120 - Thriving in the Industry with a People-First Philosophy with Hotel Emporium's Andy De Silva

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.

And Didier Silva, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the co-founder and CEO of Hotel Emporium which can be found at hotelemporium.com. Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

So tell us a little bit about your backstory. Oh, well, first of all, before I go there, just so, so the audience knows, Hotel Emporium sells amenities to hotels, very high-end amenities. And so when you go into a hotel, a really high-end hotel, and you see the stuff in the bathroom and, you know, the, the soaps and the, the conditioners and all that stuff, it probably comes from Hotel Emporium. So, so people know that. But tell us the background on how you got into the business.

How we got into the business, actually, I'll start, actually, because of my uncle, I got into the business. In early '90s, 1991, he was managing a hotel in Newport Beach. And on a Friday, the guy who was supplying all the hotel amenities, he wouldn't show up. So hotels, you know, obviously cannot run without the shampoos and the soaps. And he ended up going to Walmart, filling the whole hotel and kept calling the supplier who was his friend too at this time. And you know, those days we had those phones, you like, you know, rotary phones. And so he kept calling, he wouldn't answer. Monday comes, the guy calls and he said, my uncle's name is James. James, I had a heart attack and I wanna sell this business because I promised my wife I wanna get out of it. So long story short, my uncle goes, refinances his house and ends up buying this little liquid filling factory in Anaheim, California. So we have a huge family in Orange County in Southern California and he got his sisters, nephews, nieces working in the factory. He learned the business. Somehow the operation wasn't running right and in mid-'90s he closed it, but he learned the business and he started selling amenities for a different company from the East Coast. And he kept doing it. So when I was born and raised in Sri Lanka, a small island off the coast of India, and so my father was a hotel supplier as well. He had a hotel distribution network in Sri Lanka, in this little island. And at a very young age, I saw how he works and being an entrepreneur, I realized all the professionals most of them at least end up working for a businessman at the end of the day. And so I thought this is what I exactly wanted to do. But right out of high school, I told my dad, I wanted to join you. I don't want to— because we had a— it was a war-torn country at that time. We had a civil war. So we had a waiting period to go to the university. So I was never interested in that path and a few years to actually go. So then my dad is like, if you're ready, Come with me. If you're not ready, don't come because you've seen the work I put in. So he trained me. I used to call him, call that the Hitler training, right? He will wake me up at 5:30 in the morning, then I'll have to load up box trucks. We were selling all kinds of milk products, ice cream, cheese, butter, yogurt, and stuff and deliver it to all the hotels in Colombo, which is the main city in Sri Lanka. So after a year, year and a half, I was working 12, 15-hour days. And my dad and I didn't see eye to eye, being father and the son. We got into a lot of headbutting. And then the next thing, my mom is like, hey, you gotta go back to school. So I went back to school. Then something funny happened. My best friend, I'm pretty tall for a Sri Lankan. I'm 6'2" in height. And my best friend is like, hey, you have to join modeling in this region. I'm like, I'm not a model, man. Like, you know, and then the next thing is he applied for myself, sent a picture of, took a picture of mine from my mom and applied. I, and for this Model of the Year contest in Sri Lanka, this is the first time I'm talking about it actually. I ended up winning it, right? And then the next thing, Sri Lankan Airlines, which is the national airline career, and they, I got a job with them.. And so I was making money from both sides and getting a bit like, you know, a bit of the popularity and all that stuff. Then I got the visa to come to the US, migrated here. And when I came here, the main reason, you won't believe why I got into doing a business, because I work for hotels. My uncle put me into hotels. He's the one who told me how to dream big and all that stuff. And when I joined the hotels, I realized vacation is only 2 weeks. In the US, you know, when you start working for a corporate company. And I come from a country where I had like 40 to 50 days of vacation in the Sri Lankan Airlines national career. And I'm like, there is no way I can have 2 weeks vacation because I was used to that lifestyle of having a lot of time off to do travel and do other stuff. So then I told my uncle, hey, let's do something together. I was climbing up on the ladder on the hotels as well at that time. And he's like, hey, I know I have a passion in this hotel. Supply, selling amenities. He's like, if you are ready, I'm ready. Because I came up with a pretty good operational background from my sales. My dad and my uncle had the sales background, so it was a perfect match. So we started in my garage in Anaheim, California. Again, I had a little house there and started it, and here we are after 25 years.

Wow.

And you, you source your products all over the world.

Yes, at this moment we source it from, actually source it from some factories in the US, Mexico, China, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and so on, India, and so on. Yeah.

So what exactly does Hotel Emporium provide?

At this moment we are kind of in a, we are diversifying the business a little bit, but mostly 80% of our business, I would say, we are manufacturing all the soaps. Shampoos, lotions, conditioner, all the little toiletries. We call them in-room amenities in hotels. So that's what we do.

And, and is your market primarily luxury markets, or do you go up the whole, whole strata of hotels?

Actually, we go all across from the motels all the way to the luxury market. But our strength is in the mid-scale, from 3 to 4-star properties. That, that would be like 80% of our business right now.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's amazing.

Yeah.

So, so, and you're the CEO and founder. How many employees do you have?

In the US, we have about 32 employees. And globally, I would say about 120.

So it's not a big organization.

It's not. It's not.

But you, but you're obviously staying very busy. And you've been— you've been in business for what, over 20 years now?

Yes. Yes.

Wow. So you've been doing this for a long time, Andy. What is it that gets you really excited to get up in the morning?

So I think I was born to be an entrepreneur. So I am not actually— I don't chase the money. What gets me excited— I travel a lot. What gets me excited is like a friend of mine. I go to some place in Guatemala and see my products in a hotel. Right? That gets me going because, you know, coming from a little island, third world country, and you see these things, you know, in some island, or sometimes my friends would FaceTime me and say, hey, look at this, we're in Jamaica, we see your products here, you know. So that, that's a big deal for me.

So it's got to be really exciting to see your products in hotels around the world.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, it's unbelievable sometimes. Yeah.

So what is it that you think is unique about you that you bring to the business that's made it so successful?

So ours is primarily a family business, and unique about me, I think, might be building up my team. I have an amazing team and I feel like all this— we have like 4 cousins working together, right? So yeah, so, and my Biggest challenge would be managing the personalities, you know, plus my uncle and the whole family dynamics. Plus, I feel like all of our employees are extension of us. We spend more time at work more than we even spend time at home with our loved ones, like family members. So I feel like, you know, we can go as far as our team goes and also treat the people the way you want to be treated. Don't make them feel like they're employees, not only feel them, make them a part of your whole agenda, you know, and I make sure I listen to everybody starting from my warehouse guys to drivers all the way up to the management, you know, and it gets me going, you know, so.

So it sounds like you've got a people-first philosophy in the way that you run things. Absolutely. Tell us about some of the challenges you've had along the way.

Oh, lots of challenges. One thing, you know, my first language wasn't English growing up in a country. And when I came here, learning the lingo and, you know, and learning the sales pitch back in the day, I still have a thick accent. Back in the day, I would call people on, do cold calling. And I'll say something they wouldn't understand, then I'll hang up the phone, right? Then practice on my accent a little bit. I'll call, you know, these are the problems immigrants have at the beginning. Then once the business took off, actually, one of the biggest challenges were we started with these little tubes and bottles in hotels. And in 2018, California put a ban on it. After 2023, which is this year, You cannot have little tubes and bottles, plastic bottles in hotel rooms. So most of our business was primarily on packaging these little bottles and tubes, and then it was a big challenge. Then we have to innovate products. Now we can have bulk bottle, bulk dispensers and all this stuff. So innovation became a huge part of it. So that pivot, a lot of people, some of our competition even took off and they started doing cosmetic products instead of staying in hotel space. So we decided, hey, let's innovate and innovation is the key, you know. So that challenge, changing the mindset of like coming up with new innovative products was a big challenge. And fortunately, like, you know, since this change started, our business started growing too because we were a step ahead than our competition because we got into innovations.

So you're really big into environmental sustainability. Tell me about that.

Yes, we are. So that's what like one of the challenges we had too, because the little plastic bottles and the tubes, they weren't environmentally friendly at all when you really look at it. And then we actually, what I did was like I went around the world looking for new sort of type of packaging. Then we created a package called EcoPod. It's made out of paper, 100% paper. And the shampoos and the soaps, all of them, none of them have synthetic chemicals. They are in powder form. So we put this powder into a pot and put a lid, and in the shower you put water into it, right? It just becomes shampoo or conditioner. And this is something I'm really— we've won some awards on it for innovation and stuff. So those kind of packaging, we have come up with where our competition hasn't so far, as well as, uh, where most of our plastic, whatever you use, we try to— we do only recycle materials. So we try to stay in that space and come up with new products. Actually, I'm innovating some products which is going to come next year. I'm not at the liberty of saying it, right? So in this sustainable space, uh, so that's just a constant.

It's just a constant constant job of innovating and trying to make things more sustainable, greener, less waste, less plastic.

Yeah.

How are your customers taking to that?

We have a lot of mixed feelings on this subject, actually, because some people— this, this cute little tubes and bottles have been there for a long time, right? And some people they don't want to change it. Most of the countries, they're still using it. So, uh, plus, like, when you go to bulk dispensers, there's two types. One of them is refillable. So hygiene-wise, it's not a great product, to be honest with you, because there's no cleaning practices in most of the places. So customers don't like it that much. Even I see a trend now, mostly women and some men too, they carry their own products to hotels when they go. Because they are worried about the cleanliness of the dispensers in the room. So you have mixed feelings. So, uh, we have two types of products. We have large, uh, dispensers, one-time use dispensers with recyclable material, uh, which goes on the wall. So, uh, and refillable systems as well. So, so customers, to answer your question, they have mixed reviews on this.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah.

And so how often do you— are you in charge of sales?

I'm in charge of all aspects of Hotel Emporium. Yeah. Okay.

So do you get to go out and visit with the customers at hotels?

Yeah, I still like— initially, our customer base was in Southern California mostly. So I still go visit them. You know, these were the guys who helped us in our journey at the beginning, you know, you cannot forget your roots. So I see them. And also I randomly go on sales calls and I'll go visit people, corporate meetings and everywhere.

Yep. Are most of your customers in Southern California or are you selling all over the world?

All over the world. We're in 55+ countries right now.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's crazy. How big is your sales force?

Our sales force in the US, we have about 8 people.

That's good.

Yeah. Outside sales, I mean, going and knocking on inside sales, 4 people. And internationally, we have about another 6 Yeah.

And I take it also that people, people, hotels or hotel chains can order off your website?

No, actually, this, our industry, because logistics are so complicated, they can order off our website for independent hotels and stuff. But mostly through distributors. Okay, we have distributors all throughout the world, we can supply anywhere in the world right now.

So you, you sell your products to distributors, who sell to the hotel chains.

Exactly.

Yeah. Okay.

So that's why our sales forces are— that's why our sales force is a little small, because we have a large sales force with the distribution. We assist them with the sales, right? Yeah, they are like our extension of our sales as well.

So the distributors are doing the sales and your people are acting as sort of experts.

Experts. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Got it. So tell me about listening. How important has listening been in the growth of your business?

It's huge, actually. It's funny, like today I had a call with a sales team and I was just telling them listening because one guy was talking over us and I was preaching that, you know, because I feel like, you know, listening is one of the most important things in a sale, in a sale. Because if you don't hear the customer's wants and the needs clearly without thinking and trying to sell other products, whatever comes to your mind, you're going to lose a lot of focus from the customer. And so listening is one of the most important skills in a sale, I believe.

And how have you cultivated that in the company? Because you said earlier it was a people-first company. Have you cultivated listening in the company, teaching people how to listen?

I try as much as I can. Yeah, it's a pretty big challenge actually because we have pretty upbeat personalities, you know, and some of them are born and bred salespeople, but they think they can overcome everything by talking, you know, more than listening. So plus some of my family members as well. So sometimes I pull them back and say, hey, because we have some, actually one of the girls, she's amazing, she listens, She doesn't really talk that much either, but I take her as an example. And I'm like, sometimes when you listen, you can get a lot more done than trying to be aggressively selling something, you know. So yeah, I try as much as I can.

When I work with salespeople, I teach them that for the first 5 minutes of any meeting, they shouldn't do anything but listen.

Oh, wow.

Don't even begin. To talk until you listen first. And I, I have listening— I see, listen, the way I break it down is there are two types of listening: Type 1 listening and Type 2 listening. And Type 1 listening is where you're listening for information, you're trying to get information to make a decision, for example. Um, and Type 2 listening is where you're listening to validate the speaker and the speaker's emotions. And it's the Type 2 listening that's the most powerful, because when you tell people how they are, what their emotional experience is, they feel deeply heard and validated. And so in sales training, I'll teach— I will teach salespeople, listen to your— listen to your guests' emotions and reflect back what they're feeling, and they will feel so deeply heard, they'll follow you anywhere because they feel really deeply listened to.

Actually, a good lesson. Yeah, good lesson. I can talk to my team about it. I wish I can bring somebody like you and talk to them one of these days.

We'll talk about it. So I want to talk, what about the family dynamics? You've got a bunch of family members. You said you had at least 4 cousins. What other family members are involved in the business?

So my uncle, myself, and my uncle's son, Older son who is our business development manager and he hits marketing as well. And then we have a global sales manager who's one of my mom's sister's son and my brother handles all the sourcing around the world. So yeah, so 4 of us are cousins.

All Sri Lankans?

All of Sri Lankans. I would say my brother and I are the migrants, the other 2 cousins, you know, they're pretty, one was born in New York, the other one was pretty young when he came here, they're pretty much American.

Yeah, right. Wow. Do you have any family dynamics that you have to deal with?

Yes.

A lot.

Yeah, we have like 35 of us just around in Orange County and LA area.

So, so tell us, how do you manage the family dynamics?

I try to stay away from the noise. It's not like, you know, sometimes like, yeah, because sometimes you can discipline somebody, then the next thing you might get a call from your auntie or your mom, hey, what happened? Because word goes around so fast. Our family is kind of like that My Big Fat Greek Wedding movie. It's kind of like everybody's in everybody's business. So, I try to, my hardest thing is like, you know, be the boss during the daytime and on the weekends or the evenings or whenever, be the cousin, you know. So, balancing that was a huge challenge, not anymore.

So, I find that in these kinds of, especially we have a large extended family involved in the business, Defining the boundaries of the relationship and rules is very important. And if you don't have well-defined boundaries, then you're going to end up with chaos.

Yeah, at the beginning, it was like that. I agree with you 100%. So I had to like, you know, put my foot down and say, this is your role, this is what you're gonna do, this is the boundary. And, you know, now, actually, now everybody is like, I think they're tuned. And on the flip side, I love it because we'll win one big account, then our family and my extended family, everybody, we enjoy it. You know, we talk about it, we do staff trips and so on.

So yeah, I mean, it can be very rewarding.

Yeah.

Together with as a family and all see, all see financial and business success in a business that you're all working in. Yeah, you can all be really proud of.

Sure.

So, so what do you see going on in the future for Hotel Emporium?

Future for Hotel Emporium is going to be in the innovation space. So we are doing a lot of innovations right now. And so I feel like, and also We are diversifying into other places within the hotel space, which is our strength. We've invested and we bought a piece of a company, it's a micro-market solution for hotels. Back in the day, used to have a lot of vending machines in every hotel, every floor. Now they have a little kind of like a mini 7-Eleven when you enter a hotel. So one of our sister companies, they developed this software, it's called GrabScanGo, and we partnered with them and we handled the sales and marketing side of it. So we are diversify because we have a huge portfolio and we can put them in front of all the hotels. So we are developing that as well as other products because we have in the US, give or take, 18,000 to 20,000 hotels buying products from us. So yeah, so we are finding other products to plug into the system right now. So which—

yeah. So you're looking for ways to diversify—

diversify, yeah—

products into your existing customer base.

Exactly.

And is your customer base continuing to grow?

Yes, last few years, uh, post-pandemic, it's been growing a lot. Wow.

Yeah. So it sounds like everything is going pretty well. What's your biggest challenge right now?

Biggest challenge right now is actually the— our company is growing at exponential rate, and so making sure staffing has been a challenge. That I would say staffing is the biggest challenge, finding the right people, because a lot of people now going into this Uh, at home work, I mean, Zoom calls and working from home, that space is kind of challenging because we still need people to, uh, salespeople knock on doors and do the deliveries and operational stuff. So finding staffing has been a big challenge for me.

So do you have, do you have, are you running a hybrid organization where some people are remote and other people are working in, in the office or warehouse?

Yes, we have both models.

And how's that working for you?

It's working pretty well so far. It's just finding the right person for the right job. It's kind of challenging because we need some people in different states. Florida, for example, for example, it's actually a pretty growing market for us. So finding like a pretty operational and sales force has been a big challenge.

So when you find a— where you've got to have warehousing in Florida to hold products that you can get to the distributors?

Yes. So what happened was we actually, uh, there was a company called American Hotel Register. They were the largest hotel supply, kind of the Home Depot of the hotel supplies, uh, the 150-year-old company. They went under during the pandemic, unfortunately. We were supplying to them, so they left a huge void in the market for distribution in the US, which still hasn't been filled. Wow. So we are trying to get into that space right now. So we started an operation in Florida as well as Los Angeles. This is not just amenities, just all kinds of hotel products. So, uh, we are growing that model as well.

You're moving into the, into the distribution?

Yes, yes.

Or anything you don't do around this?

I mean, no, this is, uh, this is my strength, you know, hotel space. So we try to stay within that space.

Yeah.

Wow. Well, you sound like you're a pretty busy guy.

I am actually. Yeah, the, the— it's never been this busy in my life, to be honest with you. But I'm super excited these days, unlike before, because things when, you know, things are working out well, because you set goals and sometimes you can have a 5-year goal or a 10-year goal, it might not work accordingly, right? So right now I feel like everything is coming into place.

Good for you.

I'm in that phase.

Yeah, good for you. I've got one more question for you because I know you're a busy man and I know that's fine, taking out the time on the show. What's one thing about you, Andy, that we wouldn't know about unless you revealed it to us?

One thing, I think I revealed it, my modeling thing back in Sri Lanka to you. Yeah, and not a lot of people know about it. One thing, I value time. I value time. I respect time. You know, I have a lot of respect for people who value time and be on time. Because time is, I feel like time is one thing people can never get back. So I'm always on time. So yes, yeah, that's something not a lot of people know about me, but I'm that guy.

Well, you showed up 5 minutes ahead of the podcast. I think you're the first of the 120 guests I've had so far.

There you go.

Well, thank you, Andy. It's been really great talking with you.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right. Have a good day.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a means a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.