0:05

Welcome to the business of Houston Hospitality, where we visit with and learn from the people behind Houston's vibrant and diverse hospitality industry. Each week we speak with owners and operators of restaurants, hotels, venues, attractions, museums, theaters, and more. Please welcome your host, president of the Houston Hospitality Alliance and founder of Convive Hospitality Consultant, Jonathan Horowitz.

Jonathan: 0:34

Greetings from Houston. This is the Business of Houston Hospitality. I am your host, Jonathan Horowitz. And today I will be speaking with Monica Dana from Significant Other Consulting here in Houston. As always, we'll talk about Monica's history in the city, how her business is doing, and what Monica thinks about Houston's hospitality industry and its future. So welcome to the show, Monica Dana.

Monica: 1:00

Thanks for having me, Jonathan Horowitz.

Jonathan: 1:03

It's great to speak with you. All kinds of fun and interesting things to talk about particularly your recently launched business. But before we get into that I'd like to learn a little bit more about you and have you tell our, Listeners, a little bit about your history and particularly with regard to history in Houston and what you've been doing and your connections and involvement with the hospitality industry here in town.

Monica: 1:31

Yeah, no glad to chat and thanks for having me on. And, like you said, I just launched a consulting company, but I feel like for the past 25 years of my career, I've been consulting. I've really have a breadth of experience across industries, most recently in hospitality, which we'll get to, but I've been in healthcare. I've been on the agency side. I've been nonprofit, I've done tech, I've done energy. I've spanned the gamut of industry. So I do feel like. Every role that I'm in is consulting. I tend to get bored with roles pretty quickly. So I do jump around a bit, but really decided with this last move to really just solidify some of the stuff that I enjoy doing. Really working with small businesses and entrepreneurs in the Houston area. And I started my career in marketing, as and really, I think people still think of me as a marketer. I think naturally I, I have those qualities that that, that come in handy for marketing. I do have a master's degree. Psychology that I say, if you're going to get a master's in something that you don't end up doing anything with, let it be psychology, because it really does come into play for anything you're going to do with human beings.

Jonathan: 2:35

as you're talking to a lawyer who doesn't practice law, right? So

Monica: 2:38

I'm similar. Yeah,

Jonathan: 2:39

relate.

Monica: 2:41

comes in handy, right? Yeah, so spent the early part of my career in and out of kind of marketing communications roles, oil and gas, obviously, oil and gas and energy is inescapable in our city. Did that for the early part of my career and then moved me into more of a marketing agency. Communications background where I went in and out of agencies did some strategy work worked with the city of Houston on some strategy programs then made my way into tech which, my background has always had a through line of technology. No matter what I've done, I like to say that, I have a Gen X er, true, tried and true Gen X er. I'm 45, so I have one foot in millennial and one foot in baby boomer. I serve this like middle generation with technology where about 15 years ago, I started a consultancy that I ran for about three years and It really came to when social media was getting very popular personally, but then businesses started realizing, oh, wait, we can harness this for business goals. And so you had, this was probably 2009, 2010, 11, right? Twitter's coming up and Instagram and Facebook is becoming popular for kind of B2B and B2C. And you have these C suite executives going, what is this stuff? And you have these intern millennials that are coming into the workplace going, I know how to use Twitter. I use it personally. I saw all these instances of management kind of turning over the reins of, Social media accounts to this younger generation that sure the younger generation knew exactly how to use the tools, but didn't really understand the true marketing strategy of the business goal. I found a niche there where I was consulting between those 2 groups where I was going in a meeting with upper level management and kind of helping them realize this is still business strategy. This is still marketing strategy. It's just with some new tools. And so did a lot of that.

Jonathan: 4:31

And so were you always in Houston? Did you grow up here?

Monica: 4:34

Born and raised 45 years.

Jonathan: 4:36

Wow. One of the few who's

Monica: 4:38

Yeah, it's there's not a lot of us, but you know that we're here. I've actually been in the same neighborhood for mostly. I've moved around a bit. I was in the museum district for a while, but Garden Oaks, Oak Forest, kind of Heights area is my stomping grounds, literally which kind of brought me to my most recent kind of foray in hospitality, which is how you and I got to know each other. We knew each other before, actually ran into someone last night from Block 7 in the tasting room, which we can chat about later. But that's how we go that far we go back but I have a family member who owns a development company here in Houston called Revive Development, Brian Deanna, and about seven years ago he approached me and said, Look, you seem to be very well connected and in the Houston area and you live in some of the neighborhoods that we develop in and would you be interested in learning leasing and I've never really been in real estate, definitely not commercial real estate and they specifically build restaurants restaurants and retail from repurpose, reuse structures in Houston's inner city. And so it, it really piqued my interest. Again, I was in a technology role, getting bored of what I was doing there had a young child and was looking for some flexibility. And that was 2017 pre COVID. And so it really just, through myself into learning real estate, learning commercial and being in the restaurant, hospitality space that he works in, I found it really a natural fit for, my skill set of just networking and connecting with people

Jonathan: 6:05

And you didn't go, you didn't become a real estate, you didn't go to real estate school or anything like that. You didn't have to go down that path, but you stayed more on kind of the marketing side.

Monica: 6:15

Yeah, so he does all of his in house brokerage. So we did not hire external brokers to do a landlord negotiation. We did all that in house and in Texas, as you probably know, if you're an owner of the property, you don't have to have a license to show and market that. So yeah, so that I got involved in that really came on as a marketing kind of communications leasing role. And, really enjoyed the aspect of in my community Ryan was building some things. He had just bought the land at the stomping grounds, which is, a multi tenant restaurant green space in the garden oaks area on 34th street. It just bought the land. I think our first lunch he took me there. Wasn't the building there was just looked like nothing beautiful three acre space and just for inspiration. He was like, I need you to help me curate this space and you know what makes revive, different I think from a lot of the real estate developers here in Houston and probably lots nationwide. It is they live in the neighborhoods they work in and we really felt like this was a curation effort and not just, whoever's going to sign up first and pay the top dollar really was about what's the highest and best use of this space and how can the community really shape what we end up putting here. They're the patrons, right? Listening to the community and being that I've lived in the community for at that point, 40 years, who better to know what we needed. I've. And I was the patron of what we were building. So it just became a lot of, some inquiry into the neighborhood. We did a couple of focus groups. We take people to dinner and, what are your habits? How many times a night are you eating out? So it really started there. with me digging into my community and helping Brian understand what the needs were. He lives in the Heights. He's developed in the Heights and he moved a little north into the Oak Forest, Garden Oaks area. And so yeah, so I did that. And then this little thing called COVID 19 hit in the spring of

Jonathan: 8:05

During the, it was during the development of the stomping grounds and

Monica: 8:09

was, we were Actually. And

Jonathan: 8:11

just finished. Yeah.

Monica: 8:12

Yeah, and it could not have been worse timing, honestly, we're a small company. We were a small company at the time. Still, he still runs that company. It's a small company now, but we did a lot. It was, I don't mean to make a lot of it. It was a lot of work trying to convince restaurants to sign leases for two years. Really wasn't until, end of 21 when, vaccines were coming out that, People started to pick back up activity, but we had leases in progress at that time that we're building out spaces and we had to really continue with that progress. So I shifted a little bit from leasing agent to internal project manager within our team that helped our restaurants and retail really just stay on their feet. We were during COVID, we were doing everything we could to help our customers just get. Customers in the door. At one point we did a bingo card, a local bingo card, if you remember this, but we put all of our businesses on a bingo card. We printed it off. We shared it online. We, as far as at that point, it was still takeout, it was takeout and delivery and just encouraged neighbors to order takeout from those restaurants that we

Jonathan: 9:18

Yeah. I remember I was actually involved a bit in helping Sarah get fat cat open over there, the ice cream shop. And I know she's still there.

Monica: 9:27

She is. Yeah. She was our first tenant.

Jonathan: 9:31

that's right. That's right. How many how many tenants total

Monica: 9:34

Oh, gosh. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 to go through.

Jonathan: 9:43

spaces. Okay. And obviously a number of them are restaurants.

Monica: 9:48

Number of restaurants, we do have some retail, there's a retail building, there's four total buildings on the property. Sam, a single kind of standalone tenant that's an old wine bar took over, which is on the east side of the property, the west side of the property, several there's a hair salon, a nail salon kids boutique, women's boutique, bakery. But yeah, majority on the lawn are restaurants. And a lot of them were People we already had connections with and had seen what Revive had been doing in the neighborhood. Sarah being one of them, her very first shop back at Creamery was on 19th and she had gone way back with Brian. He helped her open her first. And so she was our first lease signed and she was our first tenant open. And that was, I think she opened in the summer of 2020 which was challenging.

Jonathan: 10:27

Sure. So I'm curious a little bit in terms of how that development itself came to be and the design of it and the use of the buildings. Because it's one of those that incorporates a green space in the middle, which is designed obviously to be a gathering spot for eating or playing or seeing shows or just whatever it might be a community gathering space. And we've seen that type of design in other developments around the city. I think of places like city center and things like that, which incorporate those green spaces, just, from an overall perspective, high level, how does that do? Is it a draw? Is it working overall? What is, how has that been received in particularly in the neighborhood, which is a very, dense, a lot of rooftop.

Monica: 11:23

Yeah, I think, how to, I'll start with the first question, which is how did it come to be? And, I think that Brian is very good at identifying what are the areas in Houston that need us, that needed us, that needed that development. And being that, of course, Garden Oaks area had always been dense and rooftop heavy and families, right? It's just north of the Heights. So you get that Heights. Consumer who, you know, maybe younger and properties are smaller and more expensive and you have that second or third kid and you move north of the loop and you have a little bit more space to spread out, double income families. You have, it's still a very working class neighborhood. It's over the past couple of years. It's really increased in value. It's been fun to watch that. But, knowing that. In the span of the last 30 years of Houston, the restaurants have been centered around these core business areas, Montrose and downtown and the Galleria, and we started to shift about 15 years ago to say, okay these businesses need to, exist inside of neighborhoods. These are your patrons, right? Gone are the days of Friday, Saturday night, getting in the car and driving downtown, right? There's the shift from suburban to urban that we tend to vacillate between in Houston and probably most major cities. You saw that kind of in the 90s and early 2000s, people were leaving the suburbs and coming back into the city. And noticing that people wanted to walk to places, which sounds like a still a foreign concept in Houston, mostly because of the heat here. We are 100 degrees in the middle of June. But, I think that developers really embrace that developers like Brian and revive the kind of boutique urban development, knowing that in the city did a lot of that too, or the city started to recognize with as you're, you've been in the restaurant industry a long time too, and knowing how following permitting and, how some of these trends, maybe from a bureaucratic perspective, the city's probably a little bit slower to get up to speed with what developers are doing. They're catching up and I've seen some progress, but, knowing that it's the borough vacation, the boroughs of New York, you think about, right? There could be a Chinese food restaurant on. Two blocks away from each other, but that's a different borough, right? So thinking through what are the patterns of those consumers who, use 610 loop as a example, right? It's an invisible barrier, right? It's you've got the heights that's south of 610 north. You've got Oak Forest Garden Oaks. It's the north side. We don't want to cross 610. It's one block, right? We want our neighborhood and some of it's pride, right? Some of it's like this is our neighborhood. We want this. And that came up really clear when we were opening Fat Cat Creamery, which she's got, had a space on 19th and the Heights and less than two miles away is our development. Was there an appetite, no pun intended, for two ice cream shops with the same brand? Blocks away, right? She's on 19th in the Heights and 34th in Oak Forest, and we really quickly realized that there is a market for that. And there are people and a lot of that has to do with the forest garden. It's being very expansive to where you say that, 610 all the way up to Pine Mott really is that market. And you've got people that are on the north side. Side of that market who don't wanna drive to 19th Street, maybe the six 10 loop is as far as they want to go. So Brian's did a really good job of kind of paying attention to those trends and what consumers wanted in their neighborhoods. So that's really how the land play came in. It's like he saw and had that vision that we were headed that way. Property values were increasing in those neighborhoods. And they really were getting a little snobbier, right? We don't want to have to go into the Heights or Montrose for dinner. We want a date night here in our neighborhood. And so he had a lot of success developing that Southwest corner of sorry, that Southeast corner of 34th and Ella, which Aladdin is there and BB's. So with the success of that development, he realized this is a good thing. We need to continue in this trajectory. I think with COVID hitting it's really it was very challenging to say, was this a success at the time we, it was done, it was completed building. We had restaurants struggling to open during the pandemic. Now you drive by the shopping grounds on a Friday, Saturday night. It is. It's packed. The lawn is packed and I think there's been obviously some challenges learning that outdoor space. It's the first time we had ever done anything like that. There's a stage there. There's a kiosk. It's hot outside in the summer, right? So really figuring out and they've really gotten their sea legs. I visit there a lot. I'm still a patron. I don't work with Revive anymore. Brian's still my cousin, obviously. Love all those businesses. I signed a majority of the leases there. So those business owners are friends of mine now. And I've really developed, a good relationship with that property, seeing what they've done to activate the space, yoga in the mornings, they've got kids events on Saturday mornings. They've got concerts now. They just opened a cocktail bar on the green space that the Thursday nights, they have a happy hour and band. So it's been really fulfilling to watch that grow.

Jonathan: 16:09

So I'm curious to know, and you touched on a little bit in terms of changing consumer habits and obviously COVID really threw a wrench into everything in the industry, but you've seen it on both sides in terms of pre COVID post COVID, and I'm curious to know how the impact of those changing consumer habits, because I've seen this across the industry where there's a focus on speed and convenience and technology has had a huge impact on the industry in terms of third party delivery and online ordering and all of those things that have gone into it and come from somewhat of a technology background as well. So I'm curious to see how you view that intersection of changing consumer habits, needs, desires, demands whatever you want to call it, and that intersection with technology and how the overall industry has changed. My, my contention being, we've seen essentially a generational change in the span of maybe four or five years in an industry that's notoriously slow to change. So I'm curious to get your thoughts on that.

Monica: 17:21

yeah, I think watching that happen during COVID was really interesting from a consumer perspective. You did, obviously, within the first couple of weeks and months of COVID you quickly saw businesses shifting gears to, POS systems that maybe had a built in pickup delivery module. We worked with toast very closely. Actually, the toast area rep was my neighbor almost next door, which worked out well, because I pulled him into several restaurants that we were opening to switch POS systems within a week. Because they already had a pickup to go module integrated. You see a lot of that on the kind of harder technology side, but I think also. You have to restaurant tours. These days have to please so many different types of consumers, right? You've got the families who are not going to dinner on a Tuesday night at six o'clock. They're just not they want good food They'll pay for the convenience fee. They'll pay for the overpriced fees associated with those they just don't want to get out of their house They've got baseball practice and games and homework. And I think in a neighborhood like of course, Barton Oaks, we had to realize we're not going to be open until 10 or 11 midnight on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday night. We're just not, we can't be all things to all people that happens in Montrose that happens somewhat downtown to those consumers. And we really had to cater to the specific needs of this neighborhood, even different than the Heights, which is. Less than a mile away. So recognizing that and helping our restaurant tours and business owners understand that some restaurants that we signed didn't know anything about Oak Forest Garden Oaks, right? And so I and Brian had to be their business consultants and help them sometimes with operations with things like pulling in the POS system and just educating them on this sort of thing. specific, unique consumer in this neighborhood. We did a lot of that, even pre COVID, I think that's what really made or makes still today Revive a little bit different is how involved we get in those, the business decisions, the helping them, the consulting, the support, right? During COVID, I was. marketing manager, social media manager, PR person. For a lot of our restaurants, they're small businesses. These are mom and pops. These are not huge corporations that have multiple locations. A lot of them only location, first location, first time business owners. And so we had to shift to support role just to keep them open. And I think obviously they appreciated that, to get back to your question of kind of the shifting, I think that, Families, and I'll speak to families. I think a lot of families in this neighborhood really do expect a lot more these days from restaurants. They expect it to be kid friendly, right? They expect, even if it's kid friendly, for the parents to be watching over their kids at every, you watch these Facebook groups, right? You not just in our neighborhood, but you've got people in there complaining and there's kids running around and I thought saw the stomping grounds go through that last year. It was like, is it a kid? Kids only place? Is it? When can we go for date night? So I think the smartest thing that we did with the stomping grounds specifically was lean into this is a family friendly place, this is probably not the date night place that you're going to go to, but really lean into that. And then I think with the addition of this high five cocktail bar, which is a little coffee kiosk that used to be coffee, turned it into a, a cocktail bar. That Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, late night, that, nine to 11, nine to midnight, because we do have restaurants there that stay open that late. But I think, recognizing there's a time and a place for those things and really leaning into that consumer and what their needs are. But from a technology perspective, we had restaurants signing up for 234 different delivery services because everyone uses their favorite, you've got your door dash, you've got your Uber eats you got all these other ones favor. And, it was the Wild West. During COVID, it was like the fees were so exorbitant, and I think that, even looking back, we had restaurants just turn those services off because they were making no money. The fees got to be so ridiculous, some as much as 25, 30%. And it was almost this thing they had to do, and they felt like they were just backed into it. We saw restaurants hiring their own drivers and developing their own operations plan for deliveries within a certain amount. Which was still cheaper than them signing up to give that fee away, right? I think that some of that's calmed a bit and I think that, they've started to renegotiate some of those contracts with delivery. Cause you know, it's a part of our future. It's not going away. People are always going to be delivering the food,

Jonathan: 21:39

Yeah, I can certainly speak to that being somebody who, gets delivery three to five times a week, on average, we have our favorites, we are certainly, and that really did come up during COVID. We never did that.

Monica: 21:53

Yeah.

Jonathan: 21:54

And now all of a sudden everything has changed.

Monica: 21:56

Yep.

Jonathan: 21:57

so I want to touch a little bit again on, on something you mentioned a minute ago, and we are talking with Monica Dana right now of significant other consulting here in Houston, Monica's varied very interesting background, touching on all things. Technology, marketing, oil and gas, real estate, hospitality, all of these fun things. But you mentioned a minute ago your thought on the burrowization of the areas in Houston and for anybody who doesn't know, Houston is, it's Massively spread out. It's enormous. You can drive for an hour and still, be within the city limits. And so it w it's interesting that you mentioned the focus on more specific neighborhoods as business trade areas. I had a very interesting conversation a few weeks ago with David Cordua, who's a very well known chef from a wonderful a hospitality restaurant family here in Houston has a great restaurant in Midtown called the limb bar. And we were talking about this a bit. And one of the things he was talking about in terms of the future of the hospitality industry and the restaurant industry in Houston was a hyper specific and hyper local focus on neighborhoods and being the best that you can be in that neighborhood. And you touched on that in, in terms of your experiences and what you've seen in your home neighborhood. I'm wondering if you can extrapolate that a little bit and think about, what comes next? What does it look like? Cause you've got this, you've got the hospitality experience, you've got the real estate experience and you've seen this. From all different angles, what do you foresee for us as an industry, particularly the restaurant industry in Houston, as we go forward and continue to grow, there are openings all every week, there's two or three more new openings, what do you see for us going forward?

Monica: 23:52

Yeah, so I've categorized that into two kind of groups of hospitality. One is fine dining, kind of high end, large scale, 5, 10, 15, 000 square feet. We had dinner last night actually at Garden Grace downtown, which was fantastic. I'd never been, it was my first time, and Troy Gard, who's the owner chef, sat down with us and had an entire dinner with us, and

Jonathan: 24:15

It's in the C Baldwin hotel. Yeah.

Monica: 24:17

Next door. Yeah, it's actually in the center in the lobby. Yeah. Beautiful space, 10, 000 square foot downstairs, 5, 000 up catering kitchen. It was a very impressive behemoth restaurant. Think about that kind of downtown dining large format scale, which is always going to survive in business districts, right? That some in energy corridor, that in the Galleria, you see that downtown now, and you've got your neighborhood. smaller scale, maybe being five or six different neighborhood locations. I think about tacos a go. I think about neighborhood developments like that attract a tried and true still local and homegrown concepts, but multiple locations. And I think what we saw what we're seeing is those neighborhood spaces getting smaller. How can we get more efficient costs are going up just to build the damn thing. What it costs to build a restaurant today. And what it costs just 5 years ago is probably 30 to 40 percent more.

Jonathan: 25:11

Oh, at least. Yeah.

Monica: 25:12

Real estate costs taxes right land pricing. I think we're seeing that and we, you go to New York City and this is a Houston thing we are a big city like you said it's spread out we have lots of land it's flat and it's hot. We take up as much space as we can until it's. No longer efficient or profitable. Same with this kind of urban to suburban shift. I think we're seeing that we have been seeing that for the past couple of years and Houston is taking a smaller space, getting tighter in the kitchen. You go to New York city, there's a 300 square foot freaking restaurant, right? And it's making 6 million a year. And it's I think that we've had a lot of people like Aaron Bluedorn and even like Dom Lee, who was Houston and went to New York and came back, they're bringing with them this, even though Bluedorn's restaurants are a lot larger format, they're bringing this thought of we can do more with less. We can be really efficient and tight in the kitchen. We can pay less rent, we can pay, less and build out costs and really focus on the food and maybe have three or four different locations in these different restaurants versus a five to 7, 000, sorry, five to 7, 000 square foot, large format restaurant that maybe Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, it's entirely desert, deserted, right? Okay. So that's a trend that I've witnessed and not just me, but obviously others as well, is that kind of homegrown borough neighborhood that people know, and not just the same concept, like a tacos, a go, but, you see different restaurant groups experimenting, like really been enjoying watching kind of four fries restaurant group come into Houston, Ford's from Houston. He went to Lamar high school, state of grace, took over the space in the heights to build La Lucha and Super ECO. I'd like watching how people are addressing the specific needs of that neighborhood and not just plop a, I don't want to use the name but a large restaurant group that can just put a restaurant anywhere and it's a destination and people are going to come to it. That's not happening a lot anymore. It happens in fine dining. It's not happening with this to go fast casual kind of restaurant neighborhood borough. So I think that Everyone wants, every chef wants to, own their own restaurant and have all this huge space and, schmooze with the clients at night. And I think really embracing that just neighborhood, casual, elevated and upscale doesn't mean the food has to be sloppy or not good. But the smaller operations really focusing on quality over quantity, I've noticed a trend in that over the past couple of years.

Jonathan: 27:40

And that's interesting because it very much echoes what David Cordue was talking about in terms of finding your neighborhood, finding your place and being, the best option that you can be in. He was talking about in terms of being successful in order to be successful. That seems to be the formula that, that People are trending towards now, and you talked about being more efficient and being smaller. I think it's undeniable that was a result. That thought process was accelerated as a result of the COVID years where, restaurants were forced, they didn't want to, but they were forced to become more efficient and figure out, Hey, we can do this. We can do with one or two less people in the back of the house and we can do with a few fewer people, maybe we're adjusting our hours a little bit, or maybe we're adjusting our menus to compensate for that. But it was that forced efficiency that made a lot, I believe, of Owners and operators realize they could do as much or more with less. And then again, also trying to cater to a shifting consumer desire. And again, I go back to that perceived desire for speed, convenience and the value proposition, right? Everybody's getting squeezed right now, particularly with inflation, the way it is and costs going up. Everyone's getting squeezed. It's not just the owners and operators, but it's the consumers who have to be more careful about how and where and how much money they spend. And so all of these things are coming together. It's interesting because a lot of folks in the general public who aren't necessarily involved in the industry seem to have the perception, COVID is over. We're Goin and blowin again and everybody's busy and it's all great. The, realistic side of that and the actual truth really is that it's never been harder, it's never been more expensive to try to own or operate a restaurant. Between labor and costs and rent and everything else that goes into it it's never been more difficult. I don't think it's ever been as expensive in probably in the history of the country to try to operate a restaurant than it is today.

Monica: 29:53

it, right? We're seeing the fallout of that. And, we're seeing, I joke that I worked in the restaurant industry long enough to know I didn't want to work in the restaurant industry. And, it's just everyone's Oh, all this work you do with chefs and restaurants, it seems so glamorous and fun, and it is, but you could not pay me to operate a restaurant. Happy to help, happy to be a patron, but man, it is some of the hardest work that I've ever done. And for a very little profit margin, it's your, you're one of these high scale,

Jonathan: 30:20

for sure. Let's talk about what people do pay you for and that, that is you're a new business that where you are offering your services and trying to leverage all of, your experiences and knowledge and all of these varied industries. I want to tie in kind of what you're doing and what your new business is all about Some learnings that you have, gathered over the years and you've witnessed firsthand where do, either people starting out or where do restauranteurs, people in the hospitality or retail industry, where are their biggest struggles, how have you seen folks develop and not develop, succeed, not succeed. Where are the biggest pitfalls and then how can you help them? And what do you want to be doing in that world to try to help them, move forward,

Monica: 31:14

Yeah, when I working with revive and for the past seven years or so I really started to recognize and really hone in on something that I probably had been doing long before that, which is enjoying working with small businesses, small local businesses. And I'll tell you, identifying we talked about efficiency just now and I think that thinking through how I can help a small business. Who maybe has, it's just them, or it's two or three other people really be more efficient with operations. I think that identifying, and we'll use hospitality as an example, a lot of chefs, beautiful, wonderful, talented, creative chefs, Have no idea how to run a business. And I would not fault them for that. That's not their expertise. That's not their left, right brain. And to the point that when we were, when I was working with revive, we would almost require a chef who was wanting to open their own kind of owner operator to have a business minded partner. We just saw too many creative. Which visionaries, right? Take a space over and really not know how to do the other side of it. So really witnessing that and then a couple of industries to starting to think through what is the population that I want to serve? And what are the things that I can do to help those? Businesses and small business owners be more efficient with their time so they can spend their time working on their business. When you think about an idea you have, and this is industry agnostic, you have a big idea and you want to do this and you stare at it and you're just overwhelmed with how do I get it to market? How do I just let people know about it? How to get customers? I know the idea. I see the vision clearly. I know the menu. I know I can do this. It's the minutiae of operations that slows people down. It's setting up a website, setting up your social media strategy, setting up your accounting, your HR processes and procedures, and so I took those two things and put them together and thought, wow, I can really help these small businesses with that minutiae part, right? How do we use. Technology. How do I leverage my technology background that I can help these businesses become more efficient in their processes and their operations. This could be as literal as setting up a Zapier trick or hack to help them anytime someone messages them and Instagram that it adds them to a CRM software and then puts them on their newsletter. And, so that kind of technology part that I think a lot of left brain creative business owners just are not thinking of, right? I know if I just put some good food out there, people are going to come, right? And that's not the truth often, right? So really what's significant, another what I've, tried to build here is a situation where I can come in the business world, It's called fractional COO, and you've heard these terms, fractional CMO, which really just means part time, right? You don't need a full time COO, you don't need a

Jonathan: 34:00

sounds better.

Monica: 34:01

COO. Fractional sounds very important and smart. But really it's more having me for a couple hours a week or a strategy session to come in and really, I just interview, I talk to people, right? What are your challenges? What are the things if something could be taken off your plate from your business, from an operations perspective, so that you could go do. More business development. What would those things be? And with those conversations, I really start to think through what are the things that I could help you design to work faster, to work better. So that aren't manual processes, right? There's so many times that someone's starting up a business and they are just so overwhelmed with all the things coming in. And I can't tell you how many times I talk to people. I'm like, are you collecting email addresses? It's like kind of the first thing I say is Yeah, people are emailing. I don't know what you know, having an opportunity for six or seven different channels that are feeding into one database so that you are harnessing that and a year or two will go by and people know I need to do that. It's those kind of things. It's that to do list. That internal, sometimes physical to do list of business owners that I know I need to get this done. And they know there's a better way to do it, but it's shoved down to the bottom of the list. It's bottom of the barrel, which really, if I can take that bottom of the barrel stuff off of your plate, go work on it, create a strategy, create some goals around that, physically set up some of those connections for you. Present it back to you train you on how to utilize it or someone, within your business to utilize that and then moving forward. What I've been doing is helping with virtual teams. A lot of whether they're small businesses, hiring a PR company or a social media person, a content creator, an accountant, an HR person, right? These are roles that Small businesses do not need full time people to do. And they also don't have the time to manage five different vendors. So I've taken that role on a COO would, or a director of operations. I will help them source those vendors, right? Pick the right one for what they need, set up the contract, and they're just meeting with me weekly. And then I'm going off and meeting with those and helping that business owner really get traction and not, and work on the things that they enjoy and work on the things that they know that are building their business. And again, restaurant industry and hospitality agnostic to that. There's so much tech in Houston too that, that are even specialized in technology and are so head down trying to get through, to customers and get their products right, outsource that to me. I can help set those processes up and then, also do a little bit of mentoring and consulting. A lot of times it turns into a therapy session, right? It's I could just do this. Where the psychology background obviously does come in handy. And that's really why I called it Significant Other, thinking through, I could be that partner to them. If I could be that almost silent partner that just comes in, they can unload. This is what I'm dealing with. Can you help me? And that paired with my, vast, Network in Houston being in lots of different industries, living in one city for 45 years, you tend to know people. And really they can leverage that. And from a business development perspective too, a lot of the clients that I work with just naturally, I'll think you need to connect with this person. I'm taking a commission off of that. It's just, Hey, you really need to know this person. So I think in working with me, a lot of my clients get that too. It's a twofold of, I'm helping with the business process is head down, but I'm also Thinking of people and businesses to connect them with that can like further their goals. Yeah.

Jonathan: 37:25

personal experiences and having known you over the years and having been involved in this industry for 20 some odd years all of those things are needed for sure. And sometimes the biggest trick is Getting people to recognize what's needed because as you say, particularly from the small business folks who are out there grinding all day every day sometimes it's difficult to see the forest for the trees and it's tough. There, there's so many different things going on. So I am encouraged that you will be out there providing those services and helping folks as they navigate those very difficult waters. Because we know how tough it is and it's not getting any easier. That's for sure. And the more help that people can get in taking things off their plate. So as you say, they can focus on the things they really need to focus on and what they're best at is extremely helpful. And I'm encouraged to to know that you'll be out there helping folks as they go through that process. So I have been talking to Monica Dana with significant other Fractional consulting. I'm going to put that in there because I just like saying fractional. It's a great buzzword. So I am going to toss out the final three questions to you that everybody gets as they come on and visit with us here at the business of Houston hospitality. And question number one, what is your favorite travel destination? Where are you going to go? You can get on a plane tomorrow to go anywhere in the world, just for fun. Where are you going to go?

Monica: 38:57

Oh my gosh. I've been to so many places that I would definitely go back to, but if I could go somewhere tomorrow, Oh my gosh. I would say Portugal,

Jonathan: 39:06

Really? Interesting. When was the last, when was the last time you were in Portugal?

Monica: 39:11

Never been. So that

Jonathan: 39:13

you haven't

Monica: 39:13

new. Yeah, new. Brand new. Yeah.

Jonathan: 39:16

good for you going out on a limb. I like it.

Monica: 39:19

And I'm actually going to Italy in a couple of weeks, which I've been to before. And so I haven't been to Italy in probably 20 years and I'm actually planning for a concert. You can probably guess who, but I'm going to be there for a week. So I got travel on the brain. I actually traveled a lot this year. I had the opportunity to go to the British Virgin islands earlier this year, and it was in California last week. And. Good ol Alabama Gulf Shores for a baseball tournament. So yeah, headed

Jonathan: 39:43

Good for you. I am sure that you will get to Portugal soon because and I have a, another friend actually, who is going back and that is their most favorite place to be. And I've heard a lot of people talk. I haven't been myself, but I would love to heard so many fantastic things. Okay. Question number two, you are somewhere else and you are talking to somebody who has never been to Houston and you are going to give them the pitch as to why they should come visit Houston and why they should take their time and make this their next destination. What are you going to tell them? Why should somebody come to Houston if they've never been here before?

Monica: 40:21

Naturally the food friendly people and an amazing food community and the diversity. I think that that's something that we really had to work hard to get a personality because it's so damn hot here. So we really had to lean into things that had nothing to do with the weather, like industry and restaurants and diversity. But I'm just. So encouraged and lucky that we live in such a diverse city. It's so important to me. It's important to my family. So I think the pitch would definitely start with food. Naturally people as well. We've got, one of the friendliest States obviously, but this, the people in Houston are just fantastic, but I would lead with food for sure.

Jonathan: 41:00

Yeah. Yeah. Tough not to. I wholeheartedly agree. Okay, final question for you, Monica. As we've discussed, you've had a very varied and broad career experience, different industries over the years, different disciplines. If you were Advising somebody younger who is coming up and getting into the workforce and wants to follow in your footsteps or do great things. What would you tell them is the most important thing you've learned over your business career? What advice would you pass along to somebody coming up in business that they should know in order to help them be successful?

Monica: 41:41

Oh man, I think I would say, don't be afraid to ask questions. I think that young people entering the workforce, at least when I was entering the workforce and in the last couple of decades, you have this reverence for just sit down, listen and learn, which is still very valid. But I think, I think about the young people that I've mentored or worked with over the past two decades of my career, and I've been so impressed with the ones that are not scared to admit they don't know the answer to something. Raise your hand. Obviously, there's a time and a place for that. Maybe not in a board meeting your first day on the job, but know when to ask questions. Don't act cocky like you know everything. Admit when you need help. I think being just naturally inquisitive is something that is to me so encouraging to young people. And really, I think you go through, four years of college and you have a degree and you think you know what you want to do and you get your first job and everyone has this panic of oh shit what if I was wrong and I would say don't panic you know your 20s are for that right ask questions figure out what you want to do. I mean you and I obviously. And I think that's okay. Don't get so caught up in, I went to school to do this one thing and I'm stuck the rest of my life doing this, life is very short. As you can see, I've jumped around a lot. Again, with that kind of through line of technology, pulling me back to things, but ask questions, be inquisitive. Don't act everything, but you don't, I don't, you don't 90 year olds don't it's impossible. So ask

Jonathan: 43:09

Oh that's great advice for sure. And yeah there's nothing wrong with being a lifelong student. That's for sure. Oh, always learning. Many thanks to my guest today, Monica Dana, joining us from Significant Other Consulting here in Houston. And thanks also to the Houston Hospitality Alliance for continuing to connect and educate. promote and advocate on behalf of the entire Houston hospitality community. You can get more information about the HHA at www. houstonhospitalityalliance. com. Please join us next time as we continue to explore the people and the businesses behind Houston's amazing and diverse hospitality industry. Thank you for being here, Monica.

Monica: 43:53

Thanks for having me.