John shares the factors that have helped him be successful, which include being a good communicator both verbally and in writing, raising his hand to help, and being willing to try new things. He also discusses how, early in his career, he learned from the successful people around him to approach problem solving by asking positive questions. In building his network, John believes developing a track record of being honest with the people you do business with, in terms of what you're going to deliver, really speaks volumes.
John shares the factors that have helped him be successful, which include being a good communicator both verbally and in writing, raising his hand to help, and being willing to try new things. He also discusses how, early in his career, he learned from the successful people around him to approach problem solving by asking positive questions. In building his network, John believes developing a track record of being honest with the people you do business with, in terms of what you're going to deliver, really speaks volumes.
Hello and welcome to D EI Advisors. My name is Lan Elliot on behalf of D EI advisors. And today we've got John Murray, the president and CEO O of Sonesta Hotels. And I have had the great fortune of working on a few deals with John in the past when he acquired a few hotels that are now part of the semester brand. Welcome
John Murray:John. Thank you Lan. Glad to.
Lan Elliott:John, I know you've had a really interesting career journey. Can you share some of the inflection points from your successful career and maybe what are the factors that, or skills that have contributed to your success?
John Murray:Sure. When I graduated when I went into college I wasn't really sure, like a lot of people who were 17 or 18 years old didn't yet know what I wanted to do. I was good with numbers and so I decided to major in accounting and got a job with then I'll date myself with a big eight accounting firm and I learned about a lot of different industries. I learned to. Follow the cash if you wanted to understand how business is operated. And and I gradually, as I work my way up, there was the, one of the great things about the public accounting firms is the training that you get every year and to help you with some leadership skills and to help you with some selling skills and to help you with technical aspects as well. But that was very helpful. The as I started a family the work-life balance wasn't right for me because of my mix of clients. And so I Made a decision to, to take a mergers and acquisitions position at Fidelity Investments which I did for a few years. And then one of my former clients that was in the real estate business called me and asked me if I'd come work for them which was a healthcare re. And soon after I started working with the healthcare read as their chief Financial Officer. They did a senior living deal with Marriott right around the time when Marriott and host Marriott were splitting up and into two companies. And that led to us doing a a hotel transaction. I think the discussion was we tried to do a second follow, a follow on healthcare deal and we were told that, we were sol. Mart didn't have any more, or host Marriott didn't have any more healthcare assets, but they were trying to sell some hotels. We said, what's the difference between healthcare properties and hotels? At the core it's heads on beds, food and beverage. And so we bid on a portfolio of of courtyards. We were the successful bidder and. we thought it was a great deal. We announced it, the share price went up 10%. The rating agencies downgraded us two notches. And on the flight back from New York, we went down and met with the rating agencies and couldn't convince them that they were making a mistake. On the flight back to Boston, we worked on our plans for an I P O of a hotel. And I had done most of the analysis on the hotel bidding. And I went with the with the hotel reit. And I was the only one who went with the hotel reit. So I I got to leadership role. Out of the gates, which was great. So there was some of it was being thoughtful about areas where I wanted to work. I think for a lot of people who've worked in hospitality or hospitality related real estate, There's something, nobody can pinpoint it or I haven't heard them pinpoint it, but some, there's something about it that gets in your blood and and you want to continue at it. And so I've really enjoyed my, my initial exposures to the lodging environment and I'm glad. went with hospitality properties and didn't stay with the the healthcare in the long run. A lot of it is I wouldn't have been in, in those positions if if, if I hadn't done a few things. I think that I've been a good listener. I've been a pretty good communicator verbally and in writing. And that might be a little bit less important, the writing part in these days when there's so many emails and texts going around. But I think it's still, at very high. The higher up you go, the more important it is that you communicate. Verbally and in writing. And some famous person said, I didn't, this wasn't my idea but some famous person said I never learned anything while I was talking. and and so I think, listening to smart people around you is something that has helped me quite a bit. And and but the other thing is the other things I guess being a team player has been helpful for me. And raising my hand, I think I've never been afraid to say, I'll try that. Or do you need help with, what do you need help with? How can I be helpful? And and that's just led, that's just led to good things.
Lan Elliott:Absolutely. And I definitely noticed some of those when I've had the chance to work with you. The part about listening, you are such a good listener. I see you a lot being really quiet and then you ask a really good question. So I love that. And also volunteering, right? Volunteering to go with the hospitality. Company and we find people get to hospitality in lots of different ways, is what we've discovered in these interviews. It's so interesting, but people get the bug, like you said. That's right. Put your finger on exactly what it is. But then people stay in our industry for a long time once they discover it, so That's
John Murray:right. That's wonderful. It's a good virus. It is. It's a
Lan Elliott:good kind. So you don't get to where you are today though, without taking some calculated. Can you share an example of a time when you took a risk and it succeeded and how you approached it? What did you consider?
John Murray:Yeah, I think going back to what I just said a risk that we, I took not all on my own completely, but where we decided in a healthcare, eat to invest in hotel assets. And, that led to. to us having to do an IPO of a healthcare read cuz the capital markets didn't react well enough to it. And I think the lesson for me in that was if you've, if you think that you've put together a good transaction and a and you have a good business plan that. and if somebody else shuts it down, you you shouldn't give up. You should. We didn't say, oh well, we got downgraded. That's it. For hotels, we said, this hotel business makes sense for us. It's an area where we should be investing. We'll just approach it with a separate company. And we'll have two REITs instead of one. And more, more recently during the pandemic. we and this is continuing to play out, but during the pandemic at svc service Properties trust we owned a lot of hotels that were managed by Marriott and by I H G. And we had we had a small investment in a company called Sonesta and. when both Marriott and I h g said, we're not gonna be able to pay a return and this pandemic is so bad, we really don't know it's gonna, it may be years before we pay a return. And they had their shareholders to think about and we had our shareholders to think about and we decided that. It was better to be proactive and try to control our own destiny and so we transitioned a couple hundred hotels from the big operators to our small brand. And it's become a much bigger brand, still relative to merit. I hg still a small brand but compared to where we were, it's a much, a big brand. So that's, that's we're the eighth est is now the eighth largest hotel company. And there's still a lot of challenges with trying to to catch up. So I won't say we've we've been wholly successful yet, but we're, getting better every month. And but so I, I was the CEO of Service Properties Trust that the hotel reit and out of all that change during the pandemic led to me being asked to take on the role of CEO at Sonesta. Had we not been proactive I wouldn't be running a hotel company today.
Lan Elliott:Absolutely. And know it, it took a couple asks before you. you agreed to move from the REIT side, the ownership side, over to running the hotel company. So it's a new thing for
John Murray:you. Yeah. It's also a risk, right? It's you never know how it's gonna play out and I think sometimes you can fall into a trap of the easiest thing is to go with what you're comfortable with. And, I had been running a hotel re. 30, around 30 years, 20 something. Anyway. And I knew it, I knew the players, I knew the environment well. And I'd never, I didn't go to hotel school. I had never managed a hotel. So at first I was reluctant. But as you say, people have entered this industry in a lot of different. And and it was a new challenge. I like challenges and a way to approach the industry from a different perspective. So in the end I'm glad I did it. I've it's been, I've only been at it for about eight months, but so far I have no regrets.
Lan Elliott:and you had mentioned how quickly you grew. I looked up some of the statistics and that you've grown to the eighth largest US hotel, brand management and franchise company. You've actually now got 1200 hotels across 16 brands in eight countries. That's a lot in eight months. It's been a little bit longer than that but it's pretty tremendous growth. How did you navigate that during a pandemic and are there any lessons that you learned from growing so quickly that would app, inform how you would approach challenges in the future?
John Murray:Yeah. Yes and no. there's I think there was maybe one unfair, it's hard to say. It was un I'll say one unfair advan advantage was if you're gonna convert a couple of hundred hotels and established several new brands and be the small player or the underdog, in some respects, it's better to do that during a pandemic because, you, you're not negatively impacting as many guests as you transition. And so moving from Marriott systems to esta systems, or from I h IHG systems to, to Sonesta systems. We didn't experience too many bumps in the road, but at the time many of the hotels had very low occupancies. So there was only, there was a limited amount that we could screw up. So the actual. Transitions. We transitioned 99 hotels from i h G in one night, which is I think un unheard of. And if we, if you tried to do that at today's business levels it, that, it would probably would've been a horror show. But I think the the critical things are over. Communication. And that's really, probably in, in most aspects of business whether things are going well or whether there are, major challenges if you're keeping all the all the parties involved up to speed on, on what's happening and what they should expect and if there's problems, how they're. how are you trying to solve them and how long you think it's gonna take. I think that's in listening to to people who are telling you what's going and what's, what's not going so well so that you can start to turn the ship and fix, so that hopefully each time you convert a hotel, it gets a little bit better.
Lan Elliott:So important and taking the skills you mentioned earlier, listening skills, but then also communicating, which is really what you need, right? And rather than reading it in a vacuum and how important it is for people e even just to be reassured with the communication. And we found that out a lot during the pandemic as well.
John Murray:Yeah. And I think that, from a leadership perspective, if you, yeah, you need to. Particularly when times are challenging, you really need to overcommunicate because what I've what I've found is if people who work for you can't listen, To you communicating about what's happening then there's a ghost on their shoulder that whispers horrible things in their ears about what's happening. And, I don't know. It's not everybody, but a lot of people assume if they're not being communicated with and they have to assume what's going on. they tend to assume the worst. And so reassuring people that things are going as ex as expected or that, letting them know that you know about this challenge or that challenge and here's how you're dealing with it really goes a long way from, to keep people from panicking. So which, during a pandemic when there's so much uncertainty, it doesn't take a lot for panic to set in. Absolutely.
Lan Elliott:Yes. I love that idea of communicating with them rather than letting their negative thoughts overcome them when they hear nothing. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about continuous growth because as you mentioned, prior to the semester, you led two REITs, the lodging reit, as well as Industrial Logistics Properties Trust. Where do you go? That's a mouthful by the way. It is Logistics Properties Trust. Yeah. Where do you seek and guidance and when you're looking to grow as a professional or as a leader, how do you do all of that? How do you manage all of that now? Manage company and continue to grow?
John Murray:Yeah. I think it's a lot of it is relationships. And a lot of it is identifying mentors. In the early parts of my career the public accounting firms gave you mentors early on, and as you progressed you got to choose mentors. And then I would say my mentors later in life, pr unless they're watching this podcast, probably MI might not ever know that they were mentors to me. But there was were people at Fidelity who who were very successful and in addition to listening, I watched how. How they approached, problem solving and how they approached communication and how they all tended to have a not an attitude of I dunno. I think they, we used to call it getting to Yes. You always, a, you didn't ask questions that were negative. You asked questions that were. All right. That might be an obstacle, but how can we think about it differently? How can we, what's a different way to accomplish what we're trying to do? And our former chairman at the r group which oversaw our our REITs had a saying that, if you're not growing you're falling behind. And he had a number of other expressions that he used from time to time that, but but he was a, you a huge mentor for me. And as a result of Of him saying that so much, now I've, people who call me a deal junkie, sometimes because, I am very much focused on growth and, there's always different challenges in a portfolio. And if you're not growing, then ev the only thing to focus on is the challenges. But if you're growing, the growth offsets the challenges and gives you more time to, to figure out the challenges. And so there's so many positive aspects to to growth. And so I think, the thing that, that I learned about from my mentors and from that sort of growth perspective is how important relationships are and whether it's a relationship with a mentor or a relationship with other business people who are gonna enable you to to grow it's it's very important that you stick to it. I have to confess that over the span of my lifetime, I, I probably haven't kept in touch with some of my high. Buddies or some of my college buddies as well as I probably should have or could have. But since I've been in the business world, I've tried to make it a point to, to con, to keep up with relationships. And particularly in the lodging space, I think there's, there are a lot of good people. And if you if you talk to people regularly, you find out about, peop you bounce ideas off people and they give you feedback and there's a lot of different a lot of different viewpoints that you can absorb and it helps you to think through, is that really a deal I want to do? Or is that a deal I should be much more aggressive about? Cuz I didn't even realize some of these other good things about it. And it's been helpful. We, we have the franchising aspect of esta because of relationships that, that that I developed and and opportunities that, that other people. But talk to me about, the ability to, as a b as a brand, you, and with a relationship with a reit, you think we can just grow with our real estate investment trust partner. But but if you're franchising, you can, you can really add to that growth without having to access all of your own capital all the time for every deal. And so the ability for Sonesta to acquire Red Lion and to have a an executive like Keith Pierce who had been franchising at Wyndham. 30 years was, was just a huge positive and just, it was just, relationship building over a period of time.
Lan Elliott:Absolutely. Let's talk about that a little bit, because the hos hospitality industry, I think, is, it's really about developing relationships and sometimes, it goes beyond, like for us, we work. Working on a deal in the past on a few deals, but I feel like we got to be friends in the process of it over time. How have you built your network and what do you do in terms of networking that feels authentic for you?
John Murray:Yeah, it's a good question. I think you said authentic, so I, think that's the the key. is really to be yourself and to be honest with people. There've been a lot of times when I've had relationships with people or I've approached companies about potentially doing business together and it hasn't been the right opportunity. And rather than stringing people along and saying, oh, we're gonna try to do this or, and when, something doesn't really fit in the wheelhouse. Being honest and saying, we'd still love to do business, but this particular transaction isn't one that's gonna work. At first you feel like I'm letting them down. I'm gonna be, trying to get this relationship going and I'm disappointing them out of the blocks. People don't wanna be strung along and spend hours and hours and then find out that something doesn't work if, upfront. And then if it's something that you re, that you can do and you want to do, if they see that you're putting your head down and really really trying to get it done, I think I think that goes a long way. Even. even though the relationships that we developed at. SVC with Marriott and I h g were undone during the pandemic. I still have very good relationships with a lot of people at both of those companies. Because when I said that, we could do something then, or that we would do something then and we did it. And so I think that as you develop a track record and people know that you're sincere. What you can do and what you can't do. It makes a huge difference. It doesn't hurt to be running a large real estate investment trust that has capital access. The lodging industry is really dependent on, so it could be that a lot of people love me for my money But I think that tell, being honest with what, with yourself about what you can. and being honest with the people you do business with about that you're gonna deliver is, the end of the day that really speaks volumes to people that you know, and I think we got along because we got deals done right. We that transaction in Denver we struggled with some aspects of it, but we figured out how to make it work and I think that. That's probably part of the reason why we developed our relationship cuz we, we both tried to work, put our head, heads together and say, how are we gonna, as a hotel for sale, we're a hotel owner. You're a hotel operator, we ought to be able to figure out how to make this work. We did.
Lan Elliott:Absolutely. And yeah, I always appreciated your transparency and we would come to you and said, could you do this deal? And you were. quick to come back to us in a relatively short period of time to say yes or no, this doesn't work for us. And we were really grateful at the time for the deals that we were able to do together. So yeah, it's
John Murray:a lot of fun doing them. Exactly. It's always fun to be growing. That's right, That's right.
Lan Elliott:One of the things we talk about at D Advisors is how we're often our own biggest critic. And that doubt can sometimes make us wonder about ourselves and our skills. What are the strategies we use to stay positive to overcome that negative internal narrative?
John Murray:Yeah. I've been lucky to be working in good environments where people gave you some leeway. And Gave you the room to fail. As long as you didn't do fail the same way twice. It was, it was okay. And I think I, maybe part of it goes back to good parenting. But, my parents always said, nothing. A couple of things they always said to me was nothing ventured, nothing gained, and anything worth doing is worth doing well. And That's why I've raised my hand, I've volunteered, I've asked, how can I help you, with something. And that's led to opportunities. And then if you do volunteer or if somebody just chooses you to do, assigns a project to you if if you had, if you do your best at it hopefully you know, your best is good enough and and people say, wow, you did a good job with that. And they want to give you more. And my, my boss who you, said if you're not growing, you're falling behind would also say if you had new, if you had a new project, give it to the busiest person because, they were the person who was most like, Everybody wanted to work with cuz they were doing good work. So that meant I kept busy But that, that's you can ask for, you can ask for feedback, but I think if you work hard and and you're a team player and if you recognize. Mo in most cases in the business wor world. My experience has been that you're almost never really doing something by yourself. There's always somebody who's helping you somehow, whether they're providing the right data that you need to do, the analysis, or they're helping you with the analysis and. Recognizing the people who've helped you or who are helping you also goes a long way in, in in helping you be successful. And and that creates kind of a feedback loop. So if you're wondering how you're doing and, but you provide feedback and you communicate, chances are that people will be communicating back and letting you know. How things, from their perspective, how things are going. And it's not easy. I've, there've been plenty of times when I've, been, like when I, when we first started our relationship with I h g there was a gentleman who had taken over in Atlanta from back, way back then from bass plc, the Brewery Brewing Company. And, I reached out to. I don't know that he was the cfo. I reached out to him four or five, six times. He finally I think he responded just to get me to stop reaching out to him, And we had a long conversation and I think maybe met for lunch at one of the conferences and I was, I felt great that we fi after all that trying that I finally got a meeting. But after the meeting, even though we had a lot, it was a very. conversation and everything I thought. Yeah nothing's gonna come of this. And then six months or so later, somebody called me up and said, Hey, will you consider working on this deal so and so from ihg recommended that you might be a good capital partner? And, but yeah, so I thought I totally wasted all that. and but we needed to expand to diversify. So I, it was worth the investment, but I thought it, turned that it wasn't gonna work out, and then all of a sudden we went from no business to, billions of dollars invested with I h G properties. So
Lan Elliott:I love that story. I've never heard the story of how you started working with ihg, and That's a great one.
John Murray:Yeah. Persistence. Yeah, exactly.
Lan Elliott:So I wanna talk a little bit about leadership style, and I know that Vera Manukian has recently joined Esta as your chief operating officer and Congrat, congratulations to her. I always love seeing a talented woman like Vira in the C Suite. What characteristics or leadership style do you look for in your leaders?
John Murray:Yeah. First of all, thanks for. Recognizing Vera, and you should interview her on this as well, cuz she, she really is a, I'm planning on a great leader. You know what what I think really makes there's always a lot of different things that are positives about great leaders, but Vera has very high standards. She demands excellence from the people who work for her and and she is really great at providing positive feedback. I should say, she's really great at providing feedback. She's the she's the first one to compliment you on a job well done. She's the first person to recognize somebody who's gone above and beyond. But whether you are her favorite employee or her least favorite employee if you're doing. she'll recognize you for it. And if you're dropping the ball or underperforming she'll also call you out and challenge you to to get back in the game and play better. So I think that, that balance having a high standard, and I and people see that she's very thoughtful about what she does and that she works very hard. The worst thing about about criticism from your boss is if you think you're doing all the work or you're working, 10 times harder than the per, than the leadership. But when you're working for somebody who's obviously working very hard and doing. It it's inspirational. It make, it makes you wanna do better. And and Vera has that style. She's she doesn't just hold her people to high standards. She holds herself to high standards. And so that, that. that brings out the best and the people work for her. And I, you see the same thing in our other leaders here and in other places where I've worked. It's, you set a good example in the work that you're doing. And then you communi. keeps going back to communication. You let them know what it is that you need done and how you expect it to be done. And then you compliment them for getting it done. Or thank them for getting it done. When they get it done or tell them this, you're only, 75% there you still need to do X, Y, or Z. If you really want this to. Ready for prime time. So I think, being having high standards, being good communicators those are really the critical things and good leaders.
Lan Elliott:Yep. Those are great themes that come up again and again of your discussion.
John Murray:Yeah, I love that.
Lan Elliott:So we are getting close on time and I know that I could actually spend a lot of time talking with you cause I always learn something every time I talk with you. But we're getting close on time. And keeping in mind that d e I advisors mission is around empowering personal success. Do you have one final bit of advice that you could leave our viewers with who are looking to advance their careers?
John Murray:Yeah, I, I think that, as you advance that not being afraid to ask for more and I don't mean to just ask for more money, ask for more things to do. How can I just saying, how can I help with that? Or I've finished whatever it is you gave. do you have something else I could help you with? I think that and working hard. There are some, I have encountered people over, over time who on occasion have, they're always asking for more because they think that that's a good trait. It's only a good trait if you then deliver when you, and you do a good job on the work. If just generating a lot of product that's not high quality isn't the secret, but those are the things I think that have helped me the most is being willing to take those chances and say, how can I help you with this? Or when nobody's raising their hand to say I'll do that. I'll try that out. And then just working hard trying, in this industry there's always somebody, it seems like there's always somebody who's done this before or done something similar to it. If you have a challenge and it seems daunting there's always somebody you can ask for, for advice. And I think that, this whole industry likes to see people succeed and part of being hospitable is is helping others in the industry. Even sometimes when you're competitors just say, yeah, we had that challenge. Here's how we addressed it. And so I think that I think volunteering to help out and doing a good job is. It it feeds upon itself. And, people say, Hey she asked for this and then she did a, a great job with it. And if you need help with something, ask her to help you with it. And, just becomes a self-fulfilling success story that way. Absolutely great. It sounds to build a champion. Yeah, it helps. Sounds a little bit corny but it really does work. I think
Lan Elliott:so thank you. That great words of advice, working hard, asking for opportunities, doing a good job, doing what you say you're going to do. Yeah. That's
John Murray:a great way to build champions. Yeah. It's it's a little bit scary to to be asking. asking for work, asking, how can I take more on and be more helpful? And sometimes you wonder that, that doubt, maybe in the back of your mind is saying, am I being too pushy? I think that it's something that you shouldn't be afraid of if if the person you're asking. Isn't ready for the help or thinks you have too much on your plate already, then you know they'll tell you, hopefully they'll tell you. I think generally speaking, they will. Again, going back to that, nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's I've found that it's it's always paid off to to volunteer to, to help out.
Lan Elliott:That's wonderful. Thank you so much, John. I appreciate you getting on. I know you don't do a lot of these interviews, so I'm very grateful that you are willing to come on and share your insights with our
John Murray:viewers. Of course. It's my pleasure. If
Lan Elliott:you, thanks John. And for our viewers, if you would like to see more interviews, you can go to our website, which is d ei advisors.org. Thank
John Murray:you. Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye.