Craig Sullivan, Founder & President, [CLIC] Media interviewed by Lan Elliott

Craig shares his concerns about the industry's brain trust that will soon retire, and the importance of passing information to future generations.  He also explains the importance of listening in building one’s network and how discretion is integral in doing deals.  Finally, Craig shares the 3 Magic Words that go a long way in a successful career.

Transcript

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Lan Elliott 0:00

Hello and welcome to its Personal Stories. My name is Lan Elliot on behalf of its personal stories, and I am really happy to have a recent friend, but he's just so much fun and I am really thrilled to have Craig Sullivan on our show today. Welcome, Craig,

Craig Sullivan 0:19

man. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. I really appreciate this. Thank you.

Lan Elliott 0:24

I have realized that every time I talk to you, I learn something new about you because you have had a really fascinating career. Of course, now you are the founder and head of Click Media. You have an incredible click conference that you do. Each year in California, but you have had so many different chapters. I would love to learn about your career journey and what are really the pivot points or the inflections in your career, and if there's something you think has been a factor in your success along the way.

Craig Sullivan 1:02

Yeah, great question. First off, there have been a lot of changes, a lot of diversity, and. I attribute it to several people. My mother being one of them my dad being another, but people that I worked for and with that really helped shape my impressions and my ability to get things done. And seeing people that don't necessarily care about associates that said, Nope, I never wanna be that person. But it I was basically leaving the entertainment industry and my parents said, okay, you're just floundering, doing nothing, coming to work, family business. So that was real estate, and I, my first exposure was on the residential. Absolutely hated it. It was just the lack of decorum and. Professionalism, people screaming to get things done. And I understand that's an emotional buy for, okay, it's a lot of money. Typically their largest investment, so on and and I got into subdivisions and new construction of tracks and then eventually made it over to commercial and discovered hospitality. And I went, oh boy, this is fun. Luckily, I had a boss at that time, two of them. And Lois Kern was our office manager, and I think it's senior company, Michael Sterns was, and they hired me. I just got back into the to done and came in and. Hit it outta the park, but I was bored outta my mind. Started doing hotel transactions. They signed me to an extension on my contract and I thanked them by giving them a business plan and a mission statement on how I was dreading jetting everything and moving to hospitality. They hid me from corporate for a year. So that was truly the big inflection.

Lan Elliott 3:07

Amazing. You have changed careers a few times, as you mentioned, first music and then residential, and then setting up this hospitality practice once you made it over to commercial, but continuous growth. We know a lot of leaders have cited as a factor. How do you continue to expand your knowledge or develop new skills?

Craig Sullivan 3:37

I listen and I also try and be creative, like the sign over my head. I think creativity to any situation is a good thing. Whether it's a conflict or it's growth in your personal and professional lives or your business. I think you need to be creative. You need to show people that there's more than one way to get something done and do it diplomatically that way you don't hear that it ain't broke, don't fix it. I think that phrase alone builds in obsolescence in the company and it starts a downward spiral. So those are really what drives me. I. I used to sit in meetings, being very quiet, paying attention, never asked a question, so everybody was out of the room other than the person I really wanted to talk to. And then I would go, Hey, this may be silly, but I've got a couple of questions. Where would you, oh, no problem. And you could see the wheels spinning and going, okay, I hadn't thought about it that way, but that's a great point. And then. I was really pretty introvert. Okay. Very quiet. Didn't, I had one emotion and that was anger. It's why isn't this working? And that was always the crux of something. After I got to know people, especially on the hotel side, because I've said this for years now, people in the hospitality industry are the brightest and best in commercial. It's a cash business, real estate. And, those two items have to merge to have success. So it was always about listening to the attorney. After all, you get charged quite a bit of money, so let's listen to them. It's about the lenders, the insurance carriers, the management team, all of your analysts. There's so much coming at you. But all those moving parts make it fascinating. And I love spotting patterns, trends. Trying to get ahead of them. And I think that's one of the many things that our industry does better than any other.

Lan Elliott 5:48

Yeah, we definitely need to do that. We are basically leasing up our business every night, so it's a little bit different than the rest of commercial real estate. So if you're not tracking patterns it's a big issue. I'm curious on the idea of continuous growth. Is there a skill you wish you had learned earlier?

Craig Sullivan 6:09

Yes. Read more data, ask more questions about the data that's been presented.

Lan Elliott 6:18

Yeah.

Craig Sullivan 6:19

That increase, if you're, I refer to it as pump and dump. Okay. You pump cash into something, prove your performance, then you dump it. If you look at it for a longer hold and you look at it as maybe adjusting your rates and a few other things, you could actually make more money in a longer period. But that's not everybody's strategy. A lot of times it's less than a 10 year hold, certainly five to seven. We're trying to also time it so that we're not quite at the crest of the market so that we can get top dollar and move on to something else. Which is a great strategy, but you also, you really have to look at, and this is where I think a lot of lenders have problems, which you mentioned just a second ago. They don't understand it's a 24 hour lease. They're used to, all these multi-year leases on a commercial asset and they just don't get it, and they don't understand how revenue management. Enhancement plays into it and you know how you're setting your average daily rate and everything else. So I, those are the things that I find absolutely fascinating and the personalities.

Lan Elliott 7:34

I, yeah, there's much more complexity in hotel real estate. I think it's what makes it fun, and I think you find people looking for that challenge. Yeah. I wanted to touch on the advantages of giving back because I was recently lucky enough to attend your Click conference earlier this year, and one thing that you do that's very unique that I don't see. Done elsewhere, and maybe this is the creative part, but you were very intentional about giving different organizations, nonprofits, people who are giving back an opportunity to share what they're doing with your audience. And I'm curious about your connection to that and also to make it such an integral part of your conference. What does that do for you?

Craig Sullivan 8:24

You know what it does me is it lets me know that one. I'm helping an industry that I love. Okay. That has been very good to the Sullivan family and given me not just a lifestyle, a focus that no other industry really gave me gave me the opportunity to raise a beautiful sun and now helping. Beautiful grandson, and we've done a horrible job of recruiting into our industry. We're, we've got more boomers getting ready to retire or retiring now than at any other time. And I'm at the tail end of the Boomer. Okay. I'm gonna be 69 later this year, I just say thank you. I was born into a generation that I think really screwed things up. We, I look at the movie Wall Street and people don't understand that Gordon Gecko was the bad guy, okay? And everybody thinks and I'm not bagging on our friends at Wall Street because they're needed, they serve a purpose and all that. But you can come into hospitality and be a doorman one day and be the president of a company the next. I don't mean like in 24 hours. It's a lifetime journey. You could be a barback and running a management company and some of our leaders that started out as hourly employees are some of our best leaders. 'cause they've still got that ingrained in the back of their, and they're looking out for I think we've got the opportunities to educate, promote, like at no other time in history. We take a percentage of our gate from the California Lodging Investment Conference, give it back to our trade associations in the form of scholarship donations. And, we also do that with crew, commercial real estate women, and in particular the Orange County chapter California. And we do invite trade organizations to be. They get a sponsorship level at no charge to them. They've got the opportunity to have a table and talk to everybody. A lot of them also get up on stage. I think that messaging is important and I think right now, at no other time if we can start training tomorrow's leaders again this brain trust that we're going to lose rather rapidly. Is really gonna be unfortunate if that information passed on to the next couple three. So it's critically important.

Lan Elliott 11:05

I love that. It's a great reason and rationale for being so intentional in what you do, so thank you for that.

Craig Sullivan 11:13

Thank you.

Lan Elliott 11:15

I wanna talk about developing a network because. I think we're in the greatest industry, but you get to work with a lot of different people over the course of careers, and I find because people stay in hospitality for a long time, that you can actually develop friendships over time. And we started talking, I think at the lodging conference last year. We met for the first time. You just click with people and people become friends along the way and can be relationships that last for decades. And I know you mentioned that you were pretty quiet, which is hard for me to understand early in your career.

Craig Sullivan 11:56

Yeah.

Lan Elliott 11:56

But I do think developing a network can be something that sounds scary to people. And I'm curious how you develop your network in a way that's authentic to you, that works for you.

Craig Sullivan 12:08

I believe in networks and it's it's critical in today's marketplace, no matter what your field of endeavors. But it was listening with the intent of understanding and not just throwing some random comment out. I think you, you gotta get to that point. And you also got to try and look at the person, not just the company that. And the people that I've got the tightest relationships with that go back to me first getting into hospitality. And there's a reason I've been involved with and closed $25 billion worth of hotel deal. Okay. It's because of knowledge passed is because of relationship. And two people in particular. Ani at Westmont Hospitality is my sister that I never had, and I love her dearly and she has had such a huge, and the direction of my Drew Hardy, the president over at 24 7 Hotels is the younger brother I never had, and he's had a huge impact. And sometime off camera, I'll tell you about that story. It. Our attorneys, our best attorneys want to get the deal closed. And once you start working with those attorneys, I'm not taking anything away from others because they all do a great job, but there's deal attorneys and you listen and you figure out their methodology and you incorporate it into your own. It really is a powerful tool. And that gets back to networking. Everybody is valuable. I'm one of the luckiest people you ever meet. Every one of my clients over the years are friends. And you pretty much know pretty quickly if somebody's gonna be able to bridge that gap between business, friendship and the ones that don't aloha. I've got other people here that, we help each other. We also traveled together from time to time, not just to conferences, but on vacations or going outta state for a sporting event. Things of that nature. And those are the things that not only enrich your career, they enrich your livelihood and everything about your personal life. Our families are all connected. They've watched my son grow up. Okay. They, I've watched their kids grow up. And it's, it just makes for a better life. My life balance, I'm sure most people would say is outta whack, but, I love what I do. Okay. So that's all part of it. My family will not check into a hotel with me because they know I'm checking out the hotel. They want to get checked in and go to the pool. But, I enjoy every morning. Every afternoon, every evening, but it is always about trying to better one. If you're resting on your laurels, it just doesn't, that's when progress stops might as well.

Lan Elliott 15:22

Yeah. I love that theme of always trying to get better and surrounding yourself with people who can help you do that. And I do think we have the most incredible people that you can connect with. In the course of work, I have some of my really good friends I met negotiating across the table with them. Yeah. And they've become, great friends. You can still do a great job for your company and hold the line for what your company needs, but still also treat the other person with respect and. Grace, and hopefully at the end of it you'll be friends afterwards. And there's great opportunities in our industry,

Craig Sullivan 16:00

And I think you're absolutely right about that. How many deals have been put together off market? People been put together over a breakfast. Okay. I don't believe in using the golf example because that's not exercise. It's not that's nonsense. Okay. Now all the people that run golf courses are gonna probably chime in and tell me differently, but that's okay. But over breakfast, we had a hotel here in Newport Beach a number of years ago that very good client of mine bought 30 million. Okay. And that's what $30 million was more like. He was having breakfast with a gentleman that ran a, and in less than 45 days, he sold it to this gentleman for 60 million. Wow. Okay.

Lan Elliott 16:52

That's incredible.

Craig Sullivan 16:53

And the only thing they did from day one to the day that it closed new beds, new paint, new computers and operating system, that was it. That was it. So return,

Lan Elliott 17:08

no matter what you do.

Craig Sullivan 17:10

Yeah. But that gets back to the relations, and can that grow into possibly a joint venture? Yeah, it can. Yeah. Because there's a trust level, you still bring your teams in, you still go through all your due diligence and you bring in your escrow and everything else. But to have that type of connection where, yeah, we bought this, it was a good price for us, we've got plans for it, but recognizing this other group could probably take it to another level above that, and they're willing to pay you what you want. Yeah. Let's put the deal together.

Lan Elliott 17:50

Yeah.

Craig Sullivan 17:50

And I think we get a lot of that. It's just that quiet whisper. The other thing you need to do, you need to be able to keep things to yourself because if you violate that sanctity of trust, might as well just go surfing for the rest of your Okay. Because you're never gonna get involved with a deal.

Lan Elliott 18:12

Yes, discretion is a really big thing. You, you had mentioned Dora earlier. But I wanted to talk more in depth about mentors and champions because. When I was younger and I first got outta school, I thought, oh, if you're smart, you can make it on your own, but you really need people looking out for you. People who are giving you advice, or people who are speaking up for you in those rooms that you're not in, where big decisions get made about your career. And I'd love to hear about how you've developed mentors and champions and any advice you have for others Trying to find their own,

Craig Sullivan 18:53

mentors and champions. Are critical to your success professionally, your company's success. Professionally, what we all do the same thing, but what separates you from the pack? Okay. Is it the company you keep? Is it the advisors that you, is it you, is it the rest of the team? I think it's a really unique hybrid of all of that. I had a boss that helped me not only develop a personality and not be quiet and reserved and I gotta tell you, he unleashed a monster. But, if I had an Irish accent, I'd never shut up. But, it's one of those things that they need to know and care about you, and you need to understand that. It's not criticism. They're trying to get you to be the best version of you so that you can be successful and go into it with an open mind. When I first started working in the real world, it like you're lazy. That I was 20 to 30 years younger than everybody else. So I got to battle that for a long time. And then, got to the point where, wait a minute, maybe I am a young Turk and I'm going to change things. Change comes with time, but you also have to have a proven track record before they start taking it seriously and you're not an instigator or something else. So that mentorship and knowing when to pull back. When to say something that's not judgmental, I think is critical. That's where your mentors and your champions is. Your champions. You're not in the room, they're defending you. They're going, Hey, plan's, right? Craig's right, so and so is right, and this is why. And they've been through these meetings and this series of conversations throughout their career and their opinion, cold water. And it, it, when I worked for publicly held corporate America, I firmly believed in an annual review, even if it did not have a monetary component. I wanted to hear what my managers, my supervisor, had to say, and I wanted to see where I could improve not only myself, but business and the company. And those three things I thought were always critical. And luckily I had a boss that did that, and that's when boss was still a good term. Okay. Yeah. I think tho those are the things to focus on and don't take it personal. And I used to take everything personal because I used to feel that my career defined me. Okay. It wasn't that I defined my career and it took a while and enough people getting that through me to understand that. But it's all of your success is going to come because of the people who you around yourself. It's never, I, it's a team and it may be a personal coach that you hire for business and life, experiences. I've done that in the past, and I also had one of my best years ever where I worked with a coach. I'm not afraid of taking suggestions or encouragement or even, Hey Craig, you screwed that up. This is why, because I know it's coming from a good place and I know that these people care. And that's the nice thing about my career and my life. I've been surrounded by people that you know, not only do I invite into my home that I want them in my place of business, I want to be in theirs. I wanna sit down and have a meal with them. Everything but golf. Okay, let's go surfing. Let's go scuba diving. We're not playing golf.

Lan Elliott 23:03

I tried golf, it didn't work for me. Yeah. Didn't have good music. That was my issue with it. Yeah. I love I love the idea of really building those relationships and being open to feedback. I think that's one of the hardest things.

Craig Sullivan 23:22

Yeah.

Lan Elliott 23:22

To really receive it and understand. It's someone trying to help you, not someone trying to attack you. And it does take a bit. Of self-assurance and a little bit of maturity before you're really able to take it in and make great use of it. So thank you. Thank you for calling that out.

Craig Sullivan 23:42

I agree. And you know what? I probably didn't start maturing till I was 27, to be all honest about it. I think men are bear cubs until they're about 27. They're just all over the place. Their arms are flailing. They're yelling about everything, and it's me and this. And then if you're lucky, you are working with somebody or you're in a relationship with somebody, and that light bulb goes on. It's not just,

Lan Elliott 24:17

yeah,

Craig Sullivan 24:18

it's

Lan Elliott 24:18

about you and

Craig Sullivan 24:19

yeah. Just add alcohol and you know the rest, and it's no. Let's enjoy things, yeah. But I 27 on, I think that's probably the, I, I know for me, I would not want to go through my tool. I don't know how I made it through them. First off. But it sounds

Lan Elliott 24:44

like your twenties were a lot of fun, to be honest, Craig. So

Craig Sullivan 24:48

They were no doubt about it, but wouldn't wanna revisit that.

Lan Elliott 24:53

That's maybe a good segue into my question on what advice would you give to your younger self, let's say 22-year-old Craig, what would you say to him?

Craig Sullivan 25:07

Calm down and listen. Listening is one of your skill sets. Okay. The ability to understand and to surround yourself with the best people. I think those are the three that you have and a lot of the people we know have. And those are skills that will serve not only you, but your family, your business associates, your friends, the people that you mentor and champion, in the present and the future of our industry. And a lot of industries concerns me and we've gotta be able to have that ability to advance. And help them.

Lan Elliott 25:50

I love that listening has come up a lot of times and it is one of those, I think, really underrated skills. I remember one time I. Someone asked me what do you do differently? That is your edge in negotiations? And I said, I listened. And they looked at me like I had two heads and I thought, they don't understand. Yeah. But but I think listening, understanding, surrounding yourself with the best people. I love being surrounded by people who are smarter than me. So I definitely resonate with that piece of advice for

Craig Sullivan 26:22

sure. I never wanna be the smartest person in the room. Okay. I think everybody on your team has a skillset and everybody does something better than you do. Talking about myself. Okay? And that's an opportunity to learn, opportunity to watch somebody hitting on all eight cylinders and see their drive, their passion, their understanding, and I cherish those.

Lan Elliott 26:54

That's amazing. Craig, we are coming to the end of our time together. It always goes really fast when I'm talking with you, but you've offered a lot of really great advice from your career. Could you share one final nugget of advice for our audience who are looking to advance their careers?

Craig Sullivan 27:15

There's never been a better time for advancement than now, and opportunities are countless. Be your best self. Learn. Listen, understand in three magic words, please, and thank you. Go a long way.

Lan Elliott 27:41

Amazing advice. I love that. Thank you Craig, so much for this wonderful interview and thank you for all that you're doing for our industry, giving back into the future of our industry. So I really appreciate you being on everything that you do.

Craig Sullivan 27:59

Ah, man, this means the world to me. Thank you so much for inviting me on your show, and can't wait to see you in person soon at a conference somewhere in the United States. Thank you, and we'll have you back on Click Connect soon too.

Lan Elliott 28:14

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Craig. And for our audience, if you've enjoyed this interview with Craig, I hope you'll go to our website, it's personal stories.com, where you can find many more interviews with amazing industry leaders. Thank you