June 6, 2024 • 45 mins
What does it take to transform a two-person startup into a powerhouse in the high-speed internet industry? Join us as Sean Gorman, owner and CEO of Safety Net Access, unveils his remarkable journey. From pioneering in hospitality to expanding into multifamily units and commercial properties through their division, Amicus Networx, Sean shares how his competitive spirit from professional sports has shaped the company's success. You'll learn the secrets behind their seamless transition between industries and the crucial role robust customer service plays in their growth.
Imagine running a tech company that maintains a personal touch in every interaction—Sean does just that. Discover how Amicus Networx has built strong relationships with clients by prioritizing direct communication and educating customers to manage expectations effectively. We delve into the challenges and opportunities presented by evolving technology in construction, and how Amicus Networx simplifies tech integration to meet high service expectations, especially for complex tech needs like gaming setups.
With a strategic in-house software team in Belfast, Ireland, and a focus on hiring the right talent, Safety Net Access fosters innovation and maintains its stellar reputation. We explore the increasing demand for bandwidth in both hospitality and multifamily industries, and the importance of understanding diverse client needs. Sean also shares insights on navigating business partnerships and providing a white glove experience. Learn how their various divisions create an ecosystem that enhances customer experience and problem-solving capabilities. Don't miss this episode packed with actionable insights and inspiring stories!
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The Multifamily Innovation® Council is for Multifamily Business leaders who want to unlock value inside their organization so they can create better experiences and drive profitability inside their company.
To learn more or to join, visit https://multifamilyinnovation.com.
For more information and to engage with leaders shaping the future of multifamily innovation, visit https://multifamilyinnovation.com/.
Connect:
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Patrick Antrim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickantrim/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Patrick (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of the Multifamily
Innovation Podcast.
We've got a great guest for youtoday.
He's one of our MultifamilyInnovation Council partners and
the Multifamily InnovationCouncil is an executive-level
membership organizationdedicated to the pursuit of the
profitable multifamily company.
Listen, we are uniquelypositioned to focus on this
(00:22):
intersection between leadership,technology, ai and innovation.
And if you'd like moreinformation, if you're not a
member today, go tomultifamilyinnovationcom, click
on Council and get all theinformation you need to become a
member.
And if you're not yet registeredfor our annual event this is
the Multifamily Innovation andAI Summit do that today.
(00:44):
Do that right now.
That's atmultifamilyinnovationcom.
When you come back afterregistering today, I'm going to
be sharing time with Sean Gorman.
Now.
Sean is the owner and also thepresident and CEO of Safety Net
Access.
Sean has built his company froma two-person startup into one
of the most respected companiesin the high speed internet field
(01:07):
.
Today, safety Net Access isconsidered an industry leader
for its relentless commitment tocustomer service and its
ability to stay on the veryforefront of technological
innovation in our industry.
All right, sean, welcome in,thanks for having me.
Yeah, so tell me how Amicus cameabout.
(01:29):
Tell me about that.
Sean (01:31):
Amicus is a division of our mother Shorter's company,
safetynet Access.
So SafetyNet Access has beenaround.
I started SafetyNet Access backin I think we were incorporated
in 2001.
We actually probably started alittle bit prior to that, maybe
in 1999.
And basically what SafetyNetAccess does is we build, we
(01:52):
design networks for thehospitality industry.
So we're one of the majorplayers in the hospitality
industry.
So we are approved by morebrands than anybody else in the
world.
So we're the top provider forHilton Hotels.
I think we're number two forMarriott Hotels.
So how Amicus sort of came from, that was we had decided to
take the knowledge that we havein hospitality and put it
(02:13):
outside.
So that touches on everythingyou can imagine.
Anything outside of hospitality.
That's what we do.
So we could include airports.
It includes MDUs, somulti-dwelling units, apartment
complexes, things like that,storage facilities, factories,
whatever it is.
Anything outside of hospitalitywe do it.
We bring our expertise fromhere over there.
Patrick (02:35):
That's interesting and hospitality and multifamily are
coming closer and closer.
Sean (02:40):
It's very much so.
Actually, you'll find now thatthe brands are sort of turning
to that direction.
So we have brands that areconverting hotels to MDUs and we
(03:00):
have hotels that are nowdeciding that that whole space
is the Amicus side and you takesafety net access.
And it's a very easy transitionfor us Because if you think to
yourself, if you walk into ahotel, you might have, let's say
, a hundred room hotel.
You've got 80% occupancy, so 80of those rooms are filled every
night.
You might have one room, justone room, that has a family of
five, and each of those familyof five might have five devices,
(03:23):
excuse me, two devices each.
So they're going to have 10total devices.
We've got to support that oneroom that night.
The next night it's a new groupin 80 rooms and we've got to
answer those phone calls in avery, very quick time because
the hotels hold us to a veryhigh standard.
So now all of a sudden you say,all right, let's transition over
to an apartment building.
Well, you've got, even if it'sa 100-room apartment building,
(03:43):
you've got people in there.
You set them up once.
They're pretty good to go.
For the remainder of the timethey may call now and then Think
to yourself when you're at homeand you have your cable company
, you're going to call once in awhile, but it's not often Sure.
But when you do call,oftentimes you're on hold for a
long period of time.
See, we're used to answeringthat phone in 45 seconds to a
minute.
So now for somebody, yeah, sonow for somebody in MDU.
(04:06):
It's almost a relief to have acompany you can call.
You can get directly tosomebody that knows what they're
doing and take care of itimmediately.
Patrick (04:14):
Yeah, they've never had that.
It was execute the contract, itgoes in the drawer and then you
never hear from them.
Sean (04:22):
Exactly so that transition for us is very easy.
So when we come into this space, people are like where have you
been?
Because we have all thatknowledge base and we're
bringing it over here.
So I mean I hate to use theword easy, because that's
probably not the right term touse, but to tell you the truth,
it's very easy for us totransition into this space.
Patrick (04:46):
Yeah, and it's about people.
So you have a way that you leadyour company.
Sean (04:47):
Tell me about that, and how has even your professional
sports background played a partin how you built the business.
Well, there's probably twodifferent dimensions to that.
So the professional sports guywas completely different than
the guy now.
So there's two different sidesof that guy.
But what you got out of theprofessional sports guy was
you've got competition, you hateto lose, you always want to be
number one.
That transitions perfectly overto any kind of a business.
So that helped a lot.
(05:09):
I think the other part of mybusiness which I sort of set my
hat on more than anything elseis the integrity piece of it.
So and I learned that from myparents my dad was a stickler
for integrity first ineverything we do and that's
where our tagline comes from.
So if you look at any of ourmarketing material, our cards,
our website, you'll seeIntegrity First.
So for years people were likeyou got to have a tagline, you
got to do this, you got to dothat.
(05:29):
Are you a technology company?
Come up with some tagline.
But you know what I figured ifwe went with Integrity First and
we led that way, no matter whatwe do, we're going to do the
right way.
So if you take, for instance,since when people come into my
company and they want to applyfor a job.
One of the key things I ask themis how do you handle it when
customers call and they'recomplaining and what they're
doing?
And they always get a littlenervous and edgy when I'm asking
(05:50):
them that.
How do I answer it?
Right, but my point always tothem is you've got to pretend
like every customer you have isyour mother.
So your mother's calling andshe's asking you listen, you've
got equipment in your mother'shouse or your mother's building
(06:13):
and she's asking you what do Ido with this equipment?
We're going to look at it andsay, all right, mom, you know
what, you probably don't have toreplace that.
Well, that blows everything out.
You go to any MBA school orwhatever they're going to talk
about.
Or you talk to these PE firms.
They're going to talk aboutwhat kind of money you're making
.
What are you doing?
Well, that's not how I do it.
I do it to try to build thebest possible product I can for
(06:34):
somebody do it the right way sothat when I go home at night I
can sleep and all to do right bythe customer every single time,
no matter what.
Patrick (06:44):
So you can't go wrong.
Yeah, and so thisdifferentiation that you're
providing, bring it tomultifamily, coming from this,
the pressure of hospitality, thebusiness model of it and the
opportunity that, as youmentioned.
What did you say?
Where have you guys been?
Is this what you're hearingfrom the market?
(07:04):
And what I'd love to know fromthat is like is it people that
is making the difference here?
Because you also buildtechnology teams as well.
Sean (07:13):
Yeah, I think you know we talk about this a lot when we're
even in the hotel business,when people are saying you know
what differentiates you,everybody's looking for what's
the big differentiator.
And you know whatdifferentiates you, everybody's
looking for what's the bigdifferentiator.
And you know a lot of peoplecan build a network.
I mean, you know, in the olddays we'd go into a hotel and
they'd have their little nephew,so-and-so.
That was building the networkfor them and that's great.
(07:35):
I think what differentiates usis the people.
But we also go into ourrelationships less of thinking
that it's a client and more ofthinking that it's a partner.
So if you go in with apartnership idea, it's a lot
different that way.
So I think we go in saying whatcan we do for you?
How can we help you?
But on the same note, I thinkwe're not intimidated to go out
(07:56):
and tell people when we thinkthey're probably doing it wrong.
Because if you're going withthat integrity first attitude,
if we know the client's doing itwrong, we're going to steer
them back, even if it might costthem more money sometimes and
that's not necessarily the caseUsually it's probably less money
(08:16):
.
So I think the people for me,certainly have made a difference
.
I've been very, very lucky.
You look at some of the peoplethat have worked with me.
Our CTO that's here today.
He's been working with me for20 plus years.
A lot of the people that cometo work for us stay with us.
We do a really good job oftrying to take care of our
employees and I think when youdo that, you end up taking care
of your clients.
Patrick (08:36):
Yeah, and speaking of building teams and building
relationships, how do you goabout building a network,
building relationships, how doyou go about building a network?
And what would you say anexecutive should be thinking
about when they're evaluatingthis process?
Sean (08:52):
I think you probably have to go for me.
I would say you have to look atthe company and what their
experience is.
Obviously, we've got 20 yearsof building networks, all types
of networks.
I think you've got to reallylook at-.
Patrick (09:07):
Do they have choice?
A lot of times they don't knowwhat their choices are, though,
too right.
Sean (09:13):
Yeah, I mean, obviously you've got to do your homework,
you've got to go out there andlook.
I think there are certaincompanies in this space that
they're going to know, maybemore than somebody like us
because we've been in thehospitality space for so long.
So I think for me, if I wasdoing it on their end, I'd want
to know who I am, I'd want toget to this guy and I think I
try to make myself veryaccessible.
I still make cold calls.
(09:33):
I still answer the phone.
People are amazed.
Sometimes phone calls come intothe business.
I answer them.
And they say, well, can you getme the right person?
I said, well, you kind of dohave the right person.
I think that makes a difference.
I think today, especiallyaround technology, we're getting
away from, you know, with AIand everything else we're
getting away from the wholepeople stuff.
Sure, and that bothers me.
Even though we're a tech company, I still believe in my people
(09:55):
going out and visiting customers.
I want them to get on a plane,go out and shake a hand.
I don't think anything beatsthat.
You can tell me you can do aZoom call all day.
It's not the same.
So we're big believers inanswering our phones.
A lot of my customers actually,believe it or not, have my cell
phone.
They can call me directly.
I don't know of any othercompanies my size that the CEOs
are giving out their cell phones, but I'll do it and I'll
(10:17):
happily do it because I thinkthey deserve that, because
that's what I'd want on my end.
I'd want on my end, I'd want tobe able to call that CEO if I
was working with somebody andsay, hey, look, I got a problem
here and you know what.
You can pretend all day long,there aren't going to be any
problems.
There's always problems withtechnology, there's always
something that's going to gowrong.
You know, a switch goes down,something happens, the
connection ends, something'sgoing to go wrong.
(10:38):
It's how you respond to it andI think we realized that.
We realized that very early onand we do a really good job of
staying on top of things andcalling back customers and
getting back to them and takingcare of the problems when it
hits the fan.
Patrick (10:53):
You know having such great coverage around
hospitality.
At what point did you notice orpay attention to bringing this
to multifamily?
What was that signal?
Sean (11:03):
I think it was when we saw our brand starting to go into
that space so we realized weprobably wanted to get into that
space.
Patrick (11:11):
Was it customers that were in hospitality bringing you
along?
Yes, it's sort of like, hey,we've got this great solution
here.
Hey, can we try this on thisasset?
Sean (11:21):
Yes, 100% and I don't want to reference all the clients on
here, but we have some reallybig clients.
So if you look at themanagement companies throughout
hospitality, there's probably 50main ones in the United States.
I think we handle 48, 49 ofthem and what happens is we've
built up a really goodreputation, started to sort of
(11:45):
expand outside of that.
It could include restaurants,we've done military bases, all
these kind of customers thathave sort of made the jump first
and then said, well, who are wegoing to use for this?
Who are the people in thisspace?
They're like well, could we goback to safety net access?
Could we talk to them, becausewe trust them?
We already know who they are,we know what we're getting.
Can we bring them with us?
So yeah, absolutely.
That was the transition.
Patrick (12:04):
Yeah, and in terms of holding that reputation, that's
a lot to manage.
You mentioned, you know,picking up the phone, even you
answering, making cold calls,really having that integrity
first mindset and culture Iguess I can, and even how you
operate the business.
How do you do that in such aproduct that is somewhat, can be
(12:24):
technical and things change?
Sean (12:28):
I think you've got to educate, educate, educate.
So even when the sales guystarts the process, he has to
say listen, this is what's goingto happen, this is how things
happen.
And then you almost want to beprepared for the worst.
So you want to explain that tocustomers so they're not blown
away when something happens.
Because oftentimes if you don'teducate them, they're going to
call especially if they don'thave any technology background
and say you know, this happenedor that happened.
(12:49):
Well, that happens, but you'vegot to tell them that ahead of
time.
And I think that's where yousort of we differentiate
ourselves.
We try to educate the clientbeforehand so that they know
what's coming.
So when you do have thepitfalls which you're going to
have, if you explain that tothem in the beginning,
oftentimes it's not much of aproblem after that.
But if you don't tell it tothem, they're going to be upset.
Patrick (13:11):
Right, you start to think about after the sale,
right after the relationshipexpectations, these types of
things.
Sean (13:16):
It's very, very important to build the expectations.
If we don't do that up front,we're in trouble on the back end
.
Patrick (13:25):
Yeah.
So what does the ideal clientlook like?
Is it a developer, currentoperator, somebody in contract
status, Like what does formultifamily?
Sean (13:33):
Yeah, I think it's probably the developers, so that
we're sort of getting in early,because I'd rather be on the
side of coming in when they'rejust designing the plans.
I'd like my guys to sit downwith the blueprints and go
through everything and say haveyou thought of this, have you
thought of that?
And oftentimes we've had greatsuccess doing that, because we
get in in the beginning, webuild the relationship and as
they're building the product perse, we're building it with them
(13:55):
and alongside them, so thatthey feel a lot more comfortable
with us.
I think that's probably sort ofthe ideal person for us.
I mean, we can go into existingbuildings, we can certainly do
any of that, but it's nice toget brought in in the beginning
with these developers as they doit.
And I think what I'm finding now, or what we're finding now in
this industry, is that the oldschool sort of construction guys
(14:15):
have changed a little bit.
So now maybe the sons, thegrandsons are coming in who have
a lot more technologybackground and they're saying,
hey, wait a minute, why aren'twe doing this?
Why aren't we looking at this?
I feel like maybe we're leavingmoney on the table by not sort
of doing this ourselves insteadof farming it out all the time.
I think in the past a lot oftimes they said the cable
(14:37):
company will come in and justlet them do it.
Patrick (14:39):
I don't want to have anything to do with it.
Sean (14:41):
And I think when we come in and we say, well, we'll do
that piece for you as you, theyget a little nervous because
they're like, well, I don't wantto have anything to do with it.
But what's nice about it is wesort of give them the credit as
bringing it in but we take careof it all.
So they have it's still handsoff for them, but they're just
getting to participate in it,whereas before they probably
didn't?
Patrick (14:59):
Yeah, take me through some of those value engineering
moments in the developmentmeetings, like what are we
looking at differently thatmaybe is status quo or routine
in the process of bringing thistype of service in?
Sean (15:11):
Well, again, I think the big thing that I run into is
some of the old school guys thatdon't want to touch technology
at all.
So our biggest challenge is tosort of get through that and let
them understand what this isabout.
I think sometimes, when youdon't understand technology or
you haven't been around it, it'sa little scary.
Sometimes it's just turn thecomputer off and turn it back on
.
You just rebooted it, you'regood to go.
(15:33):
But they're thinking, oh, mygosh, my computer's not working.
I got the blue screen of death.
I can't do this.
So I think there's a lotchallenge we run into.
And the other challenge, whichI mentioned before, is that they
think, well, I don't want to bein the business of doing this,
I'm a construction person.
I don't want to get into thebusiness technology.
When you're telling me, yeah, Ican have it, I really don't
(15:53):
want it.
So we have to sort of overcomethat too.
That's our biggest challengetoo, because as we do these
things, we've got to tell themlisten, this isn't going to be
on you, it's going to be on us.
Here's our help desk.
We've got hundreds of peoplethat sit in a help desk, that
are intelligent people that knowwhat they're doing.
They're all technology people.
So we're answering that a lotof times on the first call,
(16:14):
whereas if you know, whensometimes you're calling some of
these help desks, you havetrouble understanding them.
They're really going through alist.
They're just kind of poo-pooingyou until they can get you to
somebody else and then you haveto be transferred two or three
times before you get an answer.
Patrick (16:27):
How would you and this will be fun, I enjoy this
explain it to a fifth graderwhat the product is?
Sean (16:38):
Explain it to a fifth grader.
That's probably pretty easy forme, um, cause I'm actually I'm
not a technology guy, so I'mprobably more of a sales guy
than anything else.
What we do is very similar towhat we do in a hotel.
We go in and we build sort ofinside the hotel.
We build the backbone, so webuild the network.
So it's kind of like plumbing,except it's bringing the
(17:00):
internet and everything else tothe rooms.
So think of the cable companybringing the network sort of
into the building.
We take it from the buildinginward and that's what we manage
.
So if you were in a—some of theproblems you'll have oftentimes
is when people can sort of willynilly, decide oh, I've got a
cable company in my place, I'mgoing to put a, a wifi router in
(17:23):
, and then the next guy puts awifi router in and you've got
all these apartments with wifirouters.
Now you got a lot of stuff goingback and forth there.
Um, they're all competing forthe same stuff.
There's a lot of confusion,there's overlap.
What we'll do is we'll go inand we'll build those Wi-Fi
networks for a particularcustomer and it's his own,
(17:44):
basically secure network.
So now when he leaves that roomand maybe goes to the gym or
goes to the pool, he's stillconnected to his network, nobody
else's network, and you don'thave all that sort of traffic
going on and confusion and a lotof loud noise going on, because
we've sort of sectioned it offfor each individual unit, which
is nice.
(18:04):
I mean it really does make abig difference.
And also the onboarding processis very simple.
It's basically you call us up,we switch you on, you're good to
go, and it's much moresimplified than what we're sort
of used to in the past.
Patrick (18:19):
Yes, it's almost like the utility system versus a
private hospital.
I mean, being in a hospitalitybusiness, you were forced to I
don't want to say forced, but itmakes sense to meet the
expectations of those brandsthat are selling service and
amenity.
And all that.
What insights on the customerdo you bring back from that
(18:40):
marketplace?
Sean (18:43):
I think sort of for us.
I don't know how many insights,but you're dealing with.
You're drinking from a firehose, I guess is the way to look
at it when you're in thehospitality business Because,
like I said, you might have afamily of five with 10 devices
in one of those rooms and yougot to handle everything.
I mean, one of the big thingsthat we have to handle that they
call us on in a in hotels is isgaming.
(19:04):
So these kids come in, they setup their gaming.
They can't can't get on, theyhave to figure it out and our
help desk has to handle that.
So when we, when we transitioninto residential, it becomes a
lot less complex and it's veryeasy.
So they call us up, we onboardthem, we get them on.
If they have an emergency, theycall us, we take care of it.
So I think it's because of thatWe've been drinking from a fire
(19:26):
hose for 20-something years Nowwe go there.
It's less of a fire hose, so Ithink it's a lot easier for us
to handle.
Patrick (19:31):
Yeah, it's interesting.
What are you seeing next whenyou're building technology and
deploying technology?
How do you think through thatto scale and plan for the future
?
Sean (20:01):
no-transcript run your thermostats.
You're going to run everythingon that wireless network.
So that has to be really rocksolid for you.
But that's sort of the nextphase.
You're going to be walking intothese things.
You're going to walk in withyour cell phone, which they're
doing now in hotels.
You walk in with your cellphone, it becomes the key for
your door.
It's going to controleverything in the building.
(20:23):
They're going to know when youwalk through the front door.
So they're going to say to meMr Gorman, on my phone, welcome
to the.
Whatever hotel it is, yourphone now becomes your key.
You walk to your door, you openyour door.
It's a little almost it's almostweird when you think about it.
It's kind of futuristic.
But that's where it's going.
I mean, everything's going tobe tied into one place.
(20:43):
And where we want to be is youknow, we have our own software
company.
That's a portal that's going tosort of see into the health of
all our networks.
So at some point we want tohave that portal be the one
place people go.
I hate to use one-stop shoppingEverybody uses that but it's
one place where they can go andsee the health of even if they
(21:03):
own, let's say, 15 properties.
They can go there and take alook at their network.
They can see what they're doing.
We can look at even energymanagement, like I said,
thermostats Everything's goingto run on these things.
So that's where the future'sgoing.
I mean everything's going to besmart technology.
Patrick (21:19):
Yeah, you mentioned the software piece, obviously
hiring great people.
You mentioned building ahealthy organization around not
only great values but the tech.
How has that sort of beingsoftware in-house, I guess
played a part in what you'redoing?
Sean (21:33):
It's enormous for us.
So for years what we did was wehave a software company called
Select Networks.
It's sort of a sister companyand it's based in Belfast,
ireland, and for years I wasoutsourcing to different places
whether it be India, venezuela,all sorts of places to try to do
this.
And I got to the point wherenot only were there some
(21:55):
language barriers there, but youknow it's on the other side of
the world.
You know there were constantlylittle things.
So I'm always trying to figureout how we fine tune the
business to make it better, andI think the biggest thing for me
was I wanted my own people.
I wanted them working for me, Iwanted their paychecks to be
signed by me, and so that's howwe sort of ended up with Belfast
Ireland.
I mean, we've got enormoustalent over there.
(22:17):
We've got maybe 16 people, Ithink, over there now in that
software company.
But it definitely adds abenefit to what we do, because
all of our companies tie intoeach other so they're not
completely separate, so thatwe're all over the board.
They all tie into each other.
So it's been nice for us.
Now we have our own softwarepeople.
If we need to develop things,if we need to look at the latest
and greatest in software.
(22:37):
We have our own team.
Patrick (22:44):
Yeah, what challenges do you run into?
Perhaps are in conversationswith customers.
What are they pushing back onany aspect of this process?
Sean (22:50):
Well, it's funny you should ask me that because I've
recently had a couple of thosethings in the last month or so,
and it's going to go back towhat you said before Our biggest
strengths are our employees.
The biggest thing that alsohurt us are our employees.
So I think you've got to makesure you hire the right people.
One bad apple can cause a lotof friction, sure, and I think
that what I've seen is I have toalmost do a better job even of
(23:15):
hiring the right people.
So what you do in my positionis you get to a point and
everybody's done it right youread all these books on
entrepreneurs.
You get to a point where yousay the biggest problem
entrepreneurs have is they tryto do everything on their own,
and I never thought I was reallylike that.
So what I did was I went outand I hired a-.
Patrick (23:33):
You just told me you were answering the calls, right
Like you're picking up the phone.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's natural,it's your business.
Sean (23:39):
You care Absolutely 100%.
But you need to be able to hirepeople that you can sort of put
that on their shoulders and say, all right, you take care of
this.
Patrick (23:47):
Yeah.
Sean (23:48):
So I think it's sort of the plus and the downside,
because you can't controleverybody.
I mean, we have over 140 peoplethat are full-time and another
100 plus that are 1099s orthey're outsourced somehow, but
they've been working for us foryears.
I have to be very careful,especially the way I run things,
because everything to me isabout my reputation, so it's my
(24:12):
company, there's no one else.
I don't have a private equityfirm in here.
Everything's out of my backpocket.
So if I have one complaint, itbothers me.
So I have to be very careful tomake sure I hire the right
people, because that canbackfire on you very quickly,
yeah, and it's interesting thetype of solutions that you bring
(24:33):
forward.
Patrick (24:34):
I would suspect and maybe you can tell me yes or no
on this is people aren't askingthe who's part of the team
question in this negotiation.
Is this something you'rebringing forward as the
differentiator, because I can'timagine that that's an
expectation based off of thehistory of these types of
relationships multifamily ownersand operators have had with
(24:56):
this type of A hundred percent.
I bring it to the forefront andI tell them who my people are
Are people asking that, or dothey not even think that that
should be something that's ofvalue?
Sean (25:04):
I don't, you know.
I think they think it's ofvalue, but I think that's a good
question.
I don't think they.
I don't really think they asklike who's your team?
Tell me about them.
No, they don't do that.
So I put it in front of them,but I try to get out as much as
possible to have them meet me.
I do think it matters and Ithink it all falls downhill.
So I think sort of the guyrunning the show has to be the
(25:27):
guy that's promoting theintegrity first above everybody
else, and he needs to bepromoting that all the time.
I think it's important for themto meet me and sometimes I
think that happens.
That's why I come to, I flyaround and I meet with people.
My guys will bring me in.
But you know, strangely enough,that question, no, I don't
think a lot of them do say, hey,what kind of people do you have
?
What are they like?
(25:48):
I think it's just technology.
Patrick (26:02):
They don't even want to touch it.
He's there that can handle thisfor me, right, and I think
before you could probably putsomething in and set it the pace
of innovation, the pace ofchange.
You mentioned this differenttechnologies from door locks and
different things that innovateso fast.
Now it's key as it's ever been.
Sean (26:09):
Well, we look at a lot of times when we tell people they
need to upgrade their network,they'll come back and say how I
just did that.
And we'll say to them well, letme ask you something In the
last few years, how many iPhoneshave you owned?
That's the problem, thateverything else continues to
change.
Patrick (26:26):
And that's the hardware piece you have to stay up, not
the software piece that comesthrough it.
Sean (26:29):
So you have to stay up with the times, and if not, the
times and if not, you sort ofget a little lost there.
Patrick (26:34):
And whether good, bad or indifferent, it's changing
all the time, so it's difficult.
I'm curious of the duediligence questions they're
asking you in these meetings.
Obviously you're sharing timewith people In terms of the
Wi-Fi managed network, how arethey looking through creating
that experience for customers?
Sean (26:55):
Certainly in the hotels.
They want to make theexperience like it is at home.
That's what they're trying todo.
They're trying to basicallymake it exactly like at home.
Walk in, it's on your-.
Everything works just like Igot it at home, so it's pretty
easy at home.
We set it up.
It's good to go.
Even when they come intosomething new, they want to be
able to do the same thing.
They want that same experience.
So we're trying to make it thebest possible experience we can,
(27:17):
and we got to make it easy, sowe got to take something that's
seemingly complicated and makingit I hate to say it, but idiot
proof.
Like you said earlier, fifthgrade education and then you
should be able to explain itthat way.
If you can't, you probablyshouldn't be selling the product
.
Patrick (27:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
And how do you see the commonareas and the private areas?
I guess it's similar tohospitality.
Sean (27:40):
I mean you have the same you just have more pressure on
the turn because it's the samething If by common areas you
mean like a lobby or, yeah, yourclubhouses and pool areas.
So for the residential it'sgoing to follow you.
In the hotels it's more or less, they usually put you on like a
(28:01):
lobby network, a guest, andthen when you go to the guest
network that's usually in yourroom.
Patrick (28:06):
So it's usually two separate.
Yeah, and so you're part of theadjacent income opportunities
with that, because some chargefor that right in the
hospitality.
What are you seeing play out inmultifamily adjacent income
opportunities with that, becausesome charge for that?
Sean (28:22):
right In the hospitality.
Are you seeing what are youseeing play out in multifamily?
Too early to tell or no?
I mean, I think in theresidential space multifamily
it's just going to be like itwould be for any of us at home.
I don't think that's changingany.
You're going to pay X amountfor your internet.
Most people now aren't buyingthe TV anymore.
They're doing everythingstreaming.
So you have to have the bestpossible network and the best
possible internet, which is whythat's great for us, because
(28:42):
that's what everybody's doing.
These young kids now are movinginto these apartments and
they're just downloading stuff.
It's all streaming.
Patrick (28:51):
How do you think through speeds of access in
terms of I know when I travel, Ican get the free, I can do the
upgrade, I can pay for faster oreven timelines to that, and in
multifamily, how do you?
Are there things that you canthrottle or offer additional
speed services, or how do youthink through all that?
Sean (29:12):
Yes, there's a lot of different ways we can do it.
Patrick (29:14):
Now you're getting into a little more technology then,
but you want to bring in I meanyears ago you could bring all
this.
Sean (29:17):
Yes, there's a lot of different ways we can do it Now.
You're getting into a littlemore technology then, but you
want to bring in.
I mean, years ago you couldbring in a T1, and you couldn't
do that anymore.
People are expecting a lot moreand people are downloading a
lot more now, right, so with allthe streaming television and
everything that requires a hugebandwidth, and a lot of times
people will tell you well, we'vegot these speeds inside our
building.
Well, that's great, but if thebandwidth going out of the
building isn't that big, thatdoesn't help you any.
(29:38):
So you've got to make sureyou're bringing in enough
bandwidth outside to handle thecapacity of that building.
This is at the curb.
That's what I use my guys for.
Patrick (29:46):
This is at the curb, yes.
Sean (29:48):
Yes, bringing it into the building.
Patrick (29:49):
And then that's where your value engineering.
When You're talking about plans, you're talking about the
inside stuff, correct?
Sean (29:55):
So we'll go in and talk to the people about those speeds
and what they're going to needbased on the size of their
building, what kind of clientelethey're going to have.
If we go into an assistantliving place, we're probably not
going to have the downloadingthat we're going to see at some
group of apartments with youngkids yeah, PlayStations and all
that stuff.
Patrick (30:13):
Right.
Sean (30:13):
Yeah.
Patrick (30:14):
It's interesting, and so what are the questions I
should be asking that I haven'tasked?
Sean (30:22):
What are they?
Yeah, what would that be got?
me on the spot there yeah, um, Imean, I I think you've asked a
lot of great questions.
I I think that, um, our, ourbiggest thing, which you've
talked about, is the people part.
I I find it very interestingthat you said how many people
are asking about the people,because I don't think anybody is
(30:43):
.
I think that's probably whatother people should be asking,
never mind you, but other peopleshould be asking am I really
doing business with?
And I don't think there'senough of that going on.
Yeah, it's very true.
That was a real politicalanswer to that, wasn't it?
No, no, I think it's good.
Patrick (30:58):
I think what I'm thinking through with that is
based on the expectation of thistype of service.
It wouldn't be a question.
You think you would have evencontrol over asking, like you
know, because it's in and outand, uh, you know you're left to
.
Sean (31:18):
You know, the hotel business is unique in that it's
a white glove industry and we wetalk about that a lot with what
we do.
Um, we're sort of at theservice of these guys and
because we've got, we've got,we've got which interesting.
We have two customers really.
We have the hotel, the branditself, and then we have the end
customer, which is the guestthat's in the room.
(31:39):
They're both our customers atthe end of the day and we have
to be able to do that.
It's the same thing inmultifamily.
We've got whoever thatdeveloper is, whoever that owner
is of that building, he or sheis our customer customer, but so
is the client at the end.
So we see them both ascustomers.
I don't think everybody doesthat.
I think some people see as theguy sort of paying the real
(32:01):
thing and calling the shots asthe customer.
But we look beyond that.
We say we got to go right downto the person in the room.
That's our customer too andthat matters.
And that person matters becauseusually a lot of times when
they're calling in, they're veryfrustrated, Something's not
working, they don't understand,and they need somebody on the
other end to say hey, listen,we'll take care of you Don't
worry about it.
We want to look like.
You know, we're on the side ofthis guy.
(32:22):
We're on the side of that guytoo, because that's the person
staying in there that has todeal with the day-to-day stuff.
Patrick (32:27):
Yeah, so let's go into a little bit more on the
hospitality side because I thinkit plays out because a lot of
multifamily owners and operatorswant to create that type of an
experience.
Oftentimes the promise is there, maybe the resources aren't, or
maybe even the people or thetraining.
It could be a lot of factors.
(32:47):
What do you see in thoseconversations with the
executives in the hospitality?
You mentioned the white gloveexperience and this collision
with technology.
How do you see either parallelsor differences in how they
think through business decisions?
Sean (33:07):
Well, I think that with some of these people people that
we're dealing with, with thebrands and whatnot a lot of
times they forget that there'sother people that are handling
it.
So they look at the sort of the, the macro, I guess picture of
everything and they see it asone big thing where this brand,
we've got to do this, and theyforget that not only like I
mentioned earlier, you got toworry about the customer, you
(33:28):
got to worry about the customer,you got to worry about the GM,
you got to worry about theperson at the front desk and
sometimes, I think from abusiness standpoint they're not
understanding that those peopleneed to be educated too.
So you can't just throw anetwork in and then the GM
doesn't know what's going on.
The person at the front deskwho's dealing with the customer
every single day doesn't knowwhat's going on.
So what we try to do is we tryto even go beyond that and not
(33:56):
just sell it to them, but sellit to the GM, sell it to the
people behind the front desk andexplain to them.
The process becomes so mucheasier if you guys understand
exactly what's going on here,because that can be a problem
sometimes, and even if it's assimple as some business owners.
Some brands don't want thenumber in the room, so you have
to call the front desk to getthe number to call us.
Others present it right therein the room.
That creates other issues.
(34:17):
You might have a problem withthe lights, anything else, they
just call the number.
And who's the number?
We're the number.
So that's part of the reasonwe're as well prepared as we are
, because over the years,because I've always told my guys
just answer the questions.
I don't like to get into thispointing fingers.
So if they would call on theTVs, we'd answer it.
If they'd call on the circuitcoming into the building, we'd
(34:37):
answer it.
We'd take care of it.
They called the door locks,we'd find the door lock company,
we'd answer it.
So now, when you look at that,we've had such good training
that we were right in thefirefight the whole time.
So now, when we get out of this, we've got a knowledge base
beyond what anybody else has,because they've all been calling
us, even though they're notsupposed to be calling us.
Patrick (34:54):
They've called us.
Yeah, it goes back to yourpoint on education, and I like
how you mentioned the generalmanager, the front desk.
I mean it's the same situationon apartments, yep Right, you
have the portfolio managers, youhave the executives.
There's you have the portfoliomanagers, you have the
executives, there's the peopledoing the math how does this
play out?
And then those that are lookingfor what's happening next.
(35:15):
Speaking of what's happeningnext, what do you think is next
for what you're working on?
Sean (35:22):
Well, we're expanding all the time.
I mean, our company is veryinteresting.
We have our software company,select Networks.
We have our S&A EP, which isour event productions company,
and we have Amicus, and Amicus,by the way, in Latin it's
trusted friend.
That's why we ended up goingwith that name.
So what's next for us is totake these divisions and these
(35:45):
different companies and makethem as successful as they can
be in their space, and sort ofthat's what we're trying to do
right now.
I think with Amicus we'redeveloping and learning every
day with how we want to do this,because now that we're sort of
outside of hospitality, we'regetting calls from all sorts of
different people.
I told you earlier we didmilitary bases.
It's very interesting becauseeverybody needs a network,
everybody needs it.
(36:05):
Somebody's got to monitor it,maintain it.
A lot of times they'll go tocompanies and they do deals
where they get, you know, greathardware.
The hardware is brought in.
They might have one it guy, butthe it guy's like I really
can't manage this.
Um, that's where, sort of, wecome into play and I think,
again, one of the things thatmakes this a little bit
different is we go into a lot ofit guys and say, because I
(36:26):
think there's a fear theresometimes that we're going to
try to take their job and that'sthe last thing I want to do.
So I'll try to go in there andsay to them listen, my job is to
make you look good.
I can be in the background, thepeople don't have to know about
me, you can take all the credit, but we'll help you.
That's really helped us in ourbusiness to grow our business,
because we work with consultants, we work with IT guys and we're
(36:47):
on their side, whereas I thinksometimes there's that tendency
to think these guys are going totake my job.
I'm going to be out of a job ifI bring these guys in, and
that's not the case.
We still like somebody therethat can take all the credit.
We'll sit in the background,we're just happy doing that.
Patrick (37:00):
Yeah, we're coming up on our bonus round now.
We're coming up on the end ofour time together, but I'd love
to explore some additional stuffif you're open to it.
Sure, I'd love to know, likeyou mentioned, the software
company, the events, obviously,the platform bringing all it
sounds like you're, the morecontrol, even in multifamily, I
(37:22):
mean you can own and operate,you have a little bit more
control.
They don't necessarily go afterit because there's money to be
made in management.
It's that you can create theexperience or control the
experience and fix things whenthey break those types of things
.
Is that played out in thesedifferent business units that
sort of come together in anecosystem?
Is that your business?
Sean (37:41):
model In the different ones.
Yeah, a hundred percent thateach one sort of plays into the
other one.
I mean, when you look at it,which?
Patrick (37:47):
gives you advantage and leverage over the experience of
the other right.
Sean (37:52):
Absolutely.
So you know, when we get intothe event production space, the
only reason I get into that wasbecause I was servicing them.
All the time I'd get calls fromother companies that were doing
events planning.
They need the networkingcompany.
So I said, well, we can getinto that.
And I mean we have.
We've got networks in all 50states.
We've got over, I think, 4,000plus hotels that we manage.
(38:13):
A lot of these have spaceswhere they do events.
So that was an easy tie-in forus.
You know, when you look atAmicus and you say, well, we're
going to go out and you know,even if we're just starting in
this business, we've got 20 plusyears of experience with
networking guys, fantastic smartguys behind us that can go into
this.
So that's just tying right in.
It's very easy for us.
(38:33):
And with the software company,both companies utilize the
software company.
Although the software companystands in its loan and does
business with other people, it'ssupporting all the different
companies that I have.
So there's definitely all ofthem are intertwined.
Patrick (38:49):
Yeah, we had NVIDIA on our podcast and we were talking
about cities and spaces.
And when you think about this,it's space, right, you have the
hotel different type of space,you have the multifamily, and
then you're mentioning theseevent spaces and stuff like that
.
It's pretty interesting how theconsumer is blending these
(39:13):
things.
You also mentioned partnershipand where you're walking into
situations thinking, okay, let'sget alignment here, let's
create some victories for you,disarming any defensive behavior
on like, hey, I know this mayhave appeared to be a conflict
before, but we're here to helpyou win.
How do you think through that?
As a leader?
(39:34):
Is this?
Are you?
I mean, you're obviouslyintentional about this, but with
technology, this is more andmore important than ever before.
Yes, take me through that forthose that may be building a
business today, and how thatpartnership should be.
Sean (39:51):
I think the way I look at all these things, when I do it,
when I talk to you about ourpartnership, I look at it as if
I'm sitting in his seat.
So every business deal I makewhether it's a customer
complaining or whether it's adeal I got to make with a huge
developer I'm going to putmyself in his seat and I'm going
to say what does he really wantto know?
And if I were sitting in hisseat, what do I want out of this
guy?
I wouldn't want to get rippedoff.
(40:12):
I wouldn't want him to pricetoo high.
I wouldn't want him going intothis thinking I'm just in it to
make a buck for me.
So if I sort of take that stanceand sort of everything I do in
my business, it becomes quiteeasy.
Because I'm sitting down with aguy saying I'm just partnering
with you and honestly and I havethis in every deal I go into I
don't know why they wouldn'twant to go with me I honestly go
(40:34):
into every deal.
I have thinking that becauseI'm like I'm only going to do
this to help you out.
I'm not trying to make myself,I'm not driving a Lamborghini,
I'm going to do this and Ifigured the minute I do that
with you, I've created much moreof a partnership, because now
I've created a friendship, whichis what I do with a lot of my
clients, and they're going touse me for the next one, and the
next one, and the next one, andthat I've seen that play out
(40:55):
over and over and over again.
So I think the key for me is Iput myself in his shoes and
that's the way I try to view thesale.
Patrick (41:03):
Do you think that has to do with the ability that I
mean you've bootstrapped, Ishould say maybe a company where
you have control over theoutcome and these types of
decisions?
That gives you an advantage.
Sean (41:15):
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, I will tell you nothingwas ever given to me.
I'm a scrappy guy and I thinkby nature I'm like that, so that
definitely plays intoeverything.
Patrick (41:26):
I do.
Is that like the hockey stuff?
Sean (41:29):
There's probably a little hockey stuff in that.
Yeah, a little Sure.
Patrick (41:31):
Getting better every day type of yeah no, absolutely.
Sean (41:34):
But I think too, you know, and not kidding here, I think
with the hockey piece I don'tthink I went as far as I could
have, or I really wanted to, andthat always bothered me.
Patrick (41:45):
Yeah.
Sean (41:45):
You know, I don't think I put enough time in or effort in,
sometimes when I think back onit.
And so in my business I said tomyself I'm not going to do that
, I'm going to go for it.
I'm going to go for it ineverything I do, but I won't do
it at the expense of myemployees, I won't do it at the
expense of my customers.
So I'll do it the right way.
I don't believe in nice guy.
You know, finishes last.
(42:13):
Sure Sure, I figure you canfinish first all the time.
Well, winning feels good,absolutely, and I think people
want to be on winning teams aswell, and they want to be
serviced by a winner.
Patrick (42:18):
And going back to hockey and coaching, you know
leading and following, beingcoached and being coachable is
important too, right?
Because you're dealing withpeople with complex knowledge,
deep knowledge around technology, these types of things.
As you're talking about yoursoftware company, you have to
(42:39):
work through a lot of differentdynamics, I would imagine.
Sean (42:41):
Yeah, but I think every day as I lead, I think part of
being a good leader is I have tounderstand that to your point.
I can coach, but I need to becoached as well.
Sometimes because I won't havethe same knowledge as my CTO,
for example, and I need to beopen to listening to him.
I can't say it's my way or thehighway.
I need him to be able to comein and feel comfortable telling
(43:01):
me that's not the way you do it,this is the way you do it and I
think we do that really, reallywell.
I mean, I'm very much.
I have no problem withconstructive criticism and I
will oftentimes ask people in mycompany their opinions on
things and the least like personyou'd think I should be asking.
I'll ask them to just get theiropinion, cause I think
sometimes the best ideas comefrom the least likely places.
Patrick (43:23):
So how do you, how do you deal with a setback?
Sean (43:27):
How do I deal with a setback?
How would you deal with asetback when COVID hit?
I'll just give you an example.
So when COVID hit, I rallied myguys together.
We had to lay off a bunch ofpeople because obviously it hit
the hospitality industry reallybadly and we lost.
We didn't really lose theclients, but we lost the.
They weren't able to pay.
And so I can remember sittingdown and I thought to myself how
(43:48):
do I handle this?
And I oftentimes go back to mymy playing hockey or my coaching
, and I said, listen, I'm goingto go over a couple of things
that I've taught my kids which Ithink are very important.
So obviously it's when you gethit.
That's when you got to reallydecide who you are.
And we got hit really badly andI said I tell my kids, when
there's a fire, you don't runaway from it, you run at it.
(44:11):
And everybody's kind of likewell, what do you mean?
Well, you got something scary.
It's right in front of you.
You don't run away from itbecause somebody might need to
be saved.
So you better run towards thefire.
And the last thing I taught him, which is a little more from
hockey, is, if you hit them, hitthem first, fast and last, and
I said that's what we're goingto do.
And that's what we did.
We spent money, we built ourS&AEP business, we built our
(44:32):
amicus business, all duringCOVID, when we were losing
everything.
Everything was going down.
So that's how I handle setbacksI go at it, I don't run away
from it, right.
Patrick (44:40):
That's good stuff.
Yeah Well, we are up on time,but this has been refreshing.
I hope to continue to followwhat you're working on.
I know we'll have anopportunity to share some time
later today, but excited.
Sean (44:53):
I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, excited for what you guysare building here.
Patrick (44:55):
Thank you All right, we'll see you next time.
Welcome to another episode of the Multifamily
Innovation Podcast.
We've got a great guest for youtoday.
He's one of our MultifamilyInnovation Council partners and
the Multifamily InnovationCouncil is an executive-level
membership organizationdedicated to the pursuit of the
profitable multifamily company.
Listen, we are uniquelypositioned to focus on this
(00:22):
intersection between leadership,technology, ai and innovation.
And if you'd like moreinformation, if you're not a
member today, go tomultifamilyinnovationcom, click
on Council and get all theinformation you need to become a
member.
And if you're not yet registeredfor our annual event this is
the Multifamily Innovation andAI Summit do that today.
(00:44):
Do that right now.
That's atmultifamilyinnovationcom.
When you come back afterregistering today, I'm going to
be sharing time with Sean Gorman.
Now.
Sean is the owner and also thepresident and CEO of Safety Net
Access.
Sean has built his company froma two-person startup into one
of the most respected companiesin the high speed internet field
(01:07):
.
Today, safety Net Access isconsidered an industry leader
for its relentless commitment tocustomer service and its
ability to stay on the veryforefront of technological
innovation in our industry.
All right, sean, welcome in,thanks for having me.
Yeah, so tell me how Amicus cameabout.
(01:29):
Tell me about that.
Sean (01:31):
Amicus is a division of our mother Shorter's company,
safetynet Access.
So SafetyNet Access has beenaround.
I started SafetyNet Access backin I think we were incorporated
in 2001.
We actually probably started alittle bit prior to that, maybe
in 1999.
And basically what SafetyNetAccess does is we build, we
(01:52):
design networks for thehospitality industry.
So we're one of the majorplayers in the hospitality
industry.
So we are approved by morebrands than anybody else in the
world.
So we're the top provider forHilton Hotels.
I think we're number two forMarriott Hotels.
So how Amicus sort of came from, that was we had decided to
take the knowledge that we havein hospitality and put it
(02:13):
outside.
So that touches on everythingyou can imagine.
Anything outside of hospitality.
That's what we do.
So we could include airports.
It includes MDUs, somulti-dwelling units, apartment
complexes, things like that,storage facilities, factories,
whatever it is.
Anything outside of hospitalitywe do it.
We bring our expertise fromhere over there.
Patrick (02:35):
That's interesting and hospitality and multifamily are
coming closer and closer.
Sean (02:40):
It's very much so.
Actually, you'll find now thatthe brands are sort of turning
to that direction.
So we have brands that areconverting hotels to MDUs and we
(03:00):
have hotels that are nowdeciding that that whole space
is the Amicus side and you takesafety net access.
And it's a very easy transitionfor us Because if you think to
yourself, if you walk into ahotel, you might have, let's say
, a hundred room hotel.
You've got 80% occupancy, so 80of those rooms are filled every
night.
You might have one room, justone room, that has a family of
five, and each of those familyof five might have five devices,
(03:23):
excuse me, two devices each.
So they're going to have 10total devices.
We've got to support that oneroom that night.
The next night it's a new groupin 80 rooms and we've got to
answer those phone calls in avery, very quick time because
the hotels hold us to a veryhigh standard.
So now all of a sudden you say,all right, let's transition over
to an apartment building.
Well, you've got, even if it'sa 100-room apartment building,
(03:43):
you've got people in there.
You set them up once.
They're pretty good to go.
For the remainder of the timethey may call now and then Think
to yourself when you're at homeand you have your cable company
, you're going to call once in awhile, but it's not often Sure.
But when you do call,oftentimes you're on hold for a
long period of time.
See, we're used to answeringthat phone in 45 seconds to a
minute.
So now for somebody, yeah, sonow for somebody in MDU.
(04:06):
It's almost a relief to have acompany you can call.
You can get directly tosomebody that knows what they're
doing and take care of itimmediately.
Patrick (04:14):
Yeah, they've never had that.
It was execute the contract, itgoes in the drawer and then you
never hear from them.
Sean (04:22):
Exactly so that transition for us is very easy.
So when we come into this space, people are like where have you
been?
Because we have all thatknowledge base and we're
bringing it over here.
So I mean I hate to use theword easy, because that's
probably not the right term touse, but to tell you the truth,
it's very easy for us totransition into this space.
Patrick (04:46):
Yeah, and it's about people.
So you have a way that you leadyour company.
Sean (04:47):
Tell me about that, and how has even your professional
sports background played a partin how you built the business.
Well, there's probably twodifferent dimensions to that.
So the professional sports guywas completely different than
the guy now.
So there's two different sidesof that guy.
But what you got out of theprofessional sports guy was
you've got competition, you hateto lose, you always want to be
number one.
That transitions perfectly overto any kind of a business.
So that helped a lot.
(05:09):
I think the other part of mybusiness which I sort of set my
hat on more than anything elseis the integrity piece of it.
So and I learned that from myparents my dad was a stickler
for integrity first ineverything we do and that's
where our tagline comes from.
So if you look at any of ourmarketing material, our cards,
our website, you'll seeIntegrity First.
So for years people were likeyou got to have a tagline, you
got to do this, you got to dothat.
(05:29):
Are you a technology company?
Come up with some tagline.
But you know what I figured ifwe went with Integrity First and
we led that way, no matter whatwe do, we're going to do the
right way.
So if you take, for instance,since when people come into my
company and they want to applyfor a job.
One of the key things I ask themis how do you handle it when
customers call and they'recomplaining and what they're
doing?
And they always get a littlenervous and edgy when I'm asking
(05:50):
them that.
How do I answer it?
Right, but my point always tothem is you've got to pretend
like every customer you have isyour mother.
So your mother's calling andshe's asking you listen, you've
got equipment in your mother'shouse or your mother's building
(06:13):
and she's asking you what do Ido with this equipment?
We're going to look at it andsay, all right, mom, you know
what, you probably don't have toreplace that.
Well, that blows everything out.
You go to any MBA school orwhatever they're going to talk
about.
Or you talk to these PE firms.
They're going to talk aboutwhat kind of money you're making
.
What are you doing?
Well, that's not how I do it.
I do it to try to build thebest possible product I can for
(06:34):
somebody do it the right way sothat when I go home at night I
can sleep and all to do right bythe customer every single time,
no matter what.
Patrick (06:44):
So you can't go wrong.
Yeah, and so thisdifferentiation that you're
providing, bring it tomultifamily, coming from this,
the pressure of hospitality, thebusiness model of it and the
opportunity that, as youmentioned.
What did you say?
Where have you guys been?
Is this what you're hearingfrom the market?
(07:04):
And what I'd love to know fromthat is like is it people that
is making the difference here?
Because you also buildtechnology teams as well.
Sean (07:13):
Yeah, I think you know we talk about this a lot when we're
even in the hotel business,when people are saying you know
what differentiates you,everybody's looking for what's
the big differentiator.
And you know whatdifferentiates you, everybody's
looking for what's the bigdifferentiator.
And you know a lot of peoplecan build a network.
I mean, you know, in the olddays we'd go into a hotel and
they'd have their little nephew,so-and-so.
That was building the networkfor them and that's great.
(07:35):
I think what differentiates usis the people.
But we also go into ourrelationships less of thinking
that it's a client and more ofthinking that it's a partner.
So if you go in with apartnership idea, it's a lot
different that way.
So I think we go in saying whatcan we do for you?
How can we help you?
But on the same note, I thinkwe're not intimidated to go out
(07:56):
and tell people when we thinkthey're probably doing it wrong.
Because if you're going withthat integrity first attitude,
if we know the client's doing itwrong, we're going to steer
them back, even if it might costthem more money sometimes and
that's not necessarily the caseUsually it's probably less money
(08:16):
.
So I think the people for me,certainly have made a difference
.
I've been very, very lucky.
You look at some of the peoplethat have worked with me.
Our CTO that's here today.
He's been working with me for20 plus years.
A lot of the people that cometo work for us stay with us.
We do a really good job oftrying to take care of our
employees and I think when youdo that, you end up taking care
of your clients.
Patrick (08:36):
Yeah, and speaking of building teams and building
relationships, how do you goabout building a network,
building relationships, how doyou go about building a network?
And what would you say anexecutive should be thinking
about when they're evaluatingthis process?
Sean (08:52):
I think you probably have to go for me.
I would say you have to look atthe company and what their
experience is.
Obviously, we've got 20 yearsof building networks, all types
of networks.
I think you've got to reallylook at-.
Patrick (09:07):
Do they have choice?
A lot of times they don't knowwhat their choices are, though,
too right.
Sean (09:13):
Yeah, I mean, obviously you've got to do your homework,
you've got to go out there andlook.
I think there are certaincompanies in this space that
they're going to know, maybemore than somebody like us
because we've been in thehospitality space for so long.
So I think for me, if I wasdoing it on their end, I'd want
to know who I am, I'd want toget to this guy and I think I
try to make myself veryaccessible.
I still make cold calls.
(09:33):
I still answer the phone.
People are amazed.
Sometimes phone calls come intothe business.
I answer them.
And they say, well, can you getme the right person?
I said, well, you kind of dohave the right person.
I think that makes a difference.
I think today, especiallyaround technology, we're getting
away from, you know, with AIand everything else we're
getting away from the wholepeople stuff.
Sure, and that bothers me.
Even though we're a tech company, I still believe in my people
(09:55):
going out and visiting customers.
I want them to get on a plane,go out and shake a hand.
I don't think anything beatsthat.
You can tell me you can do aZoom call all day.
It's not the same.
So we're big believers inanswering our phones.
A lot of my customers actually,believe it or not, have my cell
phone.
They can call me directly.
I don't know of any othercompanies my size that the CEOs
are giving out their cell phones, but I'll do it and I'll
(10:17):
happily do it because I thinkthey deserve that, because
that's what I'd want on my end.
I'd want on my end, I'd want tobe able to call that CEO if I
was working with somebody andsay, hey, look, I got a problem
here and you know what.
You can pretend all day long,there aren't going to be any
problems.
There's always problems withtechnology, there's always
something that's going to gowrong.
You know, a switch goes down,something happens, the
connection ends, something'sgoing to go wrong.
(10:38):
It's how you respond to it andI think we realized that.
We realized that very early onand we do a really good job of
staying on top of things andcalling back customers and
getting back to them and takingcare of the problems when it
hits the fan.
Patrick (10:53):
You know having such great coverage around
hospitality.
At what point did you notice orpay attention to bringing this
to multifamily?
What was that signal?
Sean (11:03):
I think it was when we saw our brand starting to go into
that space so we realized weprobably wanted to get into that
space.
Patrick (11:11):
Was it customers that were in hospitality bringing you
along?
Yes, it's sort of like, hey,we've got this great solution
here.
Hey, can we try this on thisasset?
Sean (11:21):
Yes, 100% and I don't want to reference all the clients on
here, but we have some reallybig clients.
So if you look at themanagement companies throughout
hospitality, there's probably 50main ones in the United States.
I think we handle 48, 49 ofthem and what happens is we've
built up a really goodreputation, started to sort of
(11:45):
expand outside of that.
It could include restaurants,we've done military bases, all
these kind of customers thathave sort of made the jump first
and then said, well, who are wegoing to use for this?
Who are the people in thisspace?
They're like well, could we goback to safety net access?
Could we talk to them, becausewe trust them?
We already know who they are,we know what we're getting.
Can we bring them with us?
So yeah, absolutely.
That was the transition.
Patrick (12:04):
Yeah, and in terms of holding that reputation, that's
a lot to manage.
You mentioned, you know,picking up the phone, even you
answering, making cold calls,really having that integrity
first mindset and culture Iguess I can, and even how you
operate the business.
How do you do that in such aproduct that is somewhat, can be
(12:24):
technical and things change?
Sean (12:28):
I think you've got to educate, educate, educate.
So even when the sales guystarts the process, he has to
say listen, this is what's goingto happen, this is how things
happen.
And then you almost want to beprepared for the worst.
So you want to explain that tocustomers so they're not blown
away when something happens.
Because oftentimes if you don'teducate them, they're going to
call especially if they don'thave any technology background
and say you know, this happenedor that happened.
(12:49):
Well, that happens, but you'vegot to tell them that ahead of
time.
And I think that's where yousort of we differentiate
ourselves.
We try to educate the clientbeforehand so that they know
what's coming.
So when you do have thepitfalls which you're going to
have, if you explain that tothem in the beginning,
oftentimes it's not much of aproblem after that.
But if you don't tell it tothem, they're going to be upset.
Patrick (13:11):
Right, you start to think about after the sale,
right after the relationshipexpectations, these types of
things.
Sean (13:16):
It's very, very important to build the expectations.
If we don't do that up front,we're in trouble on the back end
.
Patrick (13:25):
Yeah.
So what does the ideal clientlook like?
Is it a developer, currentoperator, somebody in contract
status, Like what does formultifamily?
Sean (13:33):
Yeah, I think it's probably the developers, so that
we're sort of getting in early,because I'd rather be on the
side of coming in when they'rejust designing the plans.
I'd like my guys to sit downwith the blueprints and go
through everything and say haveyou thought of this, have you
thought of that?
And oftentimes we've had greatsuccess doing that, because we
get in in the beginning, webuild the relationship and as
they're building the product perse, we're building it with them
(13:55):
and alongside them, so thatthey feel a lot more comfortable
with us.
I think that's probably sort ofthe ideal person for us.
I mean, we can go into existingbuildings, we can certainly do
any of that, but it's nice toget brought in in the beginning
with these developers as they doit.
And I think what I'm finding now, or what we're finding now in
this industry, is that the oldschool sort of construction guys
(14:15):
have changed a little bit.
So now maybe the sons, thegrandsons are coming in who have
a lot more technologybackground and they're saying,
hey, wait a minute, why aren'twe doing this?
Why aren't we looking at this?
I feel like maybe we're leavingmoney on the table by not sort
of doing this ourselves insteadof farming it out all the time.
I think in the past a lot oftimes they said the cable
(14:37):
company will come in and justlet them do it.
Patrick (14:39):
I don't want to have anything to do with it.
Sean (14:41):
And I think when we come in and we say, well, we'll do
that piece for you as you, theyget a little nervous because
they're like, well, I don't wantto have anything to do with it.
But what's nice about it is wesort of give them the credit as
bringing it in but we take careof it all.
So they have it's still handsoff for them, but they're just
getting to participate in it,whereas before they probably
didn't?
Patrick (14:59):
Yeah, take me through some of those value engineering
moments in the developmentmeetings, like what are we
looking at differently thatmaybe is status quo or routine
in the process of bringing thistype of service in?
Sean (15:11):
Well, again, I think the big thing that I run into is
some of the old school guys thatdon't want to touch technology
at all.
So our biggest challenge is tosort of get through that and let
them understand what this isabout.
I think sometimes, when youdon't understand technology or
you haven't been around it, it'sa little scary.
Sometimes it's just turn thecomputer off and turn it back on
.
You just rebooted it, you'regood to go.
(15:33):
But they're thinking, oh, mygosh, my computer's not working.
I got the blue screen of death.
I can't do this.
So I think there's a lotchallenge we run into.
And the other challenge, whichI mentioned before, is that they
think, well, I don't want to bein the business of doing this,
I'm a construction person.
I don't want to get into thebusiness technology.
When you're telling me, yeah, Ican have it, I really don't
(15:53):
want it.
So we have to sort of overcomethat too.
That's our biggest challengetoo, because as we do these
things, we've got to tell themlisten, this isn't going to be
on you, it's going to be on us.
Here's our help desk.
We've got hundreds of peoplethat sit in a help desk, that
are intelligent people that knowwhat they're doing.
They're all technology people.
So we're answering that a lotof times on the first call,
(16:14):
whereas if you know, whensometimes you're calling some of
these help desks, you havetrouble understanding them.
They're really going through alist.
They're just kind of poo-pooingyou until they can get you to
somebody else and then you haveto be transferred two or three
times before you get an answer.
Patrick (16:27):
How would you and this will be fun, I enjoy this
explain it to a fifth graderwhat the product is?
Sean (16:38):
Explain it to a fifth grader.
That's probably pretty easy forme, um, cause I'm actually I'm
not a technology guy, so I'mprobably more of a sales guy
than anything else.
What we do is very similar towhat we do in a hotel.
We go in and we build sort ofinside the hotel.
We build the backbone, so webuild the network.
So it's kind of like plumbing,except it's bringing the
(17:00):
internet and everything else tothe rooms.
So think of the cable companybringing the network sort of
into the building.
We take it from the buildinginward and that's what we manage
.
So if you were in a—some of theproblems you'll have oftentimes
is when people can sort of willynilly, decide oh, I've got a
cable company in my place, I'mgoing to put a, a wifi router in
(17:23):
, and then the next guy puts awifi router in and you've got
all these apartments with wifirouters.
Now you got a lot of stuff goingback and forth there.
Um, they're all competing forthe same stuff.
There's a lot of confusion,there's overlap.
What we'll do is we'll go inand we'll build those Wi-Fi
networks for a particularcustomer and it's his own,
(17:44):
basically secure network.
So now when he leaves that roomand maybe goes to the gym or
goes to the pool, he's stillconnected to his network, nobody
else's network, and you don'thave all that sort of traffic
going on and confusion and a lotof loud noise going on, because
we've sort of sectioned it offfor each individual unit, which
is nice.
(18:04):
I mean it really does make abig difference.
And also the onboarding processis very simple.
It's basically you call us up,we switch you on, you're good to
go, and it's much moresimplified than what we're sort
of used to in the past.
Patrick (18:19):
Yes, it's almost like the utility system versus a
private hospital.
I mean, being in a hospitalitybusiness, you were forced to I
don't want to say forced, but itmakes sense to meet the
expectations of those brandsthat are selling service and
amenity.
And all that.
What insights on the customerdo you bring back from that
(18:40):
marketplace?
Sean (18:43):
I think sort of for us.
I don't know how many insights,but you're dealing with.
You're drinking from a firehose, I guess is the way to look
at it when you're in thehospitality business Because,
like I said, you might have afamily of five with 10 devices
in one of those rooms and yougot to handle everything.
I mean, one of the big thingsthat we have to handle that they
call us on in a in hotels is isgaming.
(19:04):
So these kids come in, they setup their gaming.
They can't can't get on, theyhave to figure it out and our
help desk has to handle that.
So when we, when we transitioninto residential, it becomes a
lot less complex and it's veryeasy.
So they call us up, we onboardthem, we get them on.
If they have an emergency, theycall us, we take care of it.
So I think it's because of thatWe've been drinking from a fire
(19:26):
hose for 20-something years Nowwe go there.
It's less of a fire hose, so Ithink it's a lot easier for us
to handle.
Patrick (19:31):
Yeah, it's interesting.
What are you seeing next whenyou're building technology and
deploying technology?
How do you think through thatto scale and plan for the future
?
Sean (20:01):
no-transcript run your thermostats.
You're going to run everythingon that wireless network.
So that has to be really rocksolid for you.
But that's sort of the nextphase.
You're going to be walking intothese things.
You're going to walk in withyour cell phone, which they're
doing now in hotels.
You walk in with your cellphone, it becomes the key for
your door.
It's going to controleverything in the building.
(20:23):
They're going to know when youwalk through the front door.
So they're going to say to meMr Gorman, on my phone, welcome
to the.
Whatever hotel it is, yourphone now becomes your key.
You walk to your door, you openyour door.
It's a little almost it's almostweird when you think about it.
It's kind of futuristic.
But that's where it's going.
I mean, everything's going tobe tied into one place.
(20:43):
And where we want to be is youknow, we have our own software
company.
That's a portal that's going tosort of see into the health of
all our networks.
So at some point we want tohave that portal be the one
place people go.
I hate to use one-stop shoppingEverybody uses that but it's
one place where they can go andsee the health of even if they
(21:03):
own, let's say, 15 properties.
They can go there and take alook at their network.
They can see what they're doing.
We can look at even energymanagement, like I said,
thermostats Everything's goingto run on these things.
So that's where the future'sgoing.
I mean everything's going to besmart technology.
Patrick (21:19):
Yeah, you mentioned the software piece, obviously
hiring great people.
You mentioned building ahealthy organization around not
only great values but the tech.
How has that sort of beingsoftware in-house, I guess
played a part in what you'redoing?
Sean (21:33):
It's enormous for us.
So for years what we did was wehave a software company called
Select Networks.
It's sort of a sister companyand it's based in Belfast,
ireland, and for years I wasoutsourcing to different places
whether it be India, venezuela,all sorts of places to try to do
this.
And I got to the point wherenot only were there some
(21:55):
language barriers there, but youknow it's on the other side of
the world.
You know there were constantlylittle things.
So I'm always trying to figureout how we fine tune the
business to make it better, andI think the biggest thing for me
was I wanted my own people.
I wanted them working for me, Iwanted their paychecks to be
signed by me, and so that's howwe sort of ended up with Belfast
Ireland.
I mean, we've got enormoustalent over there.
(22:17):
We've got maybe 16 people, Ithink, over there now in that
software company.
But it definitely adds abenefit to what we do, because
all of our companies tie intoeach other so they're not
completely separate, so thatwe're all over the board.
They all tie into each other.
So it's been nice for us.
Now we have our own softwarepeople.
If we need to develop things,if we need to look at the latest
and greatest in software.
(22:37):
We have our own team.
Patrick (22:44):
Yeah, what challenges do you run into?
Perhaps are in conversationswith customers.
What are they pushing back onany aspect of this process?
Sean (22:50):
Well, it's funny you should ask me that because I've
recently had a couple of thosethings in the last month or so,
and it's going to go back towhat you said before Our biggest
strengths are our employees.
The biggest thing that alsohurt us are our employees.
So I think you've got to makesure you hire the right people.
One bad apple can cause a lotof friction, sure, and I think
that what I've seen is I have toalmost do a better job even of
(23:15):
hiring the right people.
So what you do in my positionis you get to a point and
everybody's done it right youread all these books on
entrepreneurs.
You get to a point where yousay the biggest problem
entrepreneurs have is they tryto do everything on their own,
and I never thought I was reallylike that.
So what I did was I went outand I hired a-.
Patrick (23:33):
You just told me you were answering the calls, right
Like you're picking up the phone.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's natural,it's your business.
Sean (23:39):
You care Absolutely 100%.
But you need to be able to hirepeople that you can sort of put
that on their shoulders and say, all right, you take care of
this.
Patrick (23:47):
Yeah.
Sean (23:48):
So I think it's sort of the plus and the downside,
because you can't controleverybody.
I mean, we have over 140 peoplethat are full-time and another
100 plus that are 1099s orthey're outsourced somehow, but
they've been working for us foryears.
I have to be very careful,especially the way I run things,
because everything to me isabout my reputation, so it's my
(24:12):
company, there's no one else.
I don't have a private equityfirm in here.
Everything's out of my backpocket.
So if I have one complaint, itbothers me.
So I have to be very careful tomake sure I hire the right
people, because that canbackfire on you very quickly,
yeah, and it's interesting thetype of solutions that you bring
(24:33):
forward.
Patrick (24:34):
I would suspect and maybe you can tell me yes or no
on this is people aren't askingthe who's part of the team
question in this negotiation.
Is this something you'rebringing forward as the
differentiator, because I can'timagine that that's an
expectation based off of thehistory of these types of
relationships multifamily ownersand operators have had with
(24:56):
this type of A hundred percent.
I bring it to the forefront andI tell them who my people are
Are people asking that, or dothey not even think that that
should be something that's ofvalue?
Sean (25:04):
I don't, you know.
I think they think it's ofvalue, but I think that's a good
question.
I don't think they.
I don't really think they asklike who's your team?
Tell me about them.
No, they don't do that.
So I put it in front of them,but I try to get out as much as
possible to have them meet me.
I do think it matters and Ithink it all falls downhill.
So I think sort of the guyrunning the show has to be the
(25:27):
guy that's promoting theintegrity first above everybody
else, and he needs to bepromoting that all the time.
I think it's important for themto meet me and sometimes I
think that happens.
That's why I come to, I flyaround and I meet with people.
My guys will bring me in.
But you know, strangely enough,that question, no, I don't
think a lot of them do say, hey,what kind of people do you have
?
What are they like?
(25:48):
I think it's just technology.
Patrick (26:02):
They don't even want to touch it.
He's there that can handle thisfor me, right, and I think
before you could probably putsomething in and set it the pace
of innovation, the pace ofchange.
You mentioned this differenttechnologies from door locks and
different things that innovateso fast.
Now it's key as it's ever been.
Sean (26:09):
Well, we look at a lot of times when we tell people they
need to upgrade their network,they'll come back and say how I
just did that.
And we'll say to them well, letme ask you something In the
last few years, how many iPhoneshave you owned?
That's the problem, thateverything else continues to
change.
Patrick (26:26):
And that's the hardware piece you have to stay up, not
the software piece that comesthrough it.
Sean (26:29):
So you have to stay up with the times, and if not, the
times and if not, you sort ofget a little lost there.
Patrick (26:34):
And whether good, bad or indifferent, it's changing
all the time, so it's difficult.
I'm curious of the duediligence questions they're
asking you in these meetings.
Obviously you're sharing timewith people In terms of the
Wi-Fi managed network, how arethey looking through creating
that experience for customers?
Sean (26:55):
Certainly in the hotels.
They want to make theexperience like it is at home.
That's what they're trying todo.
They're trying to basicallymake it exactly like at home.
Walk in, it's on your-.
Everything works just like Igot it at home, so it's pretty
easy at home.
We set it up.
It's good to go.
Even when they come intosomething new, they want to be
able to do the same thing.
They want that same experience.
So we're trying to make it thebest possible experience we can,
(27:17):
and we got to make it easy, sowe got to take something that's
seemingly complicated and makingit I hate to say it, but idiot
proof.
Like you said earlier, fifthgrade education and then you
should be able to explain itthat way.
If you can't, you probablyshouldn't be selling the product
.
Patrick (27:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
And how do you see the commonareas and the private areas?
I guess it's similar tohospitality.
Sean (27:40):
I mean you have the same you just have more pressure on
the turn because it's the samething If by common areas you
mean like a lobby or, yeah, yourclubhouses and pool areas.
So for the residential it'sgoing to follow you.
In the hotels it's more or less, they usually put you on like a
(28:01):
lobby network, a guest, andthen when you go to the guest
network that's usually in yourroom.
Patrick (28:06):
So it's usually two separate.
Yeah, and so you're part of theadjacent income opportunities
with that, because some chargefor that right in the
hospitality.
What are you seeing play out inmultifamily adjacent income
opportunities with that, becausesome charge for that?
Sean (28:22):
right In the hospitality.
Are you seeing what are youseeing play out in multifamily?
Too early to tell or no?
I mean, I think in theresidential space multifamily
it's just going to be like itwould be for any of us at home.
I don't think that's changingany.
You're going to pay X amountfor your internet.
Most people now aren't buyingthe TV anymore.
They're doing everythingstreaming.
So you have to have the bestpossible network and the best
possible internet, which is whythat's great for us, because
(28:42):
that's what everybody's doing.
These young kids now are movinginto these apartments and
they're just downloading stuff.
It's all streaming.
Patrick (28:51):
How do you think through speeds of access in
terms of I know when I travel, Ican get the free, I can do the
upgrade, I can pay for faster oreven timelines to that, and in
multifamily, how do you?
Are there things that you canthrottle or offer additional
speed services, or how do youthink through all that?
Sean (29:12):
Yes, there's a lot of different ways we can do it.
Patrick (29:14):
Now you're getting into a little more technology then,
but you want to bring in I meanyears ago you could bring all
this.
Sean (29:17):
Yes, there's a lot of different ways we can do it Now.
You're getting into a littlemore technology then, but you
want to bring in.
I mean, years ago you couldbring in a T1, and you couldn't
do that anymore.
People are expecting a lot moreand people are downloading a
lot more now, right, so with allthe streaming television and
everything that requires a hugebandwidth, and a lot of times
people will tell you well, we'vegot these speeds inside our
building.
Well, that's great, but if thebandwidth going out of the
building isn't that big, thatdoesn't help you any.
(29:38):
So you've got to make sureyou're bringing in enough
bandwidth outside to handle thecapacity of that building.
This is at the curb.
That's what I use my guys for.
Patrick (29:46):
This is at the curb, yes.
Sean (29:48):
Yes, bringing it into the building.
Patrick (29:49):
And then that's where your value engineering.
When You're talking about plans, you're talking about the
inside stuff, correct?
Sean (29:55):
So we'll go in and talk to the people about those speeds
and what they're going to needbased on the size of their
building, what kind of clientelethey're going to have.
If we go into an assistantliving place, we're probably not
going to have the downloadingthat we're going to see at some
group of apartments with youngkids yeah, PlayStations and all
that stuff.
Patrick (30:13):
Right.
Sean (30:13):
Yeah.
Patrick (30:14):
It's interesting, and so what are the questions I
should be asking that I haven'tasked?
Sean (30:22):
What are they?
Yeah, what would that be got?
me on the spot there yeah, um, Imean, I I think you've asked a
lot of great questions.
I I think that, um, our, ourbiggest thing, which you've
talked about, is the people part.
I I find it very interestingthat you said how many people
are asking about the people,because I don't think anybody is
(30:43):
.
I think that's probably whatother people should be asking,
never mind you, but other peopleshould be asking am I really
doing business with?
And I don't think there'senough of that going on.
Yeah, it's very true.
That was a real politicalanswer to that, wasn't it?
No, no, I think it's good.
Patrick (30:58):
I think what I'm thinking through with that is
based on the expectation of thistype of service.
It wouldn't be a question.
You think you would have evencontrol over asking, like you
know, because it's in and outand, uh, you know you're left to
.
Sean (31:18):
You know, the hotel business is unique in that it's
a white glove industry and we wetalk about that a lot with what
we do.
Um, we're sort of at theservice of these guys and
because we've got, we've got,we've got which interesting.
We have two customers really.
We have the hotel, the branditself, and then we have the end
customer, which is the guestthat's in the room.
(31:39):
They're both our customers atthe end of the day and we have
to be able to do that.
It's the same thing inmultifamily.
We've got whoever thatdeveloper is, whoever that owner
is of that building, he or sheis our customer customer, but so
is the client at the end.
So we see them both ascustomers.
I don't think everybody doesthat.
I think some people see as theguy sort of paying the real
(32:01):
thing and calling the shots asthe customer.
But we look beyond that.
We say we got to go right downto the person in the room.
That's our customer too andthat matters.
And that person matters becauseusually a lot of times when
they're calling in, they're veryfrustrated, Something's not
working, they don't understand,and they need somebody on the
other end to say hey, listen,we'll take care of you Don't
worry about it.
We want to look like.
You know, we're on the side ofthis guy.
(32:22):
We're on the side of that guytoo, because that's the person
staying in there that has todeal with the day-to-day stuff.
Patrick (32:27):
Yeah, so let's go into a little bit more on the
hospitality side because I thinkit plays out because a lot of
multifamily owners and operatorswant to create that type of an
experience.
Oftentimes the promise is there, maybe the resources aren't, or
maybe even the people or thetraining.
It could be a lot of factors.
(32:47):
What do you see in thoseconversations with the
executives in the hospitality?
You mentioned the white gloveexperience and this collision
with technology.
How do you see either parallelsor differences in how they
think through business decisions?
Sean (33:07):
Well, I think that with some of these people people that
we're dealing with, with thebrands and whatnot a lot of
times they forget that there'sother people that are handling
it.
So they look at the sort of the, the macro, I guess picture of
everything and they see it asone big thing where this brand,
we've got to do this, and theyforget that not only like I
mentioned earlier, you got toworry about the customer, you
(33:28):
got to worry about the customer,you got to worry about the GM,
you got to worry about theperson at the front desk and
sometimes, I think from abusiness standpoint they're not
understanding that those peopleneed to be educated too.
So you can't just throw anetwork in and then the GM
doesn't know what's going on.
The person at the front deskwho's dealing with the customer
every single day doesn't knowwhat's going on.
So what we try to do is we tryto even go beyond that and not
(33:56):
just sell it to them, but sellit to the GM, sell it to the
people behind the front desk andexplain to them.
The process becomes so mucheasier if you guys understand
exactly what's going on here,because that can be a problem
sometimes, and even if it's assimple as some business owners.
Some brands don't want thenumber in the room, so you have
to call the front desk to getthe number to call us.
Others present it right therein the room.
That creates other issues.
(34:17):
You might have a problem withthe lights, anything else, they
just call the number.
And who's the number?
We're the number.
So that's part of the reasonwe're as well prepared as we are
, because over the years,because I've always told my guys
just answer the questions.
I don't like to get into thispointing fingers.
So if they would call on theTVs, we'd answer it.
If they'd call on the circuitcoming into the building, we'd
(34:37):
answer it.
We'd take care of it.
They called the door locks,we'd find the door lock company,
we'd answer it.
So now, when you look at that,we've had such good training
that we were right in thefirefight the whole time.
So now, when we get out of this, we've got a knowledge base
beyond what anybody else has,because they've all been calling
us, even though they're notsupposed to be calling us.
Patrick (34:54):
They've called us.
Yeah, it goes back to yourpoint on education, and I like
how you mentioned the generalmanager, the front desk.
I mean it's the same situationon apartments, yep Right, you
have the portfolio managers, youhave the executives.
There's you have the portfoliomanagers, you have the
executives, there's the peopledoing the math how does this
play out?
And then those that are lookingfor what's happening next.
(35:15):
Speaking of what's happeningnext, what do you think is next
for what you're working on?
Sean (35:22):
Well, we're expanding all the time.
I mean, our company is veryinteresting.
We have our software company,select Networks.
We have our S&A EP, which isour event productions company,
and we have Amicus, and Amicus,by the way, in Latin it's
trusted friend.
That's why we ended up goingwith that name.
So what's next for us is totake these divisions and these
(35:45):
different companies and makethem as successful as they can
be in their space, and sort ofthat's what we're trying to do
right now.
I think with Amicus we'redeveloping and learning every
day with how we want to do this,because now that we're sort of
outside of hospitality, we'regetting calls from all sorts of
different people.
I told you earlier we didmilitary bases.
It's very interesting becauseeverybody needs a network,
everybody needs it.
(36:05):
Somebody's got to monitor it,maintain it.
A lot of times they'll go tocompanies and they do deals
where they get, you know, greathardware.
The hardware is brought in.
They might have one it guy, butthe it guy's like I really
can't manage this.
Um, that's where, sort of, wecome into play and I think,
again, one of the things thatmakes this a little bit
different is we go into a lot ofit guys and say, because I
(36:26):
think there's a fear theresometimes that we're going to
try to take their job and that'sthe last thing I want to do.
So I'll try to go in there andsay to them listen, my job is to
make you look good.
I can be in the background, thepeople don't have to know about
me, you can take all the credit, but we'll help you.
That's really helped us in ourbusiness to grow our business,
because we work with consultants, we work with IT guys and we're
(36:47):
on their side, whereas I thinksometimes there's that tendency
to think these guys are going totake my job.
I'm going to be out of a job ifI bring these guys in, and
that's not the case.
We still like somebody therethat can take all the credit.
We'll sit in the background,we're just happy doing that.
Patrick (37:00):
Yeah, we're coming up on our bonus round now.
We're coming up on the end ofour time together, but I'd love
to explore some additional stuffif you're open to it.
Sure, I'd love to know, likeyou mentioned, the software
company, the events, obviously,the platform bringing all it
sounds like you're, the morecontrol, even in multifamily, I
(37:22):
mean you can own and operate,you have a little bit more
control.
They don't necessarily go afterit because there's money to be
made in management.
It's that you can create theexperience or control the
experience and fix things whenthey break those types of things
.
Is that played out in thesedifferent business units that
sort of come together in anecosystem?
Is that your business?
Sean (37:41):
model In the different ones.
Yeah, a hundred percent thateach one sort of plays into the
other one.
I mean, when you look at it,which?
Patrick (37:47):
gives you advantage and leverage over the experience of
the other right.
Sean (37:52):
Absolutely.
So you know, when we get intothe event production space, the
only reason I get into that wasbecause I was servicing them.
All the time I'd get calls fromother companies that were doing
events planning.
They need the networkingcompany.
So I said, well, we can getinto that.
And I mean we have.
We've got networks in all 50states.
We've got over, I think, 4,000plus hotels that we manage.
(38:13):
A lot of these have spaceswhere they do events.
So that was an easy tie-in forus.
You know, when you look atAmicus and you say, well, we're
going to go out and you know,even if we're just starting in
this business, we've got 20 plusyears of experience with
networking guys, fantastic smartguys behind us that can go into
this.
So that's just tying right in.
It's very easy for us.
(38:33):
And with the software company,both companies utilize the
software company.
Although the software companystands in its loan and does
business with other people, it'ssupporting all the different
companies that I have.
So there's definitely all ofthem are intertwined.
Patrick (38:49):
Yeah, we had NVIDIA on our podcast and we were talking
about cities and spaces.
And when you think about this,it's space, right, you have the
hotel different type of space,you have the multifamily, and
then you're mentioning theseevent spaces and stuff like that
.
It's pretty interesting how theconsumer is blending these
(39:13):
things.
You also mentioned partnershipand where you're walking into
situations thinking, okay, let'sget alignment here, let's
create some victories for you,disarming any defensive behavior
on like, hey, I know this mayhave appeared to be a conflict
before, but we're here to helpyou win.
How do you think through that?
As a leader?
(39:34):
Is this?
Are you?
I mean, you're obviouslyintentional about this, but with
technology, this is more andmore important than ever before.
Yes, take me through that forthose that may be building a
business today, and how thatpartnership should be.
Sean (39:51):
I think the way I look at all these things, when I do it,
when I talk to you about ourpartnership, I look at it as if
I'm sitting in his seat.
So every business deal I makewhether it's a customer
complaining or whether it's adeal I got to make with a huge
developer I'm going to putmyself in his seat and I'm going
to say what does he really wantto know?
And if I were sitting in hisseat, what do I want out of this
guy?
I wouldn't want to get rippedoff.
(40:12):
I wouldn't want him to pricetoo high.
I wouldn't want him going intothis thinking I'm just in it to
make a buck for me.
So if I sort of take that stanceand sort of everything I do in
my business, it becomes quiteeasy.
Because I'm sitting down with aguy saying I'm just partnering
with you and honestly and I havethis in every deal I go into I
don't know why they wouldn'twant to go with me I honestly go
(40:34):
into every deal.
I have thinking that becauseI'm like I'm only going to do
this to help you out.
I'm not trying to make myself,I'm not driving a Lamborghini,
I'm going to do this and Ifigured the minute I do that
with you, I've created much moreof a partnership, because now
I've created a friendship, whichis what I do with a lot of my
clients, and they're going touse me for the next one, and the
next one, and the next one, andthat I've seen that play out
(40:55):
over and over and over again.
So I think the key for me is Iput myself in his shoes and
that's the way I try to view thesale.
Patrick (41:03):
Do you think that has to do with the ability that I
mean you've bootstrapped, Ishould say maybe a company where
you have control over theoutcome and these types of
decisions?
That gives you an advantage.
Sean (41:15):
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, I will tell you nothingwas ever given to me.
I'm a scrappy guy and I thinkby nature I'm like that, so that
definitely plays intoeverything.
Patrick (41:26):
I do.
Is that like the hockey stuff?
Sean (41:29):
There's probably a little hockey stuff in that.
Yeah, a little Sure.
Patrick (41:31):
Getting better every day type of yeah no, absolutely.
Sean (41:34):
But I think too, you know, and not kidding here, I think
with the hockey piece I don'tthink I went as far as I could
have, or I really wanted to, andthat always bothered me.
Patrick (41:45):
Yeah.
Sean (41:45):
You know, I don't think I put enough time in or effort in,
sometimes when I think back onit.
And so in my business I said tomyself I'm not going to do that
, I'm going to go for it.
I'm going to go for it ineverything I do, but I won't do
it at the expense of myemployees, I won't do it at the
expense of my customers.
So I'll do it the right way.
I don't believe in nice guy.
You know, finishes last.
(42:13):
Sure Sure, I figure you canfinish first all the time.
Well, winning feels good,absolutely, and I think people
want to be on winning teams aswell, and they want to be
serviced by a winner.
Patrick (42:18):
And going back to hockey and coaching, you know
leading and following, beingcoached and being coachable is
important too, right?
Because you're dealing withpeople with complex knowledge,
deep knowledge around technology, these types of things.
As you're talking about yoursoftware company, you have to
(42:39):
work through a lot of differentdynamics, I would imagine.
Sean (42:41):
Yeah, but I think every day as I lead, I think part of
being a good leader is I have tounderstand that to your point.
I can coach, but I need to becoached as well.
Sometimes because I won't havethe same knowledge as my CTO,
for example, and I need to beopen to listening to him.
I can't say it's my way or thehighway.
I need him to be able to comein and feel comfortable telling
(43:01):
me that's not the way you do it,this is the way you do it and I
think we do that really, reallywell.
I mean, I'm very much.
I have no problem withconstructive criticism and I
will oftentimes ask people in mycompany their opinions on
things and the least like personyou'd think I should be asking.
I'll ask them to just get theiropinion, cause I think
sometimes the best ideas comefrom the least likely places.
Patrick (43:23):
So how do you, how do you deal with a setback?
Sean (43:27):
How do I deal with a setback?
How would you deal with asetback when COVID hit?
I'll just give you an example.
So when COVID hit, I rallied myguys together.
We had to lay off a bunch ofpeople because obviously it hit
the hospitality industry reallybadly and we lost.
We didn't really lose theclients, but we lost the.
They weren't able to pay.
And so I can remember sittingdown and I thought to myself how
(43:48):
do I handle this?
And I oftentimes go back to mymy playing hockey or my coaching
, and I said, listen, I'm goingto go over a couple of things
that I've taught my kids which Ithink are very important.
So obviously it's when you gethit.
That's when you got to reallydecide who you are.
And we got hit really badly andI said I tell my kids, when
there's a fire, you don't runaway from it, you run at it.
(44:11):
And everybody's kind of likewell, what do you mean?
Well, you got something scary.
It's right in front of you.
You don't run away from itbecause somebody might need to
be saved.
So you better run towards thefire.
And the last thing I taught him, which is a little more from
hockey, is, if you hit them, hitthem first, fast and last, and
I said that's what we're goingto do.
And that's what we did.
We spent money, we built ourS&AEP business, we built our
(44:32):
amicus business, all duringCOVID, when we were losing
everything.
Everything was going down.
So that's how I handle setbacksI go at it, I don't run away
from it, right.
Patrick (44:40):
That's good stuff.
Yeah Well, we are up on time,but this has been refreshing.
I hope to continue to followwhat you're working on.
I know we'll have anopportunity to share some time
later today, but excited.
Sean (44:53):
I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, excited for what you guysare building here.
Patrick (44:55):
Thank you All right, we'll see you next time.
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