The One With Anthony Melchiorrifrom Hotel Impossible - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #74

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and this is the I love marketing podcast. Hey, everybody, it's Dean Jackson. Welcome to the I Love Marketing Podcast. No Joe Polish today, but we have an incredible guest with us this week. If you've been watching, We've been talking about Hotel Impossible on the Travel Channel. And this week our guest is Anthony Melchori, who is the host of Hotel Impossible. And we're going to talk all about client experience architecture, and we're going to talk about some of the things that he's learned in the hotel business that apply to any business. We had a great conversation and I think you're really going to enjoy this show.

So here we go.

Anthony, where in the world are you today?

I am driving to a meeting. I'm actually going to a breakfast meeting with the president of the Travel Channel, Lauren Ng.

Oh, that's awesome. So are you in New York then?

Is that. I'm in New York. I just. I just. I just got back from our last show. We have 13 shows to do. We just finished our last show.

Oh, that's great. Are you home for a while?

Hopefully we'll get a second season. Yeah, that's it. When will you find out? We'll know soon.

That's great. It's been such a great show. I've been a fan right from the very beginning. We've been talking about it actually a lot on I love marketing. We've been talking about you since the. Since the very beginning. I read about you the day that your show premiered and I reached out to you right away because I knew that you were someone who had a point of view and an approach that really kind of resonated with what we talked about at I love marketing. I mean, I've seen every episode of the show and I've been describing you as my favorite customer experience architect because it seems like that's a big part of what you do when you go into. When you go into a hotel.

Well, yes. Did you see last night's episode in Nashville?

I haven't yet. I'm in Toronto right now. It's not on. We don't get the Travel Channel, so I've been downloading them on itunes and I just saw that it showed up on itunes. So I've seen every episode up until then. The last one I saw was the one from Branson.

Okay, great. So why don't you get Travel Channel?

I'm not sure why our cable provider up here doesn't.

Well, we gotta say we gotta fix that. Don't we? Well, you know, you call me a customer service architect, the guest service architect, I should say. The last thing I think about is the guest. Because it's the only reason I do what I do is the guest. So I concentrate on the details. I focus on the ownership. I focus on the bedding, I focus on the carpet. I focus on the feeling, the smell, the greeting. I focus on everything. Last thing I focus on is the guest. Because if I focus on everything, the guest is going to have an incredible experience. If I just. The first thing I think about is the guest. And the first thing I look at is the guest and say, what would the guest want? What would the guest want? What, what I say is, what is the right thing for this hotel? What is the right thing for the employee? What is the right thing for us? How do we make money? How do we do what we do and then make it an incredible guest experience? So what happens? So many times I go in and I go, the guest likes this. Well, yeah, the guest likes that. But if you do that, you're going to go out of business. Yes, the guest likes that. But somebody's got to work overtime to provide that. Yes, we want to do that. We want to change the furniture. That's absolutely. The guests would love new furniture, but then we're not going to have any money to put uniforms on the employee and the guest. The first thing they see is the employee. I just had that conversation not 24 hours ago with an owner. So we as business people, whether you're marketing, sales, hotels, restaurants, doctor's office, focus on what you do well and then tell everybody how well you do, and then the guests will have a positive experience.

You know, it's kind of interesting because, you know, your. That's a really kind of important distinction in terms of, you know, focusing on the, on the guest experience within the framework of what you are, what you can actually provide. And there's, there is totally a difference between, you know, being a three star hotel and being a five star hotel and accepting and knowing that and working within the framework of what you really do.

Right. I had an owner ask me, should I provide free culinary and breakfast? My competition doing, I hear 100%, I said, but just not now. And like, why I said, you don't have an engineering department. Let's start with your engineering department. Then we'll work our way up to breakfast. So we all want to be, you know, keeping up with the Joneses. We all want to keep up with the Joneses. I focus on the basics and then once I get to the basics, then I will annihilate my competition. But if I can't deal with the basics, you know, if you're playing baseball, you play in Yankee Stadium, you're ready, set the field in the world, and you're batting.400. If you don't have a uniform on, a Yankee uniform on, they won't let you play.

Right.

You know, you got to put the uniform on, man. And that's. That's kind of what I'm. What I find when people want to get to the next level. You haven't got. You haven't gotten allowed to play the game yet. You haven't been able to play the game yet. You already. You know, you want it. You want to take the field against your competition. So. And plus, we owe it to our employees to give them the basics. You know, you see the show. I mean, there's not a lot that I do that is taking what I've learned from a business perspective and really applying it. What. What I've learned, I learned in kindergarten. Kindergarten. Show up on time, look people in the eye, keep it clean, pay attention, and be the best person you could be. Every day I get past that, and then I can show you everything that's in my toolkit. And that's kind of what I'm having a little frustration about, is that we can't even get to first base and we're trying to hit a home run.

Right? And that's interesting because so many times people want to imagine it's the same with hotel owners. They just think, well, if you could just do some magic marketing and get our occupancy rates up, everything would be fine.

And you're saying that's exactly what happened? I just went into. I won't tell you what show, but I just went in, I just finished the show, and literally, this was the conversation. So, Mr. Smith, what's your biggest problem? Marketing. I said, really? Here's the star report. You're 78%. Your competition is 56%. You have no problem with marketing. Everybody knows you're here. Okay? Your rate is $40 lower than your competition. Okay, $40 lower than your competition. So is it a marketing, or is it a business 101? Set your rates appropriately to your demand and to your location. What is it? It has nothing to do with marketing. Okay, and then why is your rate $4 low on everybody is because your hotel is abysmal. It is terrible, and it's not clean. It's not being run. Well, you're losing focus. You're concentrating on things you shouldn't be concentrating on. So is it marketing? No, it's not marketing. Now, once I give you back your hotel and we did some amazing stuff, you're going to do what? He said, well, I'm going to market. I said, yeah, but what are you going to do? Take pictures 20 times? Until he kept on repeating it to me. And then once you do pictures, then you're going to start marketing. Right. So that's, you know, again, am I that smart? Am I smarter than the next guy to be able to figure that out? No, it's just that we get lost, you know, and trying to be, you know, we want to be, we want to win a championship without putting in the work. You know, when we look at whether it be LeBron James or Derek Jeter or whoever we look at as our heroes, we don't see the work. You know, when's the last time you saw Derek Jeter, you know, get up in the morning at 5 o' clock and hit the treadmill and be in the, at the field two hours before everybody else? You don't see that, you know, and that's in the hotel business. That's what you gotta do. You gotta get in the gym before everybody else.

I gotcha. That's something, you know, and it's sometimes, it's amazing to me that sometimes people and imagine it's for all business owners, but I've noticed it. So in every episode of your show, one of the things that you do immediately is you just, you do the approach to the hotel and immediately there's no attention to the details on the way up. I mean, I remember right from the very first episode when Ralph in Long island and you were, you know, going into that beautiful resort, they had a beautiful view. But then you drive up and you know, the paint is chipping, there's nobody out front, it's unclear where to go. And so you really just kind of experiencing it from through the eyes of a guest of somebody coming up there. And so, you know, so easy for a business owner to do that. But often we get so caught up in the, in the day to day looking from the inside out instead of looking from the outside in.

Because what you're doing is you're marketing it as a world class resort. You're marketing it as, oh, look at these views. But you're forgetting what's important and what's important is the details. Because the first time, the first thing a guest sees, like right now I'm driving to a meeting with the president of the Chopstick. Do you have any idea what I'm wearing? What do you think I look like right now?

Well, I bet right now that you have my suit on with a high, freshly shaved head, sparkly smile.

It's exactly what I look like. Why? Because that is. Because that is exactly the image. That's. That's who I am. That's. That's what people expect. If I showed up today less than that, people will then say, let me move on to somebody else that talks about marketing. Let me move on to somebody else that talks about those. Let me move on to somebody else. Because this guy can't get his own, you know, house in order. He can't wear a tie, he can't wear a suit. He's going to see the president, travel job. She's going to look me in the face and go, Anthony, you know, she's not going to say anything. But you're going to say, oh, I thought he was sharper than that. I go up to the Gurney's Inn or I go up to Corpus Christi. Gurney's Inn is a great hotel. It really is. And they really repositioned it. But the, you know, you go into other hotels that maybe not getting it. You see the front office where you see the peeling paint and you're like, what's going on? You know, this is not what. This is a bait and switch. It's not what I saw. Well, the views are still there, so you're like, okay, this is a beautiful view. Wow. My room looks right over the ocean. So, all right, I'm going to accept it. I'm going to accept mediocrity. And that's what we have done as a culture. Not only tell business, but, you know, this morning or yesterday when you were out and about in your day, I guarantee you, if you think about all the experiences you had, you experienced service that was less than I was on JetBlue last night, okay? And I typically don't call out provider, but I'm gonna call him out because I was on JetBlue last night. And the gentleman, literally about 6 foot 3, he was, he was one of the stewards and he literally threw my peanuts at me. Didn't say hello, goodbye, or thank you or you're welcome the entire three hour flight.

Wow.

And I said to myself, I am going to avoid JetBlue at all costs from now on if I can. Because that just pissed me off. All you had to do was say hello or smile and say, how can I help You. And I'm furious. It's like, what does it take to do that? So. So. And I've been flying JetBlue, you know, since the day they were born. And I flew 103flights one year on JetBlue. And I'm trying to avoid JetBlue, I guess.

Wow. You know, we did an episode all about customer or clients experiences like that. And it was, you know, just that we went through a day and talked about the great experiences and the. And the less than great experience. I mean, you're surrounded by it all the time. As a matter of fact, the day that I reached out to you, the day I read about you in the. In the New York Post, was I.

Was in Times Square.

I was at the Marriott Marquis, and right across from there, there's a restaurant. I think it's called Junior's Deli.

Yes. Junior's, huh? Is it Junior's?

I'll tell you, Anthony, that was the bar. None. The single best single diner experience that I've ever had. I walked in, they recognized immediately that I was by myself. There were people in the lobby there waiting for tables. And the lady looked right at me and said, if you'd like to eat at the bar, you're more than welcome. So I just walked right up there. They greeted me right away, took my order. When my order was going, would you like a newspaper to read? She gave me the newspaper that I read about you. And then they brought my food, and along with my food, they brought me the bill right there. In a. In a. It was just like a perfect experience. And it doesn't take a lot to, you know, really execute on something like that. But it takes just the vision somebody had to have, you know, the leadership and the vision for that to actually happen. Because I've gone through. And that same thing happens each time I go there. So it's not just a serendipity that I had a great experience. Somebody has architected that experience for me.

Well, there's just three things that are going on. One, they don't have to be nice to you there, because that restaurant is literally the epicenter of Times Square. And they could literally throw the food at you, and they will still make a lot of money because the location is just. It's one of the greatest locations in the country. And every time I go in there, I have the same experience you do. Matter of fact, I didn't want to go because the Times Square tourist trap. So I was like, you know what? I told my wife and my kids, they Wanted to go when we were in Times Square. I was like, you know what? I don't want to go. Juniors was born. They're famous for cheesecake on Flatbush Avenue. Their first locations on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. And juniors, if you're from Brooklyn and you grew up in Brooklyn, you know Junior Cheesecake as well as you know your first name. And when they did, they'll post in Times Square. I was like, this is going to be ridiculous. And it was so good. I go back every chance I can. Matter of fact, I may actually go there today because I'm going to be in the area and it's just a great experience. And number two, the reason that's a great experience is because you're right. There's an architect that says, this is important. Customer service is important. But most important is, I'm not that smart of an architect. But their parents, if they did a good job, you know, raise these people correctly, whether they're 20 years old or 80 years old, and they're going to be appropriate and look me in the eye, shake my head and be nice to me, and anticipate, anticipate, anticipate my needs. Three times you're going to say, because it's important. They anticipate you're going to need a newspaper paid you in the rush and they gave you the check. And that's what we don't do. But their parents taught them that. I am a true believer in spending time interviewing. Eric Long at the Waldorf Astoria, spends all his time interviewing and exit interviewing people because that's where he has 1200 employees, and that's where he spends his time, because that's why he wants a great hotel. Give you an example, we just did a show and they need a front desk agent for many reasons. And I don't know what I'm gonna do when I get down there. I have no idea what I'm gonna do. So I get down there and I said, okay, we need a front desk agent. So tell one of the producers, putting it in the paper before on the Internet. We need. We need a front desk agent. And they're like, well, we can't do that. We don't have time. Said, please do it. They do it. They go through 200, 300 resumes, all horrible. They get two. First guy that comes up to me, I was like, oh, my God, this guy's not gonna work out. Great guy. But, you know, just. Just completely not the right person. Second person, no hotel experience, have no idea why my producer would call this person in had. Well, I do because I always tell them I don't always need experience, but she worked in. In a Chinese restaurant. She was a busser. She was a waitress. Never, ever worked in hotel. You can tell she was a young girl because she just had. She's still in college. A young lady. And she said, she sits down, she poised, she looked me, I shook my hand. She got the job done. She has no hotel experience. And not only was she done, the owner looked at me and said, she can really help me. She is really talented. That's it. That's it. Now, I could have hired 20 other people, okay? And they would have never been able to train them because the second I train them, the wheels fall off as soon as I turn away. This young lady, I tell her, can you please hold. You know, when you. When you hand a guest a pen, please don't put on a desk. Hand it to them in their hand. I tell her that once it's done, okay? But I can't tell her how to smile. I can't tell her how they anticipate. You know, people say, well, you can teach how to anticipate. No, you can't. You can't. I don't care what anybody says. You can't. You either got it or you. Or you don't got it. You can't teach somebody to say, hey, do you need a newspaper? Because what you do is you can teach that person, do you need a newspaper? But all of a sudden, that person's got four people with them. They're busy. You can see they're very busy. And that person comes up right in the middle of conversation. You need newspaper. No, I don't need a newspaper. Okay, yeah, you know, I've seen that so many times. No, no, I don't need newspaper, thank you very much. You know, it goes back to this. I was. I was listening. I was training some staff earlier in my career and Doubletree does, you know, the cookies. And I was listening. We were listening to the tape of this speaker. And he was telling me about, or telling on a tape about his experience of the Double Tree Hotel. But his key didn't work. And it's happened to all of us. So it's four or five, six times back to the desk in the middle of the night. And finally he's just frustrated. And the agent senses his frustration. And the agent looks at him and pulls a cookie from behind us. Would you like a cookie? He goes, no, I just want my effing key. Right, right, exactly. So you I get, you know, you can't. So. So to me either, you got it. You don't got it. And, and so I'm gonna give you a great uniform, a great place to work. I'm gonna motivate you. I'm gonna hug you, I'm gonna kiss you. Anything you need. I'm. Thank you. Every single day, we do everything I can for you, and you're have to figure it out because I'm not there. I'm gonna give you the tools, but if you don't have a half a brain and you can't anticipate, there's nothing I can do because we've all tried. We've all tried it. We've all cried. We've all. We've all begged employees, you know, why can't you do this? We, you know, you're a great person. Why can't you do this? And if they don't have it, they don't have it. You know, I can't dunk a basketball. Just can't do it, you know, unless you give me a ladder, I can't dunk a basketball.

Right?

So, you know, you know, you got to work with. So when you say marketing, we say, I love marketing. When you talk about marketing, marketing is toilet paper. Marketing is a clean toilet bowl. Marketing is a haircut on the guest. Our employee. Marketing is a bed. Marketing isn't just a picture on the Internet on top of Google. Okay? Marketing starts with the color socks you wear with it, with it, with the suit that you wear in the morning. Because everything is important. I once heard someone told me, everybody's a boss watcher. I never forgot that as long as I lived. It's the only thing I learned from this channel because everything else he did was terrible. But he said, everybody's a boss watcher. He was right because I watched him and I watched him do everything the wrong way, but I was watching him. And everybody's. When you. So everybody's an employee. Watch everybody. When you walk into a hotel, everybody's watching everything.

Yeah, that's. You know, it's funny because we've been. When we talked about the, you know, the core element things, we were talking about how the Westin Hotel has really, you know, in. I've stayed at a few different Westins and noticed that there's, you know, their focus has been on. On the bed, the heavenly bed, creating that great sleep experience. And I know, you know, the, the dual shower heads with the curved rod and, you know, so focusing on, you know, the core experience, the Bed is great, the shower is great. It's, it's, you know, those kind of things don't really, it's not about, you know, spending a lot of money to make those kind of things happen. It's really about, you know, really focusing on what's really important.

Seems like it's paying attention and getting away from yourself and really understanding what to get with the guest wants and anticipates. And you know, I was the asset manager. I was this first vice president of asset management for Tishman and I was fortunate enough to be the asset manager over the Western Hotel in Times Square. And you know, the double shower head was great. The funny thing about that is once everybody's talking about, you know, conservation, they go, wow, that's that, that pours out double amount of water. So now they went back and refocused on, okay, what do we do with the shower heads? Because we're wasting a lot of water and we're spending a lot of money. But you know, they really try to anticipate the guest needs and really try to elevate the experience. You know, the bed, same way it's like the bed, stupid. They were the first person to come out with this great bed and everybody, whether it be a two star hotel, five star hotel, have the bed. And one of the things that they did phenomenally well is I'm sitting Sunday morning about seven years ago, I'm reading the New York Times as I often do as my wife's reading the Daily News. And all of a sudden I read an article about the western smell, about their scent. And I was like, wow, the hotel has a scent. That's amazing. That's the first time I read about that. And out of the papers, and out of the paper fell the sample sink. It was probably an advertorial and I never forgot it. And I was like, wow. And it immediately just made me want to stay there. This before I worked there. And then I was actually at the Nickelodeon hotel at the time. I was the vice president traveling back and forth. Nickelodeon. That's why I did 103 flight. That's the reason I did 103 flights. And Jeff blew that year. And I mean, so as soon as I got that, I found out who they, who they used to develop the scent. I found the person, she came to my office in Orlando and there was a scent of popcorn in the theater. Within a week there was a scent of chocolate in my office because I love chocolate. There was a scent of, I can't remember at the Pool, what we did, but there was like 5 or 6 cents as you walked around the property. And it really ties you to the brand. I mean, the western smells in my bathroom, my home, because that, I love that smell and love that scent. You know, when you, when you think of your childhood, there's a smell or scent, whether you went to the camp, whether you're school, there's a scent you have. So that's just another way the senses, the senses tie you into that experience. So Weston does it well. And I was very fortunate to meet the people that came up with those concepts. And they're very. How would you think those people show up when you're in a meeting? There's this young lady who's the creative marketer, and she showed up exactly the way I thought a creative marketer should show up. She was well dressed, but she was a little funky. Hold on one second. I'm sorry about that.

No problem.

And so, so they showed up, you know, the way I expected them to show up. And, you know, and that's all. That's marketing. When I did the $10,000 martini at the, at the Algonquin, Carla Cagavalli, who now runs Carla Cavalry PR Agency, helped me come up with that idea and reposition the Algonquin. Whether I did the round one, I did a Go ahead, I'm sorry, I was. Good to know. I wanted to ask you about the.

Algonquin because I know that's been one of your, one of your crowning achievements kind of thing, turning around the Algonquin. I understand you shut it down when you first moved in for a month. What was, what was your thought process and the approach going forward? Did they know that that was what you were going to recommend, or did you show up and say, okay, guys, here's what we need to do. We're going to shut it down for a month.

Well, that's right. That's your first person answering that question in a very long time. And I'm really glad you asked it. So I'm going to answer before I answer, I'm going to tell you when I shut it down. After it was approved to shut down. Mike Lyons, who is the bell captain for 40 years, he just retired two years ago, came over to me after we shut down and put his arm around me and I said, you heard we're shutting it down. He said World War II couldn't shut it down. He said World Trade center couldn't shut it down. 9, 11 couldn't shut it down. A recession couldn't shut it down. Anthony Melcuri shut down the Algonquin. And he looked at me, then he looks at me and he goes, hope you get it back open. And he walked away. And he scared the living daylights out of him. And the greatest thing he did was scare me. Scare me, because for 28 days. Exactly. So. So what happened was Miller Global, the greatest ownership group of hotels in the country, was going to renovate it. We have two. We have two elevators, you know, and you can tie this into marketing, have two elevators at Yale Goblin, including the service elevator. So I talked to the employees and said, look, we're thinking about renovating hotel. Tell me about, you know, you've been here 30 years, 20 years, 40 years. Tell me about the experiences over the years of renovating. And everyone is. Every single one of them told me it was a nightmare. And every single renovation always got extended and cost a lot of money because it just took longer. And the elevators were a problem because you have one elevator for the guest and one elevator for construction and one elevator for the employees of the hotel. And it was just a nightmare. And so if you. If you do it, you know, you just can't do with two elevators because the construction team needs one. And then the other half of the hotel is not being constructed, needs it, and it just doesn't work. So I said, okay. So I'm just thinking about it, thinking about thinking about it. I'm in the Home Depot parking lot in Brooklyn with my wife, and she's looking at me. She goes to Matt. I said, I'm thinking. And I call Kevin Englehart, who's the go to person at Miller Global. And I said, I want to shut down the building. And he goes, what building? I go to Elgonpa. He goes, you can't. And I went about an hour of why I have to. And he said, okay, put together cash flows. Put together three cash flows. One closing the restaurants, only one closing the hotel, one closing just parts of the hotel. I said, okay. So I spent probably two days, 48 hours doing cash flows. Maryland Global, Dave Johnstone, Jimmy Miller, Mickey Miller flew in to New York and I did a presentation and I never showed them. One of my present, my ideas was to shut down the building. Kevin and I decided not to do that. So as we're talking, they said, okay, let's do this one. And I said, yeah, that works. But if we have any cost, if we have any delays this summer, it's going to cost like, oh, my God, what are we gonna do? I said, well, My third option is to shut down the building. And they all looked at me like I was out of my mind. Because less money to shut down the building for 28 days than it did if we went into two weeks of an extension. They shut down the building. So that's how we did that.

Isn't that amazing? And I've been, you know, a big observer of stuff like that. Are you familiar with Gamal Aziz, the general manager of the MGM in Las Vegas?

You know what's so funny? I just had a conversation with the food and beverage director at the MGM through email last night. But no, I'm not familiar with him.

Well, so Gamal Aziz, when he was at that Bellagio, I think, and came over as the general manager of the, of the MGM. And it was a big article, it's probably in 2006. And it's really stuck with me because the guts and the, you know, the foresight that he had this approach has really kind of stuck with me in everything that I did. But he takes a really different approach to improving things. He looks at, breaks down all the elements of the hotel. So he looked at the restaurants, the casinos, the guest rooms, the shows. And he looks at it from a perspective of what is the very best thing that we could do here. Like they had a nice restaurant that was doing a lot of, doing a lot of volume. I think it was doing about $4 million a year in revenue. And he knew that in Las Vegas, if they had a celebrity chef, a really high end restaurant, that they could be doing at least twice that amount. So he went into the board, I guess, and got permission to tear out the most successful restaurant in the hotel and bring in.

Celebrity chef.

They created Knob Hill and that restaurant now is doing 10 to 12 million dollars a year. But you know, he looks at all of these elements and his approach is if we're not doing this, we're losing $4 million a year because we've got this 4 million dollar restaurant as opposed to this.

Celebrity restaurant.

Same thing, the show, you know, they had a show called FX there, right? The theater, it was doing $28 million a year. Tore out the theater, partnered with Cirque du Soleil, brought in a killer show and they do over a hundred million dollars a year now.

Yeah. And you know what? That is the way, that is the way to think. What happens is people that don't have the money think that way, then get themselves in all kinds of trouble. Because if I just have something better, I can make more money than they want to Go out of business because they put all their money into the idea and they don't have time for that idea to pay off. So that's wonderful. And that thinking is exactly the thing. When I was at the Algonquin, I knew Miller Global could afford to shut it down for 28 days because they had money. So if I went into Vegas, I would think the same way he thinks. If he came into Algonquin, he would think the same way I think. Because what we think about is how do we get the most money, how do we get the best experience? 100%. That's the way you're supposed to think. The problem, this is a problem in only 20% of hotels in this country are, excuse me, are non branded hotels. So a guy owns a non branded hotel that struggling, goes to Vegas, sees all this glitz and glamour, comes back to his hotel and screws it up because like, oh, I want to be that. Well, you're not that, man. You're never going to be that. So stop being that. Be who you are. So like, there's one hotel you saw, like Branch, Missouri. It's like in the pool area, we were playing bingo. And I was like, right. It was like, bingo, man. I'm in Branch in Missouri. The kids are, the kids are running around, the parents are running around all day. They come to the pool. You know, it's one of those great old games that are, you know, that, that, that brings a family together that they can do together. So when she said, I'm going to do bingo at the pool, I was like, that's kind of corny. I said to myself, I was like, okay, bingo, it works for this kind of hotel. So whether you're the Bellagio, whether you're Algonquin, whether you're a hotel in Branch, in Missouri, be who you are. Bingo works there, Works in Branson, pulling out a $4 million restaurant, putting a $12 million restaurant, works in Vegas, putting the martini on the rocks at Algonquin works. My brand of managing these kind of hotels work. If I go to the Waldorf Astoria, you know, it still works, but I have to just change what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about bingo, okay? I'm talking about something else and that. So don't try to slap stuff on that doesn't work. You know, the building has got to speak to you. And when I was at the Algonquin, the building spoke to me. That's why Dorothy Parker and the Roundtable, you know, all this history, no one was talking about this history we started. We did a off Broadway play of Dorothy park at the roundtable called Talk of the Town. People thought I was out of my mind. I brought a production into the Oak Room every Sunday and Monday night of Talking to Town. It ran for four years. I did a radio show called Talking to Town. Some of my guests were Kurt Vonnegut, Linda Ellerby, Bill Bonanno, the son of the Godfather. You know, who was. Was the. Was the person that was depicted Godfather. His father, Joe Bonanno was, you know, was the Godfather. So. So I had all these people at a table. That's what the OGAM was back 100 years ago. Everybody just came in. No matter who you were, no matter you were a crime boss, no matter you were Kurt Vonnegut. Now you lived Ellenby. Everybody just talked, man. We just talked. That's what we did. So that's what I did in Yoganaka. A couple weeks ago. I'm having lunch with Eric Long at the Waldorf. And I have to get this because it was just. You talk about, you know, that guy made an impression on you at the 12 million dollar restaurant. I'm talking to Eric just recently, and I said, eric, what do you do to evaluate your performance? You're doing this 17 years older. What do you do to ensure you keep doing? And he said, bring in a company and they do shopping. Shopping. Hotel, make sure services is appropriate. Okay. You know, everybody does that. Big hotels. And he said, yeah, but I do something different. He said, I have two malls. It's called a F. That's it. A plus or F? It's either. It's either A plus or it's an F. It was like he punched me in the chest, knocked me off, off the chair. And I was like, exactly.

I get that immediately.

I never put it to worse. And he said, my boy, let me tell you something. He said, everybody, when they pitched me, everybody thought I was crazy. It was an uphill battle to evaluate on A plus, A plus by that or F. He said, but that's what it is. It's either the best or it is not the best. And it just blew me away. So if you have Branson, Missouri Hotel, if you have an MGM or you have the Algonquin, is it the best or is it not the best? Meaning the Algonquin may not be the best in the world, but is it the best hotel that can be? You know, like, I'm wearing a nice tie. Is it the nicest suit, the nicest tie? Nope. It's kind of My best. It's kind of. I'm proud of this. Buying the suit I like, you know, that's not what we do, period. It's my A plus may not be somebody else's A plus, be the best. The hotel could be A plus or F. So everything I evaluate, even on the crew now, they're all saying it when we're doing something. And I. We're in a scene and we're in the scene, like, is that an A plus or not? They go, that was an F. So next time we got to do it better. A plus or F. We think like that as a culture. We think like that as, as a marketer. We think like that as a general manager. And you can't, you can't lose. You can't lose. Because that's profound. Once you allow mediocrity to sink in, you know, there's a. I was talking to somebody and they were talking about photography and betting and how you get the best shot. If you go, and I want you to do this after the phone call, go to Statebridge Suites, Times Square. The email or the URL is statetime squared.com, okay? I worked at that hotel. I was the vice president. I obsess, obsessed over the pictures. My director of marketing, Patricia, who's now director of marketing over at the Millennium, myself, bed designer and photographer, obsessed over the details. If you tell me that bed, when you look at that bed@staytimesmart.com isn't the best picture a bed on the Internet in New York City. I'll give you ten bucks. We obsessed over it. We did. It took us 24 hours to take six pictures. We obsessed over it because a million people a year gonna look at that picture, right? So. So that picture is an A plus, right?

That is such a thought, you know, because what you're either and I. It kind of ties back to what you're saying, like, be who you are, but in the things that you are going to do, make sure that you're doing them at an A plus level and don't do things that you can't be an A plus at.

Like when you, when you contacted me, you said, will you be on the show? I said, yes. All of a sudden my schedule got in the way and I said, but I'll be on, I'll be on, I'll be on, I'll be on, I'll be on. And we kept on going back and forth and it's taken a while, but I'm on. And then at 8 o', clock, this morning I was on, and I said, I need another 20 minutes because I'm running late. And I said, give me 8, 20, 8, 20. I was on. Okay. I lived up to what I said I would do.

Absolutely.

That's what. That's what we want. You know, if I. If all of a sudden, you know, you got me when. When the show was just starting and I was busy in my own life and I was busy with my own business, but I didn't have now the demands of a show in the last, you know, once the show aired and everybody saw the show. And I've been on today's show on Thursday, you know, so all of a sudden, things like that are coming my way, and you're doing all this preparation and you're doing a million things, but I gave my word. I'm not going back on my word. Even my PR person called her. I love her. She goes, are you sure you want to do this? It's like, you know, he doesn't have a tremendous audience, and, you know, this is going to take some time. I said, of course I'm going to do this. I said, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do it again next year. If he wants me to do it, of course I'm going to do it. Why wouldn't I do it? But when I do it, I want to make sure I give you what you want. I don't want to do it in 10 minutes when I don't have the time to do it, you know, so. So Eric Roll really instilled that in me. And we've talked probably once, twice a year for the last 12 years. We always have lunch or drinks or dinner. And I always learned something, and I learned I'm not as good as I thought I was because I don't think everything. And it's got to be a plus or somebody's gonna do better and I'm gonna lose. I mean, that.

That is so great. And, Anthony, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share with us because it's. You know, I think the stuff that you advocate, the things that you've shared, even on this call, are just tremendous value. I think every business owner, you know, is going to be really thrilled with all the things that we've been able to talk about.

Well, my pleasure. If I could say one thing before we leave. Do you mind if I say one more thing? Yeah, I'd love to. Every business owner, whether you're in hotel business or any other owner, look at it through your cut, through your guest eyes. You know, when I was at the Plaza Hotel And I was 1991, I think, and I was front office manager, I remember we had a lot of complaints and my boss spent most of his time just responding to complaints. This was before, you know, Internet and email and TripAdvisor. He would spend a lot of time just writing letters to guests. And I said to myself, wouldn't it be great if we prevented the friggin problems? Wouldn't that be fantastic? You know, wouldn't it be fantastic? Because if I can prevent the problems, I don't have to do anything all day but talk to my guest. And that's what I do. I don't really do that much all day except talk to my guest. So I saw it through the eyes of a child. When you go to the Plaza Hotel and that child pushes that revolving door and she read the Eloise books or she saw The Home Alone 2 movie. Yeah. And she pushed that revolving door. She expects music, she expects, you know, gold confetti. And she expects Eloise to be jumping all over the building. Yeah. So when you so. So when the child walks through all indoors, you know, they necessarily care about most comfortable bed or if the carnival's clean. But they want to know these was. And that we didn't have a tour with. There was books and you know, with the plasma, we didn't do that. Right. That stayed with me. And when Randy did that, I was like, of course. That makes sense. So every single time somebody puts their hand on your door to open up your door, that's potentially the first time they've ever done that. So that experience has got to be real. And if you're not passionate about making that first experience, the greatest experience, then you shouldn't be in business. I mean, you should do something. You should go behind the curtain and do something else. I passionate. When you see the show last night of the Fiddlers Inn, you know, I wish you could take the 40 hours that we shoot and see all 40 hours. Because we take 40 hours, it comes down to 42 minutes. And you would see some of the great things that happened at the Fiddler's Inn and really truly how we rebranded the hotel, we rebranded it, you know, they're competing against the Marriotts and Hiltons of the world literally surrounding their hotel. And they forgot there were the Fiddlers Inn. You were the first hotel. Nashville, you're across from the Grand Ole Opry. You got the best location, dude, you're the Fiddler's in believe it. Do you believe it? Do you believe it? So. So that's what that was about. And you know, at the end when I, when I left, one of the things that I implemented was if you can play the fiddle, you get 10% off your room. So I asked one of the construction guys, there's a fiddle on the wall. We have two fiddles on the wall and you can take them off the wall. And I said to the construction people, I said, hey, Chris Rogers, construction. I said, can any of you guys or girls play the fiddle? One guy, it was about six people tried to play. None of them can play. But on the show, you see the one guy that could play, he pulls the fiddle down. And this man had everybody slapping their knee. So the end shot of us leaving was us all listening to music in the fiddler's end while somebody was playing the fiddle. That's what you do with the fiddler's end, man. Yeah, right. So, so, so that's, you know, we don't, we don't, you know, it's not about to mint on your pill if the fiddlers in it can you play the field. You do, you get 10% off. And, you know, that's what it's about. It's about being who you are. And you know what the greatest gift the Travel Channel gave me when I wrote the show and I brought it to them? You know, Brian Leonard, who's the vice president, said, when there's a camera and there's Anthony in the room, if that camera's off, I'm gonna. I'm gonna kill somebody. He said, put the camera on and just let him be Anthony. And that's exactly, you know, when people say, Anthony, you're always on this time crunch. And it seems like fabricated that. Even my wife said it to me last night and pissed me off. We're sitting here watching the fiddlers in together and she says, oh, you know, here it goes again. You know, the construction job's not gonna get done. We all know it's gonna get done. Said, really? I said, watch the next scene. So the next scene is me at 2 o' clock in the morning, getting dressed, coming into the lobby, thinking, you know, having a panic attack that it's not going to get done. And I see 30 people working at 2 o' clock in the morning, and they're all Chris's family. I'm like, what happened? He goes, you know, you scared me. You're right. I don't think we're gonna get it done. So I got My family. Blanche, the designer, did not sleep for two days. I always think.

I always feel sorry for poor plants every time I watch.

Yeah, well, you know, I don't feel sorry for Blanche because more Blade's got more. More balls than both. Both me and you together. She's the toughest. She's the toughest person, so she can stand up for herself. She's a great designer, but, you know, she's a great designer, but she's tough. She's tough. She's tough. But the. But, but poor Blanche, like you say, she didn't sleep for two days, and Chris Rogers didn't sleep for three days. He started to smell. I was like, dude, you stink. It's like, so. So. So I'm having a panic attack. I'm about to throw up every show, and people say, oh, well, we know it's gonna get done. I said, congratulations, because you know something I don't know, you know, we just did a show in Daytona. It rained for four days. We painted the outside of the building, and it rained for four days. And we're only there for four days.

Oh, no.

And it's. It's literally mean we washed this out. It destroyed our paint job, you know, so now you'll see on this show whether we got it. You know, if it rained for four days and you're painting outside and your paint job ruined on the last day, and the building's on three acres, I'll let you think if it got done or not. Sometimes stuff doesn't get done. There's nothing I can do about it. So if you. If you ever ask me a question that pisses me off the most is when people say, well, you know, you're going to get it done. So why do you do it? Why do you have that time frame? But we all know it's going to get done, because the only people I know it's going to get done is the audience. I have no idea it's going to get done. Right?

Yeah. We always pull it off, which is cool.

There's been. There's been a lot of tension for that reason. I mean, to me, the director of Blanche, behind the scenes, it's crazy. People may start to smell. But. Yeah, you know, I just thought of something. Maybe you should have.

Have the scent of Hotel Impossible.

Yeah, but, you know, it's. I invite people down to the set when we're able to have, you know, do that, because if you saw the stress level, you know, what Blanche has to go to to create these unbelievable designs in the Time frame she has and how hard she works in the director, the cameraman, and how hard these people work, no one's ever, ever done. I think hotel chatter said, you know, who's the idiot that thought they could turn around hotel in four days? I got to see this. And then the next article is, wow, that idiot is actually doing it. Well, I'm an idiot. And the team's doing it. You know, it's like we're doing it and you know, but one of the things I don't want people to take away from the show, it's some shows, most of them are transformational in the sense of that I gave you the tools. In a hotel, you know better than anyone, you got to carry it. It's not like in the restaurant. This is the menu, this is the design, that's the chef. It's difficult, it's hard to execute every day. But those are the elements in a hotel. The elements are, it's everything. So every day you have to, you know, you got to do everything well. So I'm going to give you the blueprint for the top four or five things you're doing wrong. But not only got to do those four or five things right, you got to do everything right. And it's, it's difficult. It's a business that really, you know, a lot of investors get into and within 24 hours they're out because they're like, I can't do this.

Well, you know, if anything, you realize.

From watching the show, I was amazed.

By a couple of things. Number one, how many, you know, these are all sort of independent or family run hotels. You always have this sense of hotels being, you know, big corporate things, but you're really tapped into like the, you know, the hotelier, the family business, and the ones that seem to really turn it around are when you're able to reignite the passion of somebody who is, you know, really standing behind everything.

You know, I'm going to tell you, an insider that I haven't told anybody. And there's one hotel person, I won't even call him a hotelier, but one person in the season. And he said something to me as we're leaving and I told him, I said, sell the hotel. I won't tell you what he said to me. And he said, why? I said, because that is the most asinine thing anyone's ever said to me. You don't care about the hotel. And he looked at me, goes, you know what, you're right. And he may show the hotel now that's not good tv. But I turned around the hotel and I did my job. But if it's not in your heart, it's not in your heart. You know what we do. For 25 years, I made sure there wasn't pubic hair on the floor. I made sure that your drink was cold. I made sure that my staff smiled, and I made sure that if there was a grenade in the middle of the room, I jumped on it before the guests are even before the employees sort. That's my job. And if you don't like doing that, you know. You know. You know, when you send our men and women into war zone and people say, you know, I feel so bad for them. I'm like, you know what? I feel horrible for them. They should have all the resources they need. But I don't feel bad for them because, you know, I feel bad for their families because that's what they want to do. They're passionate about. They want to serve this country. I was in the Air Force five years. You know, I'm not as brave as a lot of these people, but I had a. For wanting to serve my country. I have a passion for wanting to do this job, and now I have a passion for this show because a lot of hospitality kids are calling me up. I gave a hospitality kid the other day. He sent. He sent me an email and he said, I don't know if this is going to get to you, but I'm doing a paper on Anthony Melchuri. And, you know, I have these two questions for him. If you can get them to him, have him call me or have him email me back, or if you can email me back with the answers, I'd appreciate it. So I emailed him back and said, this is my cell number. Call me. So he calls me up and the guy's having. He's freaking out. He's like, I can't believe you're calling. And like, why he was. You like to call me in five minutes. Like, you let me call you in five minutes. I was like, I've never had anybody want to do a paper on me before. So I'm just as. I'm just as in all as you are as me, because I'm like, why would you want to do a paper on me? You know? And so to me, I'm passionate about the hospitality. A guy that wants to go to hospitality business. I'm passionate about that, and I'm passionate about what is it about me that you think that you want to write about. So if you don't want to do this and it doesn't come out of your body naturally. People say I market. I love marketing. I love that name. I love marketing. Well, what's the key word in I love? Marvel.

Yeah, Love.

That's your.

You're absolutely right. And that I think, you know, as an observer, that's the thing that immediately comes across with you, is that you are absolutely passionate about it.

And you mean you show.

You show up at a hotel and every single episode, you're more passionate often than the owners about the hotel and.

The experience because you're. Well, I think, yeah, fascinating.

It's contagious is what it is, you know, it's compelling, you know, to be around people like that.

Well, thank you. And you know, and the reason the passion comes off and I'm able to do it is because I really do have an amazing director, amazing team. We have a great designer. Mean, I get a lot of the credit. I really do. Like, I, you know, even when I run hotels, I get all the credit. It's, you know, of course I'm a part of it because, you know, I'm the guy sitting in the hot seat, but I'm just a small part of it. I mean, it's really the team, you know, at the end of the shoot, because it was our last show, the 13 shows, the director spent his own money, his own time. He got, he was, he surprised me with this. He got bought. He can bolt cast for the type brew got my glasses, like, you know, glasses. I look like mine. And everybody wore suit and tie. It's 11 o' clock at night. We're exhausted. We just finished the shoot we've been waiting on for four days. And they surprised me in the middle of the lobby with, you know, 20 Anthony's. Everybody was involved hats. And they all made fun of me because they all, they were all mocking what I was doing. And one of the things I came through and I was laughing. I have it on video. I was laughing so loud. And one of the things they kept on that the director did was I being. I started scene and he wanted me to do something go. And I say. And I say this with love. I say, hey, director boy, I'm not doing that. And he's like, why? I was like, because that doesn't make sense for the hotel business. Yeah, but you know, it kind of that works. I was like, director boy, I'm not doing it. Not doing it. Not doing it right. You know what? I ain't doing it. And I walk out and he did that and he was like. And we were all laughing because everybody knows I'm never going to do anything for a show. I'm never going to do anything for the show that is not that a hotelier will say is bullshit.

Right? I got you.

You know, so it's funny. I just took. I took a really. You know, I love that they did that because it showed that they have a sense of humor. I have a sense of humor. But it also showed the most important element that, you know, I'm not doing anything just for. Because it's easier or just because, you know, we painted the outside of a building in Florida in, you know, when it can rain any minute. And everybody said, well, we can't do that because the rain and we might not get it done. I was like, it's hotel impossible. The number one problem with this hotel is when I pull up, it looks like it looks like a brothel or a bodega. And I don't care what I do on the outside, if I don't paint this hotel, it's a one star hotel. It always will be a one star hotel. And they said, it may not get done. I said, then we'll film it. We'll film in that. Getting it done. That's it. It's called reality. That's a reality show. I put the reality back in reality tv.

I can't wait to see that episode now. That's great. So that's awesome.

It's been.

Yeah, there's so many lessons I'm going to wreck. I mean, I recommend for everybody to, you know, go to itunes and you can download all the. All the episodes. There's. There's lessons in every single episode and everything is transferable. No matter what kind of business people are in. That.

That's really what's been, you know, it comes down. It comes down to this is, you know, it's a poster f. Which I love. But when I've said this, you know, it's true. You either give a shit or you don't give a shit.

Right?

That's it. Yeah, that's it. You know, if you don't, that's okay. You know, I always say, you know, don't get aggravated, you know, you know, look at the employees not working. It's not. It's just not a right fit. Don't get mad, don't yell, don't scream at people. And one of the things, you'll see my show, you'll never see me yell at an employee. It's not because I Don't yell at people on tv. It's because I don't yell at people, period. Unless you're an owner. An owner. I'll whip your face off because you're here to hire me to turn around your hotel. Now you're like, I have no problem going toe to toe with you in real life or on tv. No problem. But an employee, I really would like any employee to come out and say, I've yelled at them. I've been intense. It may have seemed. I got, you know, maybe I yell, but I've never yelled because there's no reason to yell. If the employee's not working and you give them three or four or five chances. Promote them to customer. So once they're a customer, they can come back as many times as they want, but they just can't work there. Promote them to customer.

Oh, that's funny.

You know what, the way that you.

Interact with the housekeeping staff and with the engineering staff and it's always, you know, you're, it's always with love the way that you're, that you're approaching them.

You know why? Because the owner sometimes is, well, housekeeper doesn't do your job. Have you cleaned 14 rooms in a day? Have you gone home at 4 o' clock in the afternoon and had to cook for your kids and clean the house and do everything you do and make $9 an hour and still be at the poverty level? Have you ever felt what that feels like? When I was a kid, I was on food stamps. I know what that feels like. Okay? So if you don't know what that feels like, you're not going to have empathy with these people. You know what it feels like to clean 14 rooms? If you don't, then shut up, right? You know, go clean a damn room. You know, if you clean the room and you clean 14 rooms and you've done it for five days in a row. As an owner, if an owner comes up to me and says, anthony, I worked in housekeeping for a week and I cleaned 14 rooms, then you know what? I'm not going to question you when you get housekeepers face. I'm not. Because you did that even in just five days. You get it. You know what they go through. It pisses me off to no end that when an investor who now is a hotel owner says housekeeping is not doing a good job, but they don't have toilet paper, they don't understand the concept of three parts. Okay, I need three parts of linen. Why? Because one's got to be on the bed. One's got to be in the laundry and one's got to be on the shelf getting ready to get on the bed. And if you don't have it, you can't function. Really? Yeah. And if you worked in friggin housekeeper for five minutes, you would know that. So I really have no. You know, when you, when you, before you're a pilot, you got to learn in the simulator how to fly a plane. They don't just give you a plane after taking you, you know, after you sign your name and say, okay, you passed the test. Here you go. Go fly the plane. You know, I truly believe that every hotelier should have to work in every single department before they're allowed to own a hotel.

Yeah. And that's fascinating because then they get the real experience, right?

Well, absolutely. Think of it this way. You go into a restaurant in New York City, There's a, there's an A, B or C in the window. A means great. B means not so great. She means you suck. Okay. You go to a hotel, I don't know if they took a rag from the toilet bowl and put it in a glass and clean the glass with it. Now I'm going to put my mouth where somebody put their ass. I don't know. Right. There's no, there's no system. There's no, there's no letter system. Why don't we have a letter system in hotel business? A, B or C? Why, you know, why don't we have a letter system for owners? You know, you're potentially giving keys to employees that don't have background checks that potentially can open the door in the middle of night and kill me. Why? Why don't have a rating on that hotel. Why? I want to know why.

That's interesting. I mean, that's. Yeah.

This isn't a joke. You know, what we know. I didn't. We do is serious. I'm not saying to you, but I'm. No, no, I did, I did, I did a. I did a show that's coming up, the Montana show. I want you to send me an email after the Montana show and I want you to have me on after the Montana show. I'm going to tell you a story that's going to blow your brains out.

Okay.

Okay. But I'm not going to tell you until after the show and why. And why. Why? The story's about a policy that I didn't implement and because I didn't implement it. Like, I'll tell you the story after the show ends.

Okay, perfect. That's what you call a cliffhanger.

Keep us coming back.

So that way, now we have to. That means you have to come back so we can close the loop on that.

Yeah. The only way you're going to get the loop cause is for the. To. I have to tell you the story because you won't see it.

Perfect. I love it.

But it literally blow your brains out when you. When you. When they. When they tell you one little policy or one little thing I didn't do, how it could have wound up being literally tragic. Our hotel, the business we have the safety. You know, you said a lot of people in our hands. You show the La Jolla episode where I open up the shoot. You know, I open up the shoot. A little kicker. Fall down there. When I was at the Algonquin, we had. We had linen shoots all over the property. And I remember I got my entire executive team and my entire security team, just one laundry shoot. And I lost my mind. You know, I didn't yell, but I just lost my mind saying, why? That's unacceptable. And they're like, well, you know, lots breaking. It's like today, before anybody goes home, every single laundry shoot in this building will be secure or no one's going home. Because it's only going to take a second for a kid to be screwing around and falling that laundry shoot and potentially die. I said, so no one goes home until they're fixed. Period. End of story. We have the resources. We have the manpower. Fix the damn laundry shoots. There's 25 acres and 15 buildings. It's a lot of laundry shoot. If you don't fix them, you ain't going home. And if you do go home, you ain't coming back.

Wow.

And they got, you know, safeties, you know, it's. It's serious. So again, I know the shows. I love marketing. I know it's all about marketing. Marketing comes down to everything. It's not. It's not about putting a billboard in Times Square. It's not about saying juniors restaurant is in the middle of Times Square. It's about junior anticipating juniors anticipating your needs. Giving you that newspaper, that newspaper, that one little thing. That person giving you a newspaper made you tell me that story. Now I'm going to talk about that story. I. Because that person didn't say thank you when they give me my peanuts last night, just told as many people as listening that disappointed me last night. And to the point where I'm actually using your name, because I typically don't do that. I'VE made it almost a code where if I have a bed, a bad experience to talk about.

Yeah, you give them a break.

Yeah, you do. I understand.

Yeah. But if it's something that. That blatant and that kind of.

Right. You know, it's kind of. It's. I've seen it coming with JetBlue that their service is getting worse and worse. And last night, it was just. I was just. I. I almost said something and I don't. I'm not that person. I really am. Not when I'm going about my life. I don't. I try just to just, you know, stay under the radar, do my job and go from point A to point B. But I almost said, dude, I did not pee in your Cheerios last night. Why are you being mean?

Oh, that's so funny.

You know what?

I'm just thinking that that server at Juniors, if they hadn't have given me that newspaper that morning, I wouldn't have read about Anthony, and I wouldn't have reached out right away to you before.

The show even aired.

And we might not even be here.

See, your passion changes everything.

It really does. Absolutely. Well, Anthony, I really appreciate your time. Been very generous, and everything that you've shared is just phenomenal. I really appreciate it. I think our listeners are going to listen to this episode again and again. It's going to be one of their favorites. I can tell already.

Well, thank you. It's my pleasure. And actually, the timing is perfect because I'm about two minutes from getting out of the car, so I'm glad we had this opportunity and I'm glad I was in a situation where I can give you complete attention because, you know, I love what you're doing. I appreciate it. I appreciate you reaching out to me, you know, reach out to me in the future. And like I said, after the Billing Montana episode, call me. I'll tell you an inside story.

Yeah, we have to hear all about that. I really appreciate it. Well, you have a great day, Anthony.

My pleasure. Thanks.