue to evolve as times change. What are some of the big changes that are occurring now in your industry?

Sean (38:19)
in the industry. think technology, I think there’s a fear of technology. I mean, everybody embraces it. mean, you’ve to do that. But I think some of the fears of technology are, it’s going to take away jobs. And we’re just going to be a bunch of, we’re going to go up and check in at a kiosk or something. I think what in our industry, I mean, we’re in hospitality. There’s a difference in service and hospitality. Service is you bring a coffee cup to a guy and you’re the person and you boil the coffee.

Hospitality is recognizing that they’re left-handed and they turn the cup from six o’clock to eight o’clock so they can just grab it. That’s that extra bit of hospitality. So if I’m spending my time, someone checking in and going through 12 steps to get them just to find out where their reservation is, another 12 steps to get them checked in and then go over and make their key. Now, if you can tap technology, utilize there, when you check in, I can say, thank you for joining us. I’m really glad you’re here today, Anthony. See, I forgot your name already when I was doing that.

Thank you, Anthony, for checking in. I know you were here last week, and I really appreciate that. How’s your kids? I know you talked about that one of them had a soccer game. That’s what hospitality is about. And so if we can embrace technology enough so that, yeah, you’re still going to, I I am mature, and I always say that you don’t get old as long as you’re relevant. So I have to stay relevant in this technology stuff. I think if people can, we can take away those soft spots that take time that people don’t want.

They just don’t want it. Make it easier for them. Then they’re to come back to, what restaurant would you go to, Sean? Where would I go? What’s the best place to go for a walk? Where can I go for a jog? What’s a good, I got to get my flat tire fixed. Where do I go? That’s what we can do to give the hospitality. So it gives, I think it creates, but the fear is that first of all, it’s a cost and there’s a fear of people losing their jobs with AI. I mean, I use AI and it does so much for me. And by using AI, frees me up to do other things so I can make those calls. Well.

Anthony Codispoti (40:15)
Make those calls, write those birthday cards. Yeah, have that personal connection.

Sean (40:17)
Yeah.

I do believe in, there is a segment. mean, yes, you can use AI, you can use technology, you can do all this stuff and send out birthday cards, and if we all go out, the difference is, I think, when you make it personalized. So you just choose your weapons. AI and technology is amazing, and you need to use it. We do it in our county. What used to take 10 steps now takes two. And that’s great. And nobody’s lost a job.

Now they can just double check things or they can be better or they can go next door and talk to the person next to them because there’s a little more time.

Anthony Codispoti (40:50)
You know, and that’s where I hear a lot of business leaders who are very people centric talk about AI, not as a tool to be able to replace people, but a tool to be able to support their people, to allow them to accomplish more and to focus on the parts of their job that really require that human interaction, whether it’s just the human interaction in terms of being able to critically assess something or that

human to human interaction, you know, like a lot of your front desk workers would have. That’s the kind of human to human touch that you don’t want to lose.

Sean (41:28)
Yeah, absolutely. I talk about AI, so back to my transformation into a new person, you know, in a bit of time. So I had the 10 people, and I had taken notes, and I put it up on a Word document. I said, how am going to get through this and try to figure out what each one of these men and how it happened? I said, well, let me try it. So I went on the co-pilot, copied it, said I told the AI what I was doing, what I had planned to do, how I did it, and then how do I, now what do I do? And then I clicked Go.

Whatever and it came back and it gave me the top key areas that are between ten people what things that were causing angst what things that people would like what people don’t want to lose and what they do want to get and how they want to be better and then it said now these are some steps you can go through and this is what you can do Sean to do this and I’m like whoa That was cool. But and it so I it basically it was all the people side of things It was one-on-one and I cried they cried I mean because some of these you know, we’ve worked together for 20 years. So there was a lot of

in those conversations and that didn’t come through in that thing but I knew that but the things that they said and then it really zeroed in on the things that are important to me and that was what really made me feel good is that they took all those things it was the culture it was the values it was the taking care of it guardrails how can we have guardrails for the company so they don’t get away from what’s gotten us to where we are now we’ve done okay you know we went from one hotel and two million dollars to

$125 million and we’re okay. But we can still get better. doesn’t mean we’re gonna get really, we don’t care about development for this. I think there was a question about growth strategy. We don’t really have a strategy for growth. We have a way if growth happens. I think our first step was, and I’m getting off track of what you were saying, but I think the strategy that we have is we wanna choose things that are gonna not impact negatively our culture. So if we buy a 10 pack of hotels, we’ve got some investors that we could do that.

But is that gonna throw a real wrench into who we are and then we’re not taking care of our 700 original people? So we try to make sure that that’s not gonna impact us negatively. And then make sure our investors get a return. And it doesn’t mean we’re gonna cut prices or take advantage of people or anything like that. We’re just gonna say, we know where we stand and what we’ll do. And then the part of it is embracing those people that we just brought into our family. We just bought a hotel in Saratoga, New York a month ago and we talk about it. We say, we wanna welcome you to our family and we’re gonna earn your respect.

But we’re going to take some time. We’re going to get to know you and we want to embrace it. It’s OK to be nervous. And Sean was nervous because I was in the same boat. And then we’re going to get them into our family. And then some of our people that we’ve brought into our company have risen in their roles. And we only bought them three years ago. So those are great examples to share with the people.

Anthony Codispoti (44:16)
It’s interesting how you talk about your growth strategy. What I think I heard there was, can we get a return for our investors, but can we do it in a way that’s not going to mess up our culture? It’s sort of like one A and one B. Those are the questions that you ask.

Sean (44:31)
Absolutely, and I think the reason being is we know what got us here and we don’t want a waiver on that And we don’t really want a waiver and giving an investment because these investors are gonna put money in and they want a certain return And if we screw it up there goes our growth strategy so those two things are just so critical and then it both and so that’s affecting our associates and affecting our Investors and ownership and if we take care of both of those and mr. Mara said it well if you take care of the associates The associates will take care of the guests

and the guests will keep coming back. If that happens, we’ll all make more money, including our investors. But we have to go back to taking care of our associates in the right

Anthony Codispoti (45:12)
Sean, in my experience, some of our biggest growth opportunities come from overcoming our biggest challenges. What is a big challenge that you’ve had to overcome? And what did you learn going through that process?

Sean (45:28)
⁓ Well, this is a bunch. because I’ve been doing this for a number of years. some that have seemed big before aren’t as big now. That job I didn’t have or that chance that someone is going to buy us, it was scary. And it was scary then. But it’s not quite as scary now. think 9-11 was a big scare. ⁓ That really impacted the industry. We didn’t know how much. mean, those days that it happened, it was just horrific. But then the savings alone, I mean, the…

the great recession. That was scary because we said, okay, we’re gonna, you I took a cut and pay and we froze wages and did all that stuff. And, you know, the banks were just gonna come at you and it was just pretty scary. But we got through it. ⁓ But then COVID hit. And COVID was a scary thing because no one had a clue. And what is it gonna impact our business? What’s gonna happen? I was at a meeting in ⁓ Memphis.

with Hilton and they came on and they said, this is what we’re gonna have to do. These are the things we’re gonna, you didn’t know whether you handshake, hug, put sanitizer on, there were no masks or anything. And it was just no one knew. was, and I flew home, was nobody in the airport when I got home. It was just impactful. so then we started saying, what do we have to do? And we said, how do we take care of our people, but still keep our business? And so we came up with, and this was a team of us, and I remember sitting in hotel, because we were ready to open a hotel.

during this time. had a hotel already, the staff was there, we were training, when they’re coming in we said, okay, no more handshakes, we’ll just do fist bumps, we’ll do elbow bumps. And we still had a couple meetings during this time. But it got worse and worse, and we saw it was, and then what happened, was the…

municipalities and the cities and the states were hunkering down and not letting us operate. So we had to shut down, you know, some of them. So we probably said, I think we probably had the time maybe set 18 hotels, maybe 20 hotels, and we shut down like 14 of them. But we found a way to be able to take care of people. Now that was the, our frontline associates were getting the premium unemployment thing and they were all whole. Even our leaders though, we tried to make, we made them whole by

making sure that they got insurance and if they were ever, they were not down. we covered, so they were whole. They had insurance and they had, and we kept the hotels there. We weren’t operating, we kept them there. But I remember sitting there trying to make these decisions. How do you take care of the people but still maintain your business? And then once we got going, I think what I found, we started lightening it up a little bit. I found it really inspirational. We started working with the brands, Hilton and Marriott.

Serving our committees. What are we all going to do? It wasn’t what if franchisee is going to do what’s Hilton going to do? It’s what are we going to do? We got to get out of this together. What can we do to help the guests but make sure that we’re not losing our shirt and we’re going to go out of business because they were scared. mean, Marriott went from 90 to 10 percent of what they had. You know, it’s unbelievable. So they would work together. There was a lot of synergies between Marriott and us because we have Marion and Hilton and us. And I probably, you know, you know, that’s when teams and Zoom really came.

came to be is during that time. And it was resilient, the ideas that people had, what can we do? How can we do things different? How do we do the rules? What are we doing? We had our people working on it. had some, we kind of had our ⁓ COVID czar, one of the guys on our team. And he was looking for safety and security and all that. But, and every time I go home, I wouldn’t know what to do. So part of my role during that time was I want to, I want to keep people in life feeling like we’re going to be okay. And I mean,

And I’d have my crying sessions, don’t quit. I mean, it was crazy. And I would do what I would consider somewhat inspirational little snippets, know, a two minute something from Sean, whether it be a song or a song and some words or something. And just trying to say, this is what we’re doing. This is we’re trying to communicate, what we’re doing, how we’re doing it and how much I could understand what they’re going through, because I feel the same way. I’ll kick off to this other thing is that during that time, Arnie Sorensen, who was the CEO of Marriott, was a

Wonderful, wonderful leader. Everybody respected him around the world. He found that he had cancer just before that. And he was pretty sick. And then, you know, he ended up, COVID hit. And so he was, no one was in the office anymore. He wasn’t in the office anymore. And he was, he had his head shaved because he’d lost his hair through treatments. And I remember when he had, when he found out had cancer, just, here are Sean’s notes. I would send him notes, you know, once every two or three weeks, I’d send him a note just saying, I’m thinking of you.

Now, we’d met a couple times, but we weren’t like buddies or friends. I wondered if he ever knew who I was. But he would write back to me in an email. I’d sent a thing within a week. And I’d say, that’s just his admin sending it. But then I realized it wasn’t. It was him. And he was appreciative. And he’d always say something with wisdom. And it’s almost like he was, I’m here, I’m trying to help this guy who’s got a death sentence, whose company’s falling apart, and he’s inspiring me. And it was,

the resiliency of people and it was one of those examples that just said, you know, it doesn’t matter what you got, you can change something. He impacted my life tremendously. And we would joke around and he talked about it he says, yeah, he’d talk about my grandkids and I’d talk about his kids and he said, we’re home. And a funny story, right before Christmas, it was Christmas Eve, I sent him a thing and he’d answer me, if I sent him something at five o’clock Christmas morning, he sent me something at seven in the morning once we were all doing emails. And he said, Sean, said, thank you for the notes and thank you for your friendship.

Now again, I didn’t know the guy. We were pen pals. And that’s what I’d sign him, most of the time, my pen pal. And he told me, said, Sean, don’t tell anybody this. And it’s okay now, because he’s passed away. But he said, my wife and I, I told him about a song that was on this White Christmas, the movie, and we watched Christmas Eve. And he said, we sang that song, me and my sister. And my wife and I get wigs on, I put wig on, and we dance that with my kids. And I’m thinking, this is the CEO of Marriott, who’s trying to make my life better.

And then he passed away three weeks later. that’s what really makes the difference. So that COVID that hurt all of us gave me a belief in our society. We were all hurting, but we ended up doing OK. And we found ways to get around all these things. And we pulled together. Now there was some negativity about whether COVID, vaccination, or that. But in general, our country and our world pulled together. So you know that.

that two years that I might not have had a job was minimal compared to that kind of thing. we were able to come out whole. I took a 50 % cut in pay, and my wife had just switched jobs within that company. I laid her off. She was the first one. So at least set an example. But we all made it through. And we kept going back and talking about our culture.

Anthony Codispoti (52:28)
So you’re leading a group of hundreds of employees during easily one of the most difficult times in recent human history. And a lot of people are looking to you for strength, for guidance, for, you know, hey, let us know that this is going to be okay. But Sean, here you are kind of flying by the seat of your pants. You don’t really know if it’s going to be okay. You’re just as uncertain as the rest of us. What

Where are you pulling support from? Where are you kind of pulling this confidence from to be able to lead your team?

Sean (53:04)
Well, yeah, during that time we had some people, were so close, the senior leaders of our organization at that point, we were so close that I think we did that for each other. Each one of us had a crash at one point or another. I’m an Irish guy, know, I cried a blue light special that came out. But the emotional side of the thing, I guess what I drew from this was that this is what I gotta do. This is our people and they’re hurting. And suck it up, Sean.

And I’d cry at night. My wife and I would talk. I mean, had friends and stuff I could talk to. it was, suck it up. We gotta get this done. Someone’s gotta, and I’m not gonna solve the world and solve COVID, but I can just maybe give a little light to someone who’s really hurting. And I’d call the GMs that were working. Every GM got hurt from me on a regular basis. Because they were still on full time and they were protecting their hotels. Flushing the toilets every day, running the water every day, and walking around.

so you know I it was it was crazy and ⁓ and I you know I had my moments where I wasn’t but it was mostly private moments and ⁓ And that was and I think that’s okay You know I mean you can only go on for so long and I’m an optimistic guy too And I keep saying it’s gonna get better. It’s gonna get better. So you know what it wasn’t getting but I’m like man but ⁓ so we

And I kept going back to the resilience of the people that we’re working with whether it be the brands or whether it be our leaders or their associates and and then when we started opening up again, mean we still we open up but if no one’s gonna travel, what are you gonna do? And you know, we basically said we can get down to 10 % occupancy and then at that point we have to shut down. We’re gonna be eating up. We can cover it down to 10 % occupancy. I mean, we’re gonna cut back but not… ⁓ So we set a set point of where we knew that we could or couldn’t and then it was just eating up money.

Fortunately, the other nice thing about this is it goes back to the relationships that we formed. I don’t think I’ve talked about relationships, but that’s where I am. If you want to know how I got to where I am, it’s relationships. I care about people and I build relationships. So let’s talk about bankers. We said, we don’t know what to do, and they said, what do you need? And they’d give us interest only, or they’d say, we’ll talk in six months.

We won’t pay anything. We’ll put it on the other end of your loan. We had people that gave us partial release. We had vendors who said, what do you need? Well, we’ll not charge you for this. We’re going to give you half of this. We know we have a regular fee, but we won’t charge you for that. And so it kind of also said that we, and probably maybe everybody had that, I don’t know, but we realized that the vendors and the people we work with, our partners, our bankers, our owners, all of this really cared. And they helped us through.

So I think to me, the silver lining is I learned so many positive things about our company and our relationships with people, and it was just, it was amazing. yes, it was tough, but what I take out of it is like, wow, could have been a lot tougher if we didn’t have great relationships.

Anthony Codispoti (56:11)
How do you think about developing those relationships?

Sean (56:17)
Well, that’s one of my plans and this thing Sean always does, and my transition is that I gotta figure that one out. To me, I think a lot of people go into relationships and say, what am I gonna get out of this? I’m gonna go in there and serve on the Marriott board. I’m on two boards with Marriott and two with Hilton. I’m not there because I wanna get something. I’m there because I wanna contribute. I think we have a message that can assist Hilton or Marriott get better.

for everybody and then in turn we’re going to get something because they’re going to get better for everybody. And yes, I formed the friendships and relationships, but if you keep going back and you keep treating people correctly and caring about the people, you know, the fact that Lauren, my buddy from America and his wife and his kids, and I just saw on Facebook his kid just graduated from college and those are the kinds of things that people want to hear that. And that’s the friendships and the relationships you get. So then when you call and say,

I’m kind of in a mess here. I don’t know how to deal with this.” And they say, do need? It’s the same thing. But you’ve got to invest in that. You’ve got to invest in that. It’s like an emotional bank account. You’ve got to invest in the people. And you keep investing and keep investing. And sometime it’s going to come back. Sometimes it won’t. And that’s OK. But you feel good about making someone feel good. And I do. And sometimes that pays off. You’ve got someone you can call. And it’s not like I’m calling for favors. Sometimes I feel guilty calling for favors because they’re my friends.

But I’m saying, hey, we’re in a situation, what do think we should do? And they’ll come up with an answer that may be helpful to us. But it was the investment we made for 20 years as a company into these brands, into the friendships and into the meetings we had in COVID. I shoot, was on two Hilton and two Marriott meetings a day. That was an investment in our relationship. And it was appreciated.

Anthony Codispoti (58:03)
But you didn’t go into it with what can I extract from this? You went into it with what can I add to this? And how can I connect with this person on a human level?

Sean (58:13)
Yeah, I guess I do get stuff out of it, but it’s a new friend. I get a new friend and I get a new ⁓ relationship and I get the joy of knowing that maybe I’ve done something that’s helped someone. And that probably sounds all touchy-feely and all that stuff, but I truly do. I really get excited about that stuff. I can call up somebody that they’re hurt and I can call up and say something to them.

I don’t say that I’m doing it for me, but it’s as much for me as it is for them. That I can give to them and then all of sudden it really matters to them. Then I feel good about myself. So it wasn’t done because I want to feel good about myself. It was done because I care about them. But when it comes back to me, it’s like, wow, that’s pretty cool.

Anthony Codispoti (58:56)
That’s a nice return on investment there, isn’t it? Sean, I just got one more question for you today. But before I ask it, I want to do three quick things. First of all, anybody who wants to get in touch with Main Course Hospitality Group, their website’s really easy, just four letters, mchg.com. Main Course Hospitality Group, so mchg.com. And their phone number, 207-620-4989. We’re going to have all of this in the show notes, folks. But in case you’re

Sean (58:58)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (59:24)
case you’re not by your computer and you’re just listening it’s 2076204989. Okay.

Sean (59:29)
And I’m gonna correct that because I messed that up, think.

It’s 207-865-6105. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (59:37)
All right, give it to us one more time.

Sean (59:39)
207-865-6105. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (59:45)
Whose number did we give out the first time? We’ll cut it out. All right. Also, as a reminder, if you want to get more hotel employees access to doctors, therapists, and prescription meds that actually carries a financial upside for the company, reach out to us at adbackbenefits.com. Finally, if you will take just a moment to leave us a comment or a review on your favorite podcast app, you’ll hold a special place in my heart forever. Thank you so much.

Sean (59:46)
That was mine, so so be that. You know, we’ll have a new friend. I’ll have a new friend. No, it’s OK. I’ll have a new friend.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:13)
Okay, so last question for you now, Sean, a year from now, you are celebrating something big. What’s that big thing you hope to be celebrating one year from today?

Sean (1:00:23)
You know, for me, that’s a good timing for me in my role, where I’m doing. You know, I want to come back and I want to celebrate how we’ve infused and we’ve infused culture deeper into our organization and that we’re inspiring our culture to be deeper and not just Sean and not just our senior leaders. With this transition that I’m going through, that to me is very, important because this is my legacy. So the celebration for me would be I’m going to sit back and watch.

and watch it grow and watch how it’s taken off to the next level. I’m not the driver of this, I’m a part of it. And it’d be really exciting for me to celebrate them when the culture gets even better.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:04)
Love it. Sean Rowley from Maine Coors Hospitality Group. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Sean (1:01:14)
Thank you. And thank you for sending this kind of message. I think we need these kind of things in the world. It doesn’t matter what, mean, the things I said, it happens to be hotel, but it could be widgets, could be restaurants, it could be anything. And so when people like you do a podcast and sends goods messages, you’re helping the country. You’re positively impacting lives. Thank you.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:36)
appreciate those kind words, Sean. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the inspired stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.