Defining Hospitality

DH - JoAnna Abrams
===

[00:00:00] What I do is inconsequential. Why I do what I do is I get to shorten people's journeys every day. What I love about our hospitality industry is that it's our mission to make people feel cared for while on their journeys. Together we'll explore what hospitality means in the built environment, in business, and in our daily lives.

I'm Dan Ryan, and this is Defining Hospitality.

This podcast is sponsored by Berman Fall Hospitality Group, a design-driven furniture manufacturer who specializes in custom case goods and seating for hotel guest rooms.

Dan Ryan: Hello everyone. Happy Earth Day. Today we have a return guest and she is a, oh, see, I'm gonna, I messed it up already. Okay.

Hello, everyone. Happy Earth Day. Today's guest is a return guest. She is a multi-award winning trailblazer at the intersection of sustainability, supply chain, and hospitality. She brings a rare blend of expertise across finance, [00:01:00] marketing, sustainability, helping some of the world's leading hospitality companies rethink how products are sourced, evaluated, and delivered.

She's been recognized by Lodging Magazine as a female industry innovator. She's a 2026 Inc. 500 female founders honoree, which is amazing, and she was selected as one of the global leaders in the Imagine Program funded by Paul Pullman, former CEO of Unilever. She's also one of just 150 leaders worldwide, accepted into the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

She's the founder and CEO of mind. Click, please welcome Joanna Abrams. Welcome, Joanna.

JoAnna Abrams: So great to be here. Thank you

Dan Ryan: It's lovely to have you here as well. And also we don't have very many return guests, but I'm honored to have you here, especially on Earth Day, in the middle of Earth month. Um, I feel like we're in this place where sustainability, I don't know if it's politics or whatever, it [00:02:00] seems to be getting diminished, but it is so important to all of us.

Um, one of the things that I'd like to share with all of our listeners is, I don't know if you can see up here, but I became a lead accredited professional in 2008 and with just very excited that, oh, maybe I could help change our supply chains or do things a little bit differently to just make less of an impact.

And I was really like crest fallen when I found that lead doesn't really account for FFF and e, which is what most of us who are listening and watching here in the hospitality design space deal with. It's everything from the walls inward. So imagine if you turn a hotel room upside down, everything that falls to the ceiling doesn't necessarily get.

Counted for or help a, a project to see achieve certain goals. So I was very upset by that. And then seeing the rise of mind click and what you've been able to bring to different ownership groups. And for me as a manufacturer, just helping us look at ourselves and raise a mirror up to ourselves and see how we can improve.

[00:03:00] And so for that, I'm really grateful. And then one other thing I really wanna talk to you after I see if your definition of hospitality has changed is 10 years ago, 10 plus years ago, it was really difficult to kind of ascertain what the impact could be or could, could not be. How do we minimize this? Um, and one of the things that I found for many hotel owners, the, I would say the vast majority, they really, all they care about is the bottom line.

And when you talk about sustainability or other initiatives, if it doesn't lower the cost of their capital or help. Make their project less expensive so that they can boost their returns to investors. They don't want to do it. Now, that's not all, but I would say the vast majority. What's really exciting in just talking to you, and I'm, I'm sure you're really excited to share, is finally there is a revenue solution and a revenue impact that it's helping drive sales at hotels.

So I [00:04:00] wanna talk about that with you because I think it's really exciting. That will hopefully, hopefully be a big switch for all of our hotel owner customers. Um, but before we get into that, has your definition of hospitality stayed the same since we last talked on two in 2001? And how do you define it?

What does it mean to you?

JoAnna Abrams: So I think my definition has stayed the same. Uh, we are all committed to creating, uh, the spaces for people to come to celebrate, to work, to play, to, connect. And the environments that we create have obviously a, a profound, uh, impact in making it possible for our associates in the hotels and the guests themselves to, uh, come away with a, with a great experience, um, whatever the purpose of their travel is. What's changed for me is a much more mature understanding of the complexity of what it takes for that to happen. And, uh, and that [00:05:00] also ties right into the refrain that we've heard over and over and over again, which is: I wanna do the right thing, I gotta make-- we gotta make money, right? We-- Where's-- What's the ROI story?

And what I find fascinating is that coming from finance, I never thought I would hear the word ROI as much as I do in hospitality. Um, and there's a reason for that, right? And it's, uh, obviously, uh, the performance, the financial performance is the lifeblood of the ability for us to deliver that great guest experience. So that's why it's really exciting to be at a place in the journey where now what you do that supports the health and wellbeing of people and the community and the environment, uh, is actually translating into driving revenue.

Dan Ryan: I'm, I'm just an eternal optimist and for me, so much about what we do in building hotels and renovating hotels is about the guest experience and how they feel when they're in, in a [00:06:00] space. But it's only really in, in the past six or seven years, maybe seven or eight years, that I've, I, I've constantly reminded that these are financial assets that need to perform.

And while I might. Put a heavier weight on the guest experience and what that is all about. It really is about numbers. It really is about return on investment. And I figured out, and I've been obsessing for the past seven years about how can I do anything or improve any process to return more profit to the ho to the hotel investors.

And it's actually been transformative in just certain processes that we do. Um, and we're able to cut months and months out of project schedules if done correctly. Um, but it takes a village to like get aligned from the very beginning. Uh, and I don't want to talk about that process, that's a whole other thing, but how are you seeing the platform that you've built drive revenue now?

Like what is the, give us some stories because [00:07:00] I, from what you've told me, it's, it's pretty incredible.

JoAnna Abrams: so I'm gonna go up to the very like 50,000-foot level to answer this question. So despite the commentary that sustainability is over and it's a, you know, a hush... Actually, the term that came out of a Harvard Business Review article was green hushing. So instead of greenwashing, it's been green hushing for the past year. hasn't gone away, and a big reason it hasn't gone away is tied to EU regulation. So even though there isn't the same regulation in the US, if you're a global corporation, you are very much affected by EU regulation. And the EU regulation recognizes that 80% on average of an organization's carbon footprint, their cl- you know, emissions come from the supply chain.

So the hotel industry is part of that supply chain for organizations that range from the Amazons of the world to [00:08:00] JPMorgan Chase, PwC, pharmaceutical companies, right? All these organizations. In fact, are 50,000 enterprise, big companies that are impacted by this EU regulation, means that we are impacted in the hotel industry.

And what's happened over the past five years since we last connected on this, that now 90%, 80%, somewhere in that range of every RFP that hotels are getting for corporate business asking for sustainability data. And they-- It's not just about the check the box. These are tough questions that are being asked, on average, 20% to 40% of a hotel's revenue is coming from this corporate business. about $2 trillion for our industry globally. That's not a small number,

Dan Ryan: just to be clear, when you say the 2040 per 20 to 40% are coming from this group business, that's, that's really it's group, [00:09:00] it's, it's it's, um, companies doing retreats or business travel or universities or insurance companies hosting, um, seminars. It's, it's basically all the group travel. They need to check a box, but not just check a box because they really believe it at the, in their corporate bylaws to do as much as they can to travel in a more sustainable fashion.

And travel is like inherently unsustainable. So like ev every kind of. Benefit that they can show to their shareholders and their boards becomes that much more important.

JoAnna Abrams: Absolutely. And just to clarify, it's not just group per se, but think about all the employees and the negotiated rates

That those employees get access to, right? So You know, it's the platforms like Concur, which is a common one people would recognize, right? So, you know, many people in our industry who are [00:10:00] working for large corporations have these, and you're booking your travel directly through that platform versus going to, Expedia or, or, or brand.com or what have you, right?

So they're able to track the specific hotels that these travelers are staying in. So it's the transient negotiated, you know, transient business. Um, and that tracking now, they've been doing this for years, right? They're tracking their costs and so on, but now they're looking at what's the profile from a sustainability performance standpoint these hotels. And it's going even further. They're making choices as to which hotels they continue to do business with, factoring in sustainability performance.

Dan Ryan: Okay, so there's, everything is on a a spectrum and in this spectrum I think it's okay, that good feeling of the guest who wants to travel and know the story of sustainability. But really now on this group or corporate [00:11:00] travel.

There's at a hotel, there's a sales manager or a regional sales manager that's always trying to get these groups, whether it's universities, businesses, sports teams, you name it, to stay at their hotel. Oftentimes they don't even know that this hotel was done in a sustainable fashion. That, in my mind is for the guest.

Right. It's that guest experience. How have you, what's the unlock that you figured out that's helping the group sales manager at these hotels communicate this to Hi their, his prospects or her prospects, and what are the numbers telling you now? Like what is the the dollars and cents revenue driver that you're seeing?

JoAnna Abrams: the of sales does not have the PhD in sustainability to answer the questions that they're getting, right? So, but they know that it matters, and they're looking for, you know, what kind of help can I get so that I can compete effectively? Now, there's [00:12:00] certifications out there, such as Greenkey Global, which is, uh, by the way, that's owned-- 50% of that's owned by the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

I don't think most people know that

Dan Ryan: Oh, I didn't know that.

JoAnna Abrams: That, that is because the American Hotel and Lodging Association recognizes how big a deal this is, and they've gotten behind the one that's got the best quality and recognition the corporate community, right? So, so there's that as a solution. But to complete that Greenkey Global certification requires having knowledge and the data That looks at how a hotel is built, supplied, and operated.

Dan Ryan: just to paint a picture here, I remember you showing me on a, I don't remember if it was a, a conversation we were having just between us or you were on stage at Alice. It could have been, but you, there was a sheet or that was multiple pages with like a matrix super small writing that Green, green Key Global or some other organization might send [00:13:00] to the sales or regional sales manager and they don't even know how to take step one at this.

Is that, was that, that was on stage. You were on stage doing that? I think. Okay.

JoAnna Abrams: And we've either done it on

Dan Ryan: Or

JoAnna Abrams: or in person. I mean, yes,

and yeah,

Dan Ryan: So, so how does the, so how does it, how do you at mind Click, help them figure that out?

JoAnna Abrams: when you think about it, the-- our industry is a service business that is dependent upon the products that others make.

But it's those products that enable a hotel to operate more sustainably. how Mindclick helps is that we work with organizations like yours and many, many others, and we are identifying how the ways in which the products are made, distributed, and how they impact the direct operations of that hotel, such as energy efficiency, waste [00:14:00] reduction, healthier rooms, um, uh, the ability to reuse, repurpose products, and it ties into waste as well.

All of those factors feed directly into the datasets the corporate buyer is looking for. So how we help is we're taking away the labor and the complexity by literally handing these directors of sales the answers that they can plug right in to whatever that platform is that they have to submit these answers to, and that's massive.

So as a result of that, we're able to get a hotel that does not have Green Key Global certification yet. They operate on a five-key system, so five keys is the best. One key is the starting point. We can get them up to two keys just based on new build or renovation or a conversion, which huge,

Dan Ryan: Wow. let's say, Samantha, the [00:15:00] global, uh, or not the global, the regional sales manager for a hotel or a group of hotels in, let's say San Francisco. I'm just making up names.

JoAnna Abrams: Yep.

Dan Ryan: and then you help them tell that story and let's say they have three keys. Now they have five keys. Now I'm Johnny, who is planning corporate travel for, let's say Amazon or Microsoft.

And there's a conference down there, or JP Morgan, there's a conference in San Francisco. Um, Johnny is looking at a web website or calling and talking to the sales managers at various different hotels. How does Johnny, this, the corporate travel planner, see this? Is it like when I go on, uh, hotel Tonight or, or if I book on Hilton Direct, sometimes it'll show like the TripAdvisor logos in there or little, little icons, like how did they know?

And is it actually driving better group sales performance at these hotels?

JoAnna Abrams: there are platforms, uh, [00:16:00] including Aloindex, which is w-- a partner to-- for both us and for Greenkey Global. And platform works in that the individual traveler as well as the corporate buyer can go into this platform and see a rating for all the hotels that have been selected by whatever enterprise.

So you gave the example of Amazon, Microsoft, whomever, right? So assume those folks are on the plat-- this platform, and let's take San Francisco as an example. So Hyatt Centric, um, in Fisherman's Wharf is a, an EOS, is a client of ours.

Dan Ryan: I am Burman. Falk is doing the furniture there by the way, also, which is really good news. Great shout out to both.

JoAnna Abrams: shout out to all. So the score in Aloindex before Mindclick was a seventy-four out of a hundred or seventy-three out of a hundred.

And the more important [00:17:00] understanding here is that in comparison to the other hotels in their same comp set, they were below average performance.

Dan Ryan: so just so I'm clear, that 73 or 74, to me, that's like a C, but it, but, but if you put them in the group of all their peers or their comp set, they were probably in the middle of that comp set.

They were actually below, they were below that comp set

yes. So they did-- we did the, we call look back, which is the project's already been completed, but we take in the specification documents and the POs and so on, so we can match the products that were selected to our data set that comes directly from partnering with organizations like you to pull through what your product's impact story is, as we call it, health and wellness

Uh, packaging, you know, [00:18:00] reduction that, that translates into waste reduction and so on. when we took the analysis of the meeting rooms renovation, then we pulled that data into the Alo Index platform, only because they use MindClick, they get points for that, but als- like you would LEED and BREEAM, MindClick is n- is now considered as part of the points you get, which is great. A villa for the FF&E story, like you said at the beginning, right?

Finally, there's a place that FF&E counts. addition, because of the answers we could provide, score went up to an eighty-one, which put them in the top ninety-ninth percentile. So they're basically above everybody else in their comp set. what we know from secondary research and data sets out there, we see, um, anywhere from a seven or eight percent to as high as a seventeen percent increase in market share [00:19:00] revenue directly from higher sustainability performance.

Really.

JoAnna Abrams: that's what makes this exciting, and when you think about somebody who's actually looking at... The, the platform looks like any kind of, you know, OTA, right? Any kind of booking platform. and there's efforts to connect it directly to booking platforms. But you can go in as a, as a traveler. So let's say you're working for a Microsoft or an Amazon or a, you know, JPMorgan Chase or whomever, right?

You go into this, you say, "I, um, I wanna stay in Fisherman's Wharf, here's the price point I'm looking at. Here's the style of hotel or maybe brand I wanna be staying at for loyalty program. Now let me see what they're..." And they see a rating. So you literally go in and look at, you know, just a, a map of that region. You can see price, you can see the rating, and you can dig in for more details. The digging in for more details is [00:20:00] where it gets really exciting because Even for people who are perhaps a little bit more s- technically savvy around sustainability, it's a lot. There's a lot of different data points, right? And so what Mindclick has created is just like you look at the images or the pictures of the guest room. What does everybody do when they go look, look for a hotel? First, you're looking at your location, then you're looking at your price point, and then you're gonna look at the pictures, you're gonna look at guest reviews before you make your decision, right?

But going back to the start of our conversation, right? It is about what does that space convey to us in terms of what these rooms look like. Well, what we've done is we've taken those very images, and we've superimposed on those images content that is really easy for, uh, people to understand of how this room was designed and furnished in ways that are better for them and better for the community.

So we're not pushing sustainability jargon out there. What we're doing is [00:21:00] saying, know that you care about your health." By the way, wellness is a, what, $4 trillion industry and continuing to grow. We like to think what we're doing is supporting everyday wellness, right? You don't have to just stay in the high-end spa, you know, kind of hotel. But because of the choices that are made as to who to work with to create the products in the room, such as yourselves, you're creating your products in ways that are making those rooms healthier for people. And the additional sustainability benefits, waste reduction, et cetera, et cetera, tie into what the corporate buyer's looking for on that front.

So we're pri- we're bringing the story through.

Dan Ryan: couple things. One, on that particular project, um, with eos, they knew that they had to get the, the hotel designed and renovated, and they could only start construction on Super Bowl Monday and reopen before World Cup. Um, so they did an unorthodox project [00:22:00] kind of flow in the way that they manage the project.

And typically what takes 18 months takes or took, like from on my perspective on just the rooms furniture. It was like 10 or 11 months from the time that we, the design firm whitespace started designing on the model room to doing the model room and having the last containers deliver. It was less than a year, which is unbelievable as far as, but it, but it takes leadership and vision on the ownership side to like get everyone aligned.

So shout out to George Stowers there, but if I were to call, if I were to talk to, let's say I did a podcast with. The asset manager for this hotel, and obviously there's gonna be a bump post renovation, right? 'cause they freshened it up. San Francisco's kind of like trending right now. It's back to being awesome.

But if I were to ask specifically, did they notice an uptick in their group sales because of the sustainability issues, what would, what might they say?

JoAnna Abrams: Well, they won't see it yet, right. The reason they won't see it yet is because [00:23:00] there is some effort that needs to go into this on the part of the directors of sales and marketing. And that's really the next frontier in this, um, is that there's training required to help of sales and marketing teams actually talk about this new content, if you want to call it that, right? Um, we like to say at MindClick that every product tells a story. What story want to tell?

Dan Ryan: they're basically in the middle. They're in the throes of the renovation now. So some of the rooms are back on, but not the full thing. So at some point you're gonna have training and onboarding as a, as a mind click service to this, to the sales and marketing department of this hotel.

We're actually doing it.

Oh, you're doing it right now. Okay. So maybe we'll have to do a follow up then, or maybe I do a follow up with the asset manager or someone from EOS to just ask them, or maybe even the sales manager. Um, but I'm curious to see how that impact will kind of flow through and affect the revenue and, and hopefully ultimately the [00:24:00] profitability of the hotel, because I think that that is the last missing piece.

'cause supply chains have changed. I think we're all able to deliver a more sustainable product, a more thoughtful product, a healthier product. But for many, many owners, they just don't care.

JoAnna Abrams: I think it's not that they don't care. I think that they're focused on, "Don't ask me to do anything differently that's gonna create risk for hitting our numbers," right? And so when you introduce something new in the process, create a, a new risk variable. And this is where the-- what has taken us, you know, 10 years to get to this point. What we've done is create a riskless way to do this. And the way to do this is that we don't disrupt the design process. We don't disrupt the purchasing process. We are simply asking for the documents [00:25:00] that are... And you know what these documents look like, right?

Dan Ryan: That's a lot of work. But it's a great, it's a great exercise every year because it keeps us sharp and it keeps us, you know, at the top of our game and it helps us figure out, hey, what's our next innovation we want to do from a sustainability perspective?

JoAnna Abrams: Well, there's two types of documents that we're talking about. So what you're talking about is the datasets that we have for the products that you make. And you make-- you design your products, you produce your products, let me rephrase that,

Based upon a custom design.

Dan Ryan: Correct.

JoAnna Abrams: And I remember Alan Benjamin saying, "How in the world are you gonna do this?"

Right? You've got, you know, your fabrics coming from one vendor, and you've got your, you know, seat cushion coming from another, and, you know, how does this all work, right? Well, this is the beauty of the supply chain and technology. But I wanna talk about a different set of documents. What I'm talking about are the design documents, the specifications, the finish schedules, the schematics, and then the POs. So what we're doing is we're [00:26:00] ingesting that data and using AI to extract the specific product information that we need, and then we're working with partners in our platform like you all to match that to the data we already have around the of your products. And that then enables us to produce the content that feeds right into getting a better rating in an Alo Index, getting more points in Green Key Global, and having the story that can be told for whatever space, your either new build or renovation, conversion, doesn't matter. content now not only supports you differentiating yourself, performing better in the sustainability metrics, but now you've got a story that you can tell visually and that you can connect to the guest in a way that goes far beyond and is much better than hang up your towels or decline housekeeping. Because you're able to talk about how these products were carefully selected and then how they benefit you as the guest [00:27:00] first, and then also how does it benefit the community.

Dan Ryan: I bet once that work is done internally at the hotel, like I know we're talking about the sales and marketing department, but. I bet also once that's done, it can probably be disseminated to front desk employees. Bellman, like I always find, some of the best stays that I ever have anywhere are when the frontline employees tell me a little story about where the art is from or where, or this hand, hand carved chandelier or something was done by a guy down the street and to hear a sustainability story.

I haven't really heard that very much, but it would be really cool to hear that as well. So hopefully that'll trickle down to the front line and the people who are actually talking to the guests, check checking in.

JoAnna Abrams: That's what we are working on right now, is that kind of training program. And in fact, if we go back to our, our Hyatt Centric team in Fisherman's Wharf, we're talking, and this is within the next couple weeks, with both the sales and marketing people, but also the [00:28:00] operations people, 'cause you're 100% right.

I mean, it's those interactions and those op moments that actually create real connection for the guest and the authenticity behind, you know, what the, what the hotel sees as important in sharing, right? And so nice thing about all this is that while this is being driven by this twenty to forty percent of a hotel's revenue coming from corporate, it is able to connect to today's consumer. And I just wanna keep going back to that statistic around, uh, not only wellness, but this is a fascinating data point, Dan. So Zillow, you know, the, um, platform where you buy and sell homes on, right? They do studies every year to see how are consumers talking about their homes that they're trying to sell, right? And what are the hot topics that everybody's leaning into. Guess what they were for twenty twenty-five and going into twenty [00:29:00] twenty-six? Out of the top 5 sustainability initiatives in the home.

wellness, and sustainability and resiliency. How has this home been built in a way that is going to withstand a changing climate, right? I mean, if that doesn't tell you where the consumer is, mean, that's pretty powerful.

Dan Ryan: a lot of these conversations on sustainability that I've had on this podcast, um, with leaders in the field, you included. I'm actually starting, well, I wanted to get solar panels for the house because we're in Connecticut and everyone still, most everyone still burns oil here, which is just crazy.

But they just put a gas line in here and I'm trying to get some, um, panels and also, um, if I can, I have to upgrade the electrical line coming in. So all these things are, it's not, it's not as easy as it seems oftentimes.

And it's a huge project, but I'm just like, you know what? I'm getting it done. So all the work's kind of starting this, uh, spring, but again, I'm kind of practicing what I preach in a way, in the [00:30:00] sense that.

It is difficult. There are a lot of parts, but it doesn't have to be as difficult and to hear that it's, it could potentially affect the bottom line or if we ever sell this place or a hotel. Um, those are the stories I think that have been missing because I think it is these initiatives are accretive to value in building value.

So I wanna go back to where I was saying, oh, most hotel owners don't care and you correctly push back. I think you're right. They do care, but they also have to have a business case for why they're doing all of this. So if there's an owner who does care, but it's hard to show the business case or it was in their mind, it is.

So they say, you know what, Joanna, I can't afford sustainability on this project. We have to reposition. We've been under a lot of pressure to get it all, everything up to speed and I can't afford it. How do you respond to them?

JoAnna Abrams: So basically, we're just walking them through the numbers, right? So our costs range from 20,000 up to, [00:31:00] at the very high end, you know, low, very low six figures when you're talking about a massive project, right? But in most cases, they're falling somewhere in the 30, $35,000 range, if you will, for, for the work that we do. When you look at the ROI that's associated with the cost of using our data to unlock the story, it's ridiculous. It's like 4,000% based upon even taking the lowest, uh, increase that you could potentially get as a result of being able to meet the criteria that the corporate travel buyer is looking for.

And the number is so overwhelming. 90% of your RFPs are requesting this data. You can't ignore that, right?

So the other piece in all of this that really has-- is where the questions come in is, will I have to pay more for these products? And the beauty, because we're a data company, right? What we're doing is we're unlocking the story that is already a part [00:32:00] of what you're selling and what you're delivering

Dan Ryan: I, I think that's a really good point because, for instance, when we changed our packaging material initiative at Berman flk, we got rid of all hard poly styre foam for our, for our sea freight shipments. Um, it's not like we're only doing that on mine click jobs. We're doing it for everyone. It's, it's not like, I remember in two before 2008 when I became a lead ap, okay.

There was a lot of different types of MDF and plywood panels that you could get that had added urea formaldehyde in it. Now, you can't find, I mean, I guess you can find those types of panels, but they're really hard to find, like they're just not available anymore. The whole market has changed all. How you can show a certified chain of custody on hardwoods and veneers and panels, it, it, now it's just.

It's like I always say HD TV or TV became HD TV, and then it just became TV again,

We're doing it all this way, so whatever the hotel can do to better tell the story and improve their top line and hopefully bottom [00:33:00] line as well. I think that was the missing piece

JoAnna Abrams: to your point, the uninformed believe I'm gonna have to change products, right? Which is gonna totally disrupt my schedule, right? Or the designer's like, "Well, I'm gonna be limited in terms of the vendors that we can partner with." And we're like, "No, no, no. This is completely wide open."

Every product can evaluate and, and we do across the, the suppliers that are in our network. And what's even more exciting from a, a scalability standpoint, with AI, we've been training AI to extract the specific data sets that we know are needed by, in response to those corporate travel buyer RFPs coming from the ways in which you, you know, source the materials, the avoidance of chemicals, what you do in your own manufacturing, your packaging, distribution, all these things, right? we have reduced the amount of effort that it takes for us [00:34:00] to extract this information by 90%, which is

Wow.

Right?

Well.

And that also means that for suppliers who have been resistant to or concerned about how much work it's gonna be, we're like, "Here's the list of documents we need from you. Get us those documents, and we've got it all."

And then to your point, you're gonna get a scorecard we, we are a ratings program, right? So you're gonna see where are you in performance, and they... That's where the real value is, right? Is that how are you are doing already, and then what are opportunities to improve that will help as a supplier provide not only the product but the story.

And I keep emphasizing this. Like, today's suppliers need to understand that they're no longer just selling a product. They're selling a product with a story, and your customer needs that story so they in turn can respond to the requests from their customers.

Dan Ryan: So basically, um, like on the Huntington [00:35:00] Hotel, it, there's a cost to us to set this whole thing up every year and there's a man, there's just an a lot of hours. But for us to help our clients tell the story, like at the Huntington Hotel, which just open and I was just there.

I didn't get to stay there because it was open and fully sold out. And I know you're doing a case study on the Huntington Hotel. Like what are you seeing any results from, from that project as well?

JoAnna Abrams: let's talk about the results from what you all have done by being on the, the journey with, with MyClique and the, um, eliminating the styrofoam that's in the goods is, is absolutely massive. So forgive me, I'm gonna look at my notes just to make sure I have these numbers right, and I tried to translate this into something that everyone can understand. by eliminating the styrofoam, and you guys replaced it with a honeycomb-type cardboard

Dan Ryan: Corrugated cardboard Yeah. So it, yeah,

JoAnna Abrams: by the way, I believe you shared with me that you guys did not increase your costs to your customers, No

Dan Ryan: We absorb the cost, and it's a technology that's [00:36:00] already out there, and it's not like it's proprietary to us. Like we want everyone to copy us. Like everyone go do it. It makes a big difference.

JoAnna Abrams: So these numbers are pretty, pretty staggering. So by replacing the styrofoam, not only are you eliminating, um, a material that takes five hundred years to break down, and as it's breaking down, it's releasing toxins into the environment, so it's bad stuff. Um, but you're also, you're also able to actually reduce the total amount of packaging that was required. So those two in combination. so The Huntington Hotel saved twenty-eight dump t-trucks worth packaging waste that they had to, um, discard.

Wow.

$15,000 of savings to that property.

Um... my gosh. I, I didn't even think about it in dump trucks. We did another project and I was like, how many cubic yards is this? And it was like a 7 47, I'm thinking the wrong thing. It was a full [00:37:00] 7 47 that we diverted of, uh, hard polystyrene foam from. But thinking about it in dump trucks is so much better.

Dan Ryan: 'cause that's an immediate cost savings. 28 drums, dump trucks. That's crazy.

JoAnna Abrams: because of the tipping fees that have to be paid. And by the way, even if you have... I mean, this is the problem out there. One of the things that we measure is, are-- is your packaging 100% recyclable, not partially recyclable? Because if it's partially recyclable, guess what? It's not getting recycled.

It's just not gonna happen, right? And on top of it, even if you tried, you've actually put a labor cost on your hotel because somebody's got to separate that, right? So 28 drum- dump trucks, $15,000 in savings, but heres the, the really big story. So that is the equivalent of, uh, Huntington is what, 150 keys?

Three to four months of waste per room that you've-- is the equivalent of what you diverted. So let's translate this. [00:38:00] In this-- In 2026, Lodging Econometrics says there's roughly, give or take, 700 hotels are gonna be opening this year, okay? If you-- if every single case goods, know, just using some averages here, right?

If every single one of those hotels had case goods that were part of the opening of those hotels, um, or, or renovation, the equivalent amount of reduction for the case goods tied to eliminating styrofoam is 75,000 cubic meters. That is 30 Olympic-sized pools.

And it would take guests a typical 150-key hotel over 500 years to generate the same amount of waste.

Dan Ryan: Wow.

JoAnna Abrams: I, I wanna pause on this because let's go back to our friends who are directors of sales, who are filling out these surveys asking about, "What are you doing to reduce waste in [00:39:00] your hotel?" a lot of waste does come from the guests, right? So what are you gonna do? Tell guests you can't bring something from the outside into your room to help reduce the waste.

Like it goes back to what is... what do we want that guest experience to be? when we shift the narrative and remember that we're a service business that is dependent upon the products that others make to build, furnish, supply, and operate Why are we not going to our partners, our supply chain partners and saying, "Help us reduce the amount of waste that we generate"? And it's not just for the, you know, the, the building or renovating of hotels, it's every day. Of the products that are coming into these hotels every day, a waste story there. And this is the power of MindClick, is that we can calculate all of this, feed that directly into what your, the corporate customer is looking for.

And, and now it's the hotel with supplier [00:40:00] partners that is making it a better experience for the guest, for the community. And instead of the signage being around decline housekeeping and hang up your towel, it's here's what we do every day to contribute to our community. Such a different story, right? And all it takes is with MindClick. And I wanna just touch on one point. Historically, Dan, you're right. It has been a lot of work for you guys to keep providing these documents. But again, with the advancement in AI, your team is gonna go through a completely different experience this year,

Because we're able to, with all the storage capabilities and the knowledge of what is expired and what's still accurate, it's gonna be a different experience.

So we're solving that as well through AI. But the-- but going back to the power of this, so huge.

Dan Ryan: just hearing about the sheer. Amount of waste that's diverted or that's just created from a hotel renovation. It reminded me of an article that Metropolis Magazine put out, or a [00:41:00] study that they published, um, about how in the course of a building, so if you build a new building, and I'm probably gonna mess this up, you could probably share it better than I can, but my understanding is if you build a building, let's say a lead platinum building, um, that lasts a hundred years, I'm making something up.

The amount of renovations that that building would go through over those a hundred years has, uh, uh, with, with respect to f, f and E. So the f, f and E coming in and going out for all the renovations has an outsize impact to the, the overall impact from a sustainability perspective that just building the building and operating that building would be, did I say that somewhat correctly or do you wanna like, correct me?

But it's staggering when you think about it.

JoAnna Abrams: So it's the embodied carbon, and very simply, the embodied carbon is what is the energy, and then translated into carbon emissions, that it takes to source the materials or extract the materials, right?

And then to manufacture them, uh, package them, ship them, [00:42:00] et cetera, right? So when you add all of that up for the FF&E, you do multiple renovation cycles, I believe they actually only quantified six of them over maybe a 20 or 30-year period. It was greater than the embodied carbon that was associated with the building shell and core.

It's Wow.

It's really huge. And the other thing is, I mean, let's go back to the, you know, why all this is happening and the impact to the hotel industry and these enterprise customers are asking for hotel sustainability. Why are they doing this?

Because the number one criteria is they want to reduce their Scope 3 emissions, right? Now, Scope 3 means the supply chain. I'm simplifying, but it's the supply chain, right? Well, our supply chain in our industry an outsized impact on the amount of car-- embodied carbon or the carbon emissions out there if you think about just the factories alone, right? So, [00:43:00] um, our story as an industry really needs to shift to what we're doing to partner with suppliers like you who have-- who are measuring what your energy is, you're create-- you're using renewable energy, you're reducing your carbon emissions in your factories because that is so much greater than what's happening in an individual hotel. And then the individual hotel is at the mercy of, first and foremost, taking care of the guest. And look, if it's hot, the guest is gonna wanna crank up that air conditioner. Are we gonna say no to that experience? If it's cold, they're gonna turn up the heat. gonna say no to that experience, right? We know of a situation where a hotel had to out a, a whole HVAC system and on one of their floors because the airline pilots wouldn't stay there because the room was too hot or too cold because of the card system to activate the HVAC [00:44:00] system, right?

I mean, so there's things we have to think about from the guest experience. In addition, depending upon where the hotel is, the energy grid that it's pulling its energy from, they have no control of what that energy mix is. So what do the hotels have control over? control they have is over who they choose to do business fr- with, and this goes back to every product has a story. What story do you want that product to have, right? And that story isn't just about well that product looks or the price point or how well it's made or how durable it's gonna be. It's also how does that hotel support... It's-- Sorry. How does that s- product support the hotel's need to tell a story about wellness, about carbon, about resiliency, and so on?

Dan Ryan: I say this phrase often that I got from this book slash movie that I love the power of one and it's, um, every waterfall starts with just one drop of water. Right? And I think all of the initiatives that everyone's [00:45:00] making from lead to mind click to manufacturers, to supply chains changing, to just.

TV becoming HGTV to going back to TV again. All these things are accretive and for instance, one of the factories that we do a ton of business with in Vietnam, they're building a new factory.

And I'm not saying that we are the only reason or you, but we're all a part of this. Our industry, you, us as at Berman Falk, who do a lot of business through them, and all the forms that we have them fill out every year for mind, click with this new factory that they're building.

They just broke ground on it. I think within the past year. And at the groundbreaking ceremony, it was all, I think they were almost all Vietnamese men. And then there was one western person who was a woman. Shelly Cohen, who works with us. I've been working with her for more than 10 years.

She had a shovel and a hard hat, and she helped break it. The new factory that, the new factory that they're building, shout out Shelly Shalin. [00:46:00] Um, but the new factory they're building has a complete solar array on, on this, on the roof. And I don't think that they would've done that if the owners, the platforms, the manufacturers, all demanded that.

And I think all of these wa raindrops or that are turning into this waterfall that now their new factory, which is gonna come online, I don't know, sometime in the next year or 18 months, is gonna be, I, I don't know if it's zero emissions or basically all they're gonna generate so much power just from the sun on the roof of their, of their factory.

I don't think that they would've done it without just the, the tide rising on sustainability.

JoAnna Abrams: not to mention the ROI story, right? I mean, if you look at what, what is happening in our world and the cost of oil, move,

Dan Ryan: Right.

JoAnna Abrams: I mean, that... And I, I do wanna circle back on that. I mean, when we talk about the value to the owners, um, and you talked about this in your own home, and you said, you know, you're [00:47:00] making the changes to these homes, and you expect to see it in the value of your home. Well, right now you aren't going to because the whole appraiser world has to get up to speed on how to value this, which by the way, is something MindClick's actually working on. Um, but there's now change that's happened in the world of Freddie Mae, Fannie Mac for homeowners, where appraisers are going to have to provide, uh, an evaluation in your, the value of your home tied to what you've done to make that home more resilient, more energy efficient, et cetera, the things that you're talking about.

So that is, that is here now, and they're working out how to do that. The same exact thing is happening with respect to the, uh, hotels. They're an asset as well, and they, as you look at the asset value of that hotel, and probably the number one, um, uh, of all of this is gonna be the resiliency of that asset. And the resiliency is [00:48:00] tied to how will it withstand a changing climate, and by doing that, that can impact your insurance costs It certainly will impact the evaluation of the property, right? And the things that have been done, whether it's in FF&E or in, you know, going into the building materials, et cetera, and the overall sustainability story is also now going to be tied to the revenue story, which also helps increase the asset value. all of this data that is flowing through is actually going to be flowing through into what does that owner care very much about is what is the value of this thing that I own?

Dan Ryan: as this data is changing and appraisals are changing and group sales will be able to show, um, measurable ROI, I think that the data is gonna, hopefully it has to contradict whatever the industry narrative has been thus far. What's your take on that? How long will it take?

JoAnna Abrams: It's happening right now. I can't tell you how... One of the [00:49:00] things that we do, and I would invite anybody who's watching this podcast who has, uh, recently completed a renovation or a new build, out to us, right? You can go, go to our website, mindclick.com. But we go in after something's been done, and over and over again, we hear, "Wow, we didn't realize that we had this story already," whether it's wellness, whether it's waste reduction, what have you, right? Um, well, they had no idea. I'm like, "Yes, because it's already, to your point, it's already been built into these products." I mean, and the manufacturers out there have made a lot of strides, and we're just unlocking the data. And what they all say is, "We didn't have to pay a penny more for these products."

We're like, "We know." So that's the huge myth that, that is, that is fun for us to, um, to bust.

Dan Ryan: I love saying this. Every once in a while, I heard it from a friend, a really good, like my best friend's dad. He said, you know, after all these years, you become an o of hard work. You've become an overnight success, uh, which just resonates with every entrepreneur who's always pushing these, um, boulders, uphills.

But to become a [00:50:00] member or included in the, in 500 female, uh, founders to be going on your journey with Cambridge Institutes for Sustainability and also the Imagine Program, you have these three monumental things coming up as well, just to help you as an entrepreneur and leader and as a business grow and mature and evolve.

What's exciting you most about the medium term future?

JoAnna Abrams: I'm really excited to be able to have the ROI conversation and to tie it to revenue. I mean, it's a very simple statement. When hotels buy better products, they can increase market share. I mean, that is just huge to be able to say that. Now, better how we're defining better, right? Is this story around the impact that those products are making. Um, and, it's just a game changer. And what's really fun as well is when we're able to visually [00:51:00] show the story, when you're looking at the, at the image of, you know, that incredible lobby or the guest room or the spa or the meeting spaces, and then this story is coming to life in terms of all the different products that are contributing to our own health and wellbeing and to a better community.

It's really fun to see people actually lean in and look at this and be like, "Really? This is so cool."

Dan Ryan: not only, it's so, so, so cool, but we'd be dumb not to do it. Right. How can, how come we're not doing this?

JoAnna Abrams: Yeah,

Dan Ryan: Um, well this has been wonderful to have you back. I can't wait to hear more and see more as the case studies come out. Um, when the case studies come out, I would love to write about them or include them in my substack.

Um, if people wanted to learn more about you and mind click, what's a good way for them to learn to connect?

JoAnna Abrams: Just go to our website, mindclick.com. And, uh, I... You know, a huge shout-out to you, Dan. You've, you-- We, we provide a system, we provide tools, but it's up [00:52:00] to you all as, you know, partners, manufacturer suppliers in this to actually do something with them. And I mean, you've just been a real pioneer and champion for all of this and, um, your whole organization to take...

You know, really this is, comes from Toyota's TQM world as part of my background of like, how do we continually improve quality,

right? And this is what you all have fully embraced and, and, uh, the industry is, the benefits from what you're, you're doing, what we're doing together, it's really nice to be able to feel good about that.

Dan Ryan: it takes a village and, you know, Berman Falk is a very dynamic, incredible company, and we're really, you know, we, we wanna be considered and perceived as leaders, but it also takes a lot of those owners, like the, the couple that we've talked about from Highgate and eos, and I'm sure there's a, a ton more as well.

Um, so I don't want to just limit it to them, but it really takes a village again, the. That Raindrop has a lot of, [00:53:00] it's like a storm right now, and hopefully that waterfall is coming because often from 2008 until recently, I've been passionate about this. It means a lot to me, but I feel like I'm yelling into that thunderstorm and no one's listening.

But I, I, I really think this unlock on driving revenue is the path forward and it's, it's amazing.

JoAnna Abrams: share a number with you so you understand how much growth is happening. So over the past three years, We call what we do product intelligence. Mindclick's product intelligence has evaluated and guided $750 million worth of purchasing across over 50 pro- projects in North America and even into the EU So it is happening which is really exciting.

Dan Ryan: thank you for your leadership, your stewardship, um, your platform, your team. Um, I really appreciate it. You've made us a better company. Um, you've made us as an industry better and I think we're all the better for it. So for any listener out there, [00:54:00] happy Earth Day, if you think this has helped untangle some ideas about sustainability or you think a client of yours could benefit from learning how these sustainability initiatives from the platform of mind click can help drive revenue, please pass this to them.

Smash that subscribe button. Smash the like button. It makes a huge difference. And we all grow by word of mouth and by interpersonal, uh, referrals. So please share, stop shouting into the thunderstorm. Just pass it to someone who you think could really benefit from this, because it is making a difference and we'll catch you next time.

Thank you.