Beyond the Comfort Zone:Interview with Ken Patel of EV Hotel Group

[Music] welcome to beyond the comfort zone today i have guest ken patel of evie hotel group and evie brands welcome ken welcome thank you for having me i'm excited to have you on the show today um just first off if you can just introduce a little bit about what evie hotel group is and why you've created a little bit of background for my viewers yeah um absolutely i mean where do i start as a question is you know hospitality's been so stagnant with technology innovations i mean you name it it's just been stagnant and stand still um and i felt the need to change it just as in tesla changed the auto industry you know and we have to lead with innovations and what i wanted to do is to create whether it was experiences whether it's how do we control labor with automation how do we create value the number one thing about hospitality is the value isn't matching up you know to what the consumers are providing and what the employees are providing to the industry and i felt like with the eb hotel it's it's a global brand now we're doing tremendously well it's about crypto it's about nfts it's about esports it's about automation and we've put all these components together to create the ultimate experience for owners or guests or employees and we haven't seen that in hospitality for many many years you know we're all about nfts we created our own nft our own coin crypto coins coming out in a few weeks and i just got a call the other day saying that marriott now created their own nft so we're we're happy to see that the major brands are following what we're doing uh because that is it doesn't take one person to change an industry everybody has to come together so they can come to the same mindset to change the industry what was your vision or you know where did the motivation to change the industry come from 2017 when the unemployment rate was at 5.2 percent and the industry couldn't find employees and that's when i was in new york city still and i moved to georgia in 2018 and i was writing up a journal and i saw two different pieces even the latter part before i moved to georgia one was on blockchain technology one was on automation three years later that article sits in my bedroom and that article just sits there like no one has done anything about it except me now so it's three years ago that we had a chance to do something about it and we didn't do anything about it and i kept writing my journal and i knew what it was going to happen people are like you you're a phenomenal mind they call me elon musk hospitality all of this right but i'm like i'm not the only person that saw those articles so no one reacted i reacted and that's what i felt this industry is very much about is that we're slow reactors and hopefully the mindset of what i'm doing changes the philosophies of people and gets them to learn and get it into a habit now that we need to be innovators do you see yourself as an innovator or a disruptor an innovator i wouldn't say a disrupter people want to call me that all the time is that i'm creating a massive disruption i'm like the disruption has already happened i mean the reason we don't we're down 1.7 million jobs in hospitality 20 of the workforce on the number of jobs that are down it's the disruption has already happened there is no disruption i said we have to now be innovators we have to create innovation to bring back these employees we have to create innovation to scale the automation that we need in the industry the tech industries have done it for a long time the medical industries have done it for a long time even the airline businesses have done it for a long time why not hospitality can you tell my listeners a little bit about some of the automation you are bringing to these hotels it's pretty unique what you put together yeah absolutely so you know our brain doesn't have a front desk we have an experienced desk that experience desk is just not about checking in checking out people it's about everything right people check in check out whatever they want through their app or a kiosk and every employee is called an experienced employee because they will be able to help each and every guest and even each other with all the items no longer is there a title attached to that the automation is the iot devices there's about 15 iot devices in each room that scales from a smart mirror to a smart toilet smart shower you know with your app you can open and close your curtains turn your tv on call the front desk or even chat with the front desk connect with the smart robot that if you want a candy bar from the vending machine the robot gets it for you brings it to your room and calls you on your smart speaker and the room tells you it's outside i mean things of this this is all part of operations and that's the centric guest experience now the operational deficiencies is a live energy management tool like we have water leak detectors we have flood detectors now this is where the hotel will be able to see things in a live format rather than somebody going based on a complaint so there's and that's a smaller scale of the automation there's a lot more to that that the hotel will be able to utilize now as well so much more proactive approach itself yeah yeah it's it's very much to be proactive it's it's not the industry has just it's almost wait and see right it's all it's like oh yes my toilet is broken uh my shower is not working and yeah we'll get an engineer up there for you in about five minutes engineer doesn't come for 15 20 minutes time for checkout now there's a complaint unsatisfied guest they're not coming back to the hotel because they had this issue let's resolve it all let's make sure all this information is in a live time frame we're in 2021 we shouldn't have to go to the front desk fill out a document we shouldn't have the need to get a key after a six-hour flight waiting for two other people to be checked in all of these things are unneeded they're just unneeded we need processes we need less tasks so we keep more employees what is the biggest challenge you're facing right now as you're innovating and opening up these automated hotels people don't want to change they don't want to change they they like the way things are you know um that's why this is what i called an old industry it's but so is auto the auto industry was old i mean he had ford usgn you had all these companies said tesla wouldn't be somebody tesla's a trillion dollar company trillion dollar market cap there's only a few other companies that can say that but there's no auto company that says that you know and tesla was the first it's because there is a majority of people that don't want change but i can tell you in a matter of three and a half months we have ten locations so there's a lot more people that do want change and you're gonna have that percentage that's not gonna outweigh the percentage that don't want to change but you know it will come it will definitely come the travelers are speaking out very loudly and you can see it i mean you know the work i do on linkedin and eb does i mean we have 7 000 followers on our company page that's more than some hotel companies that have 100 hotels so you know i think people are speaking very loudly and you know airbnb is a component of disruption i would probably say okay because they were able to change the industry that did not involve human interaction i'm not saying we don't have human interaction but i think that word gets used too much that if you are staying at an airbnb where is that human interaction there isn't do we have human interaction absolutely we do but we've scaled the other items more like there's no front desk right so now our employees can focus more on the guests you know when we give these employees like 20 tasks in a day how do you want them to focus on service and guest they can't we have to limit these tasks and i feel that once people can get an idea it's not about profit here the money that eevee will make annually for each hotel is mind-blowing mind-blowing right with the crypto sales with the nft sales with the room revenue with the food and beverage i've scaled all these items to a different level where for a hundred years the only thing we focused on as owners and investors was that hotels will only make money off room revenue no longer is that the case and also creating the third segment i've created a third segment that has never been seen in this industry and that is a technology traveler wow lots of change yes and in order to change you got to get outside your comfort zone so you know looking at a little bit of your background ken you know who's someone who influenced you and pushed you outside your comfort zone to where you're bringing such changes to the world i i think it's a magnitude of people it's a magnitude of things that i've actually seen um but i would say the number one person has been well i should probably say two people right is elon musk and steve jobs steve jobs just took an idea that he had in his mind right scaled that idea to 10 different ideas right what elon musk did was there was already an idea electric vehicles was not invented by tesla or elon musk electric vehicles were already there and what he did was scaled it even more he made it something to where people wanted whether it was design whether it was technology and that's what we're doing it's not that automation wasn't around it wasn't that computers weren't around it wasn't that pms weren't around and what we're doing is we're taking these different components and we're scaling it to put it all into one to make everyone's life easier it should be an easy operation it shouldn't be a complex operation making it easy to be your guest yes if you could go back i've done and accomplished so much at this point in your career and give your 18 year old self one piece of advice what would it be i i would tell you that what i've learned a lot of lessons in life even going back when i was 15 years old when my parents didn't have money and i was probably the only high schooler to be working 12 hours each weekend each weekend day i should say so 24 hours uh every weekend of my junior senior year and i've said it it's always a challenge right life is a challenge every week you wake up every day you wake up it's a challenge and now how do you overcome that challenge don't listen to what people have to say that's where your challenge no longer is a dream and it turns into a failure so always believe in what you truly do believe in because i would i've always said this this has been going on now for a year 13 months i've had so many people tell me that this is not gonna work you know it's not what are you thinking that you seem like you have a mental health illness you know and i'm like i'm like yeah maybe i do but what what i believe in is what i think i'm right with and it you always have to strive to the way and just think about what you want don't think about what other people want think about what you want you know and that's the mindset i always tell people this is about you this is not about other people and if you think that you're doing this for other people then it's not going to work you have to learn that you need to do it for yourself you have to build that energy you have to build that motivation and if you're an entrepreneur and to your audience if you believe in something make sure you make it into an obsession because that is how you will conquer it believe in something make it an obsession i like that yeah now you've gone out i mean this past year and a half's been an incredible journey for you what is one thing that's come about that you didn't expect to happen in the process um i didn't expect to have 10 locations in a matter of three months that's one thing i def didn't expect i think our track line i think it's moving so fast and it kind of teaches me that how much people want change how much they want change you know and how much they're not liking what they're paying for hotels right now you know and i t and and i didn't think that was i knew that was an issue i didn't think how big of an issue it was um and that also teaches you that look all reports all data everything out there what you hear isn't the whole truth because you didn't hear it from the people directly and that is what is being taught to me right now is the people are speaking and it's not based on research reports it's not based on surveys it's not based on them going on tv and being a media personality this is the real people out there that are speaking that whether they spend a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars at a room they want change they feel like they're not getting what they're what it's worth you know when when you hear people complaining about cleanliness and all of these other things it's not that they're complaining about that they're complaining is the value isn't there why am i paying 300 per room for a bed that's it you know and i think that's what they're complaining because they're pretty much stating that this room was a hundred dollars last year and now it's 300. so you didn't add anything there's nothing you added so what is going on and i think that makes our product even superior so it's all about the value that's provided really i mean it's a value proposition you know it's it's and that's what i always consider it's like if you go get a fresh banana or you get the banana from whole foods you get two different prices there right but you know that that whole foods banana was bought from somewhere else so you understand that value right here right now in hospitality people don't wanna they don't know where the value is they're like if i'm staying at a hampton or a courtyard or one of these other hotels and two different states are charging two different prices and but they have the same items in both of those states why is the value different i know why the value is different it's called revenue management but they don't know that you know as a consumer we don't yeah yeah and we we have to teach them we have to give them things that they can understand why the value is different now talking to someone who is as heavy into automation as you are um what is one productivity hack you couldn't live without in life i would i would probably say are we talking technology yeah some sort of technology productivity app yeah i mean i i would definitely tell you office 365 planner that's been my uh go-to for the last eight years you know i mean that's where i do everything that's my task list that's my communications that's my documents um and people if people haven't used it definitely get on it office 365 i mean uh it's called a planner it'll be the best thing you've ever used awesome that is not what i would have expected you to say either which is what makes that great yeah yeah i i throw people off with that one um what is one question you wish i asked um that i have not i would say that what what is what is the main reason um that i would even want to do this i mean what is the main reason and that main reason is to revolutionize this industry it's not about money it's not about anything else except for our younger generation you know the kids that are in school learning hospitality the kids that just got out of school getting into hospitality we're not leading them into success right now we're leading them into failure they have nothing to look forward to from what they see right now in the industry they don't know outside they go into being a front desk manager or front desk agent they don't know they're like why am i going to want to be a gm right now the gm's actually working at the front desk so i was actually working at the front desk so if i'm a gm i'm still working at the front desk so why would i want to even do more you know so right now we're not leading that generation into nothing and we need to revolutionize this industry we need to revolutionize it with innovations and the only way we can do that is we have to change our philosophy and for us to change our philosophy we will find more talent we will find better people who find good people we'll find people that want to stay at their companies people that want to work and it's not really going to be a concern about the pay the pace should come right if people are staying at their companies and that their jobs they get rewarded for that but when we have a turnover the way we did normal in normal industries in america according to the united states labor department it's an 11 turnover rate the hospitality industry has a 42 turnover quadruple that and and they wonder yet and they wonder why we have issues with labor it's not covid that's the reason this labor problem happened it's a portion of it but there was a problem coming there was a hurricane or tornado snow storm whatever you want to call it so i think it's way more than what we even give credit to you know so and what kind of culture do you have for your team members at eva hotel group well i would i would tell you in the last 16 months we feel like we have the best culture in the world when it comes to hospitality we have not had a team member quit leave or get fired okay not one single person why we have a hybrid solution employees have flexibility they can work when they want to feel like working they provide all their tasks they provide everything they need to do through the planner that i repeat that planner again through that planner we find the best talent throughout the country because we don't focus on one area to look for talent so we find the best town and we give them the edge i always call it that we give them the edge that means they have a voice and because of that voice they're part of everything we do and they don't get that you know a lot of companies don't provide that especially in hospitality the issue is what i call it's a power struggle and it's always about a power struggle like i'm in charge i'm in charge i'm going to tell you this you got to get this done you need to get this done and it's it's a micromanager you know i think we we have absolutely zero micro managing we don't follow up on anybody we give them the power we give them that flexibility that you work as you need to work and you get it done when you need to get it done but there are deadlines that's your deadline meet your deadline and that's it so empower your people to do the work when they can as long as it's done by the time is needed absolutely absolutely so you know that's kind of where we are with that now what is something that you would like to try in business or in life that's outside your comfort zone that you haven't yet um i would probably say jump off an airplane skydiving it's a lot of fun so you should definitely do it yeah yeah i mean definitely try that i'm a big sports fan so i've always said that there will be a day that obviously i'm getting a lot more athletes into our hotel brand you know where we already have our chief impact officer jeff dresco um and then we're having other athletes involved as well so i want to tour every single stadium on professional sports in the country um so eventually i'll i'll do that someday don't know when but someday that's going to take a lot of time but definitely yeah a lot of fun now i'm sure you have my listeners very interested at this point in this automated hotel that sounds amazing to me and i've seen the drawings and the sketches where can they go to find more information yeah you can definitely go right to our website www.evai hotels.com um you can also email our admins at um ev info ebhotelgroup.com and then you can find us on linkedin i mean we're on linkedin we're on instagram uh we're on facebook um you just have to find evie hotel and you you'll find us there and then um i'm on linkedin as well i think people i might be the first ken patel that pops up when you put it in i think you are [Laughter] well ken it has been great having you as a guest today i really appreciate your time um what you're doing is so innovative and it really is fabulous and i look forward to staying in one of your hotels in the very near future cheers thank you thank you for having me thank you so much all right thank you [Music] you