The Hotel Expert: How To Win As An Executive And Entrepreneur At The Highest Level

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David President is a Vice President of Sales and the owner of Suit Sharks, where he oversees a portfolio of luxury hotels and resorts across the U.S. and internationally. With over 20 years in hospitality, he has risen from entry-level roles to executive leadership, managing multi-million dollar revenue streams and large-scale teams. In addition to his corporate career, he is an entrepreneur behind a custom menswear brand and has built a growing real estate portfolio alongside his wife.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How to strategically balance a high-level corporate career with entrepreneurship
 • The real economics behind hotels, occupancy, and cash flow
 • Why leaving your job too early can be a costly mistake
 • Building wealth through real estate, tax strategy, and long-term thinking
 • Turning adversity into discipline and resilience
 • The role of structure, routine, and systems in managing multiple income streams
 • How identity, presentation, and first impressions impact success
 • The importance of faith, brotherhood, and emotional growth in a high-performing life

The Legacy & Wealth Podcast, hosted by Mitchell Clark and presented by The Standard, features conversations with entrepreneurs, executives, and high-performing men building wealth, leadership, and legacy. Each episode explores the mindset, discipline, and strategies required to grow successful businesses while navigating responsibility, family, and long-term impact.

Timestamps

00:00 How real estate creates multiple streams of income
 00:54 Introduction to David President
 02:00 Career as VP of Sales and Marketing in hospitality
 04:00 Growing up in adversity and being raised by grandparents
 08:00 Lessons on love, discipline, and faith from childhood
 12:30 Starting in hospitality and climbing the corporate ladder
 17:00 Moving into leadership roles and career growth
 22:00 Managing large teams, budgets, and hotel revenue
 25:00 How hotels actually make money
 27:30 Why lower-end hotels can outperform luxury properties
 30:00 Revenue strategies, marketing, and occupancy rates
 34:00 Building business systems and managing multiple income streams
 36:30 Why keeping your W2 can accelerate wealth building
 38:00 Creating structure and routines for high performance
 41:00 Growing a tailoring business with minimal overhead
 45:00 Real estate investing strategy and tax advantages
 50:00 The power of presentation and first impressions
 54:00 Style, identity, and building confidence through appearance
 58:00 Finding brotherhood and joining The Standard
 01:00:00 Emotional growth and confronting past trauma
 01:02:00 Faith, discipline, and daily practices
 01:04:00 Taking risks and stepping out on faith
 01:08:00 Defining legacy and long-term impact

The Standard is a private, in-person membership community for six-figure men who want to grow in their wealth, health, and relationships by surrounding themselves with other high-performing men operating at their level or above. It is designed for men who have outgrown their current environment and need a structured system of proximity, personalized strategy, and accountability to continue growing across every area of life.

To apply go to: thestandardmen.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You make money off of real estate in many different ways. You get the rent, which is passive. You get the depreciation. You have the person that's living there is paying down your mortgage, and then you get the tax benefits as well. I think there's a stigma going around on social media. Leave your job, go out there, do this, do that, do it. You'll be a damn fool. You need to be strategic. My job has afforded me to be able to do everything else that I'm doing. To buy the real estate, to invest in my business, to do all of these things. What was the home life like before you made the transition? Home life was rough. Both of my parents were addicted to drugs. They were affected by the crack boom back in the 80s. So uh my grandparents they took me in there uh when I was seven. I literally packed up my little bus to Cadillac with my clothes only, got on 95, and drove, cried the whole way because.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Welcome to the Legacy and Wealth Podcast, a show for proven high-earning men who value wealth, character, and a lasting legacy. Brought to you by the standard, a private membership community for high performers. My name is Mitchell Clark, and today I'm joined by fellow standard member David President. Thank you. Glad glad glad to be here. All right. Well, let's get right into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Um, as of today, what do you currently do for work? So, for work, I'm a vice president of sales and marketing for a hospitality management company called Shana Corporation. Okay. What do you do with that company? So I oversee the full service luxury lifestyle division of uh their hotel portfolio. So it's about 13 hotels and resorts that I oversee from Miami to Key West to Bahamas, Italy, and Greece.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Okay. That's a heck of a heck of a portfolio then. Okay. Do you get to travel to those locations pretty frequently?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Mostly domestically. Um all of my international properties, we use Zoom most of the time. Okay. What else do you do besides the W-2? I'm also known as the traveling tailor. Um, I have uh a suit line and uh small real estate portfolio that my wife and I uh have been building over the years. Um and then we also dabble in a few other things as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Okay, so you're a man that wears a lot of different hats. Clearly. Obviously. Yeah, you're wearing that one right now. Yes, sir. Okay. Well, um let's let's get right into the the main W-2. We'll kind of focus on that one. But what made you want to get into that field? Like where did that start?

SPEAKER_00 2:20

I've been in hospitality for over 20 years. Um I started as a teenager working in hotels, doing banquet setups, so setting up tables and chairs for people's weddings and events and the whole 9Rs. And when I went to college, I was majoring in psychology. And um just needed an additional uh some additional pay. So I applied for a front desk job. And um when I was waiting in the lobby, the general manager walked up to me and said, Hey, looking sharp. What are you here for? I said, You know, I'm waiting to see the HR manager. I have an interview, and he called me in his office and he looked at my resume and he said, I have a sales coordinator job available. You have all this banquet experience. So a sales coordinator is like an entry-level uh sales job in the hospitality field. So I ended up getting that sales job, got my foot in the door in this side of the industry, and just went from there. I ended up uh majoring in hospitality and tourism management when I went to school and uh climbed the ladder step by step, position by position, over the course of 20 years and finally made it to VP a few years back.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Okay. And you said you studied that. Do you do you feel like any of the things that you learned in the degree helped you with the actual work? Or do you feel like it was just all on the job training? No, it was m uh all on the job training.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

The only reason I got the paper was to be more competitive in the landscape, be able to uh uh demand more money for a salary. And during that time, back in the early 2000s, having a degree was like the thing. Like you're in this field, let's get a degree to match the experience. So it's the main reason why.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Okay. Well, I like that there's a lot to go over. So let's kind of go to the beginning and kind of see, you know, what was well, where'd you grow up at? Where'd you where you live? Charleston, South Carolina.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Okay. Did you go up there your entire life or my entire life, born and raised, um, left in my early 20s and never looked back. My whole family is still there. Um, I go back often, but this this industry, the hospitality in in industry, afforded me a lot of opportunities to move around at a young age. Okay. Um, and I took advantage of every opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

So describe what was the home life like before you made the transition.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Home life was rough. So uh my grandparents raised me. They took me in when I was seven. Both of my parents were addicted to drugs. They were affected by the crack boom back in the 80s. Okay. So uh my grandparents they took me in there uh when I was seven, and they kept me until I graduated high school and went off to college. Um, so home life there was awesome. We didn't have much. Um my grandmother was born in 1928, my grandfather in 1926. Um, they had 13 kids, and my mother was the youngest. So my mother was the baby. Um, so I say I always tell people I was their 14th child, and they finally got it right with me. So there you go. So really nice. Um I not a house filled with money, not a house filled with a lot of assets, but a house filled with love, respect, manners, and uh people always said that I have an old soul because I was raised around old folks, literally.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Yeah, you know, I have I sympathize with that a little bit. I uh I grew up in a single family household, but my grandparents on my dad's side watched me for a good chunk of like my younger years. And then when I was in high school getting ready to go to college, there was a community college I went to for a few, like a think like two or three years, so I stayed with them for a good amount of time. So I have a little bit of similar mindset. There's something about old grandpa wisdom that just sticks with you, man.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Money can't buy you. I always tell people uh I never really wanted to be a parent, but I always wanted to be a grandparent. If I could just skip the parent phase and become a grandparent, I would be happy because I was so so uh influenced by everything that they poured into me. And my grandfather was blind too. So really not only did was he a magnificent man, but he was powerful because he didn't have that natural resource to see. So he saw with his senses and his hands, and I watched it. Um, and I watched somebody thrive being limited. So that pushes me more than ever.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Was your grandfather your primary kind of father influence in your life or male influence in your life? Yes. Okay. What were so I know he was, you know, kind of showing you the powerful sort of personality they have. What were some of the biggest things that he taught you while you were living at that house?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

One, he taught me how to treat women. Uh I watched him and my grandmother, uh, they were married for over 80 years. I watched them uh thrive together with little. Most people don't even live that long. They're married that long. Married that long. 13 kids. I watched them deal with tri uh trials and tribulations and still smile. I never saw them argue in front of me. Um, and he would give his last for his wife. Even in their 80s, he she would walk by and he would slap her on the butt. And I'm like, dude, like y'all are chill out, grandpa. Yeah. So that's the first thing that I learned. The second thing that I learned is that money can't buy everything. Um, it is manners and respects that get you far. And that's what they they taught us. Like, you can have all the money in the world, but if you don't have manners and respect, you probably won't get far. And then, you know, his love for God, the passion for Christ, they really poured that in into me as well. So those are the three foundational things that I got from my grandfather mostly.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Okay. I understand that. Um, growing up there, did you? I know you said generally speaking, you had a good feeling of, you know, there's some warmth, there was, you know, comfort. It sounded like there was there was support for you there. Was it always like that? Do you feel generally like do you have mainly more warm thoughts with that? Or what were some challenges in living in a household like that?

SPEAKER_00 7:46

No, it was actually mostly like that. So, you know, when my grandmother came to get me when I was seven, so I lived with my mother in her house, which was the crack house. And every day I would walk to my grandmother's house before I went to school. She would give me 50 cents for ice cream. One day I got up, I got myself dressed, and I'm seven. And I walked to my grandmother's house and I had on uh one shoe, I was missing the sock, I was not ready to go to school. So she told me to come in the house, she called the school, she told them I wasn't gonna be there that day. She put on her house robe and her and I walked back to my mother's house. Yeah. She damn near kicked the door down and basically grabbed all my stuff and told my mother and everybody else in the house that I'm never coming back there. And that was the beginning of me feeling that love, that powerful love that I experienced. Someone has your back. From seven until the time they died. That's the type of love that I got from them. Um, somebody had my back, somebody was there, and I slept on the couch in their live in their living room. They had a one bedroom. And I moved in, slept on the couch in the living room from the time I was seven till I was about eleven. Um, my grandfather set the house on fire. He was cooking one morning, and he shouldn't have been cooking because at that point he was about 80% blind. And he fell asleep at the table, and uh my grandmother smelled the smoke, she got us up, we ran out, and uh we were forced to move. And at that point, we moved into a three-bed room, and I had my own room for about two weeks. Better than nothing, right? But exactly. And then uh one of my aunts died, and she had two daughters. She died of uh uh HIV, and she had two daughters, and my cousins ended up moving in too. Um, so um it was me and two of my girl cousins now shoved in my bedroom, the first bedroom that I ever had. Um, but then that came with an abundance of love and everything, too, because me and my siblings were all split.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Um I have an older sister and a younger brother. Um, and we were all split because my mother couldn't take care of us. So um they moved in, and then and so now I had siblings. Sure. You know, so um, and that brought more love and more fun and you know, some trials too, because um, you know, they were girls, and um, I'm the only guy there. My grandfather, he loved his his nieces and his daughters, so they got their way, and he was a little bit more tougher on me, but it worked out.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Okay. Yeah, you know, just talking with you, you're explaining all these things, like, you know, born in a crackhouse with your mom, and then an aunt died of HIV, so they had to take those children. I feel like most people growing up in that scenario would kind of come out of that with a little bit of bitterness. But everything I'm listening to, it sounds like the way that your grandparents handled it and expressed their love to you guys, you you speak you speak about it with it seems like a pretty good amount of fondness. Like, what is it about you, or what do you think it is that allows you to look back on it in such like in such a good light, essentially?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

I think is because I I was raised to to understand that you're gonna go through stuff in life, right? But there's always a a lesson in it, um, and there's always a reason for it, right? Um, I think the stuff that we go through is minimal compared to what Jesus sacrificed for us, compared to what his disciples went through to spread the word so that we might have some type of life. So when I look back, and even though a lot of that's painful, I know too a lot of people, and when I was in it, it was painful too, right? You're going through it, you see these things, um, you don't know how to quite justify it, but you know it's not normal. You know, your friends have, they live with their mom, you know, they have their dad, things like that. But the love that we were talking about, I I always tell people, my grandparents were literal angels. They had to be. Because every all through all the chaos and turmoil, they still found happiness and joy, and they built a house around that, and we felt it. We lived it every day. So I think my my upbringing with the belief that listen, you're gonna go through stuff. And my grandmother always said, in a time of peace, prepare for war. So things might be going good now, but something's always gonna happen, something's gonna come. That's why they want us to have emergency funds and things like this, because things are gonna happen. So as I look back now and I see how God moved me out of that crackhouse, it's not the fact that I was living in one, but I look at how he moved me out of it because that could have been bad for a seven-year-old, right? So he moved me out of it, he got me out of that situation. Um, he moved me in with my grandparents when they needed me too at their at their age. So that's what I look, I look at those peep, those pieces like, okay, this could have gone really bad, but it didn't. And this could have been worse, but it wasn't. And that's how I live my life.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Okay. Well, this is a really great story. It reminds me a little bit of my my great grandma. She lived through like multiple recessions, the Dust Bowl. I think yeah, the Dust Bowl. And she had passed away, I think, about 10 years ago. But I have really, really fond memories of her. She was the most gentle, sweet, caring person. And she's probably seen more in her lifetime than most of us will ever probably see in ours. And for some reason, she just had that steadfast kind of stability about her that you just felt safe around her. And I sense that from you. And I'm betting you you got that from your grandparents. 100%. Okay. 100%. All right. So I know you have your W-2 and you have all these different projects that you're working on. Did you engage in all of them while you're doing your W-2? Did they come a little bit later? Or like how did that chronology kind of look like?

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Absolutely. No. So they were step by step. So, you know, I started in my career, and uh, while I was doing that, I had an opportunity to do something that I love to do, which was fashion and clothes. So my first entrepreneur, my first taste of entrepreneurship was uh the clothing line, the fashion business, which started out as uh presidential attire. And that was a t-shirt line that I created, um, had a lot of fun with it. It opened the door for me in the fashion industry. Um, and then I got a cease and desist from a company that trademarked the word presidential. So they pretty much shut me down um in year two of my t-shirt line. Kick them while they're down, man. Yeah. And I wasn't even making too much noise. I was just a little t-shirt guy that had some things going. And um got the cease and desist, shut me down. I was almost defeated. And my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, she looked at me and she was like, Why don't you just use your name? And I was like, Ah, okay, that makes sense. David president attire. So I uh branched out into DPA, and that's when it really took off. Um, I moved to Daytona Beach, met uh this amazing couple that owned a seamstress shop next to uh my office where I was work was working. And let me tell you how funny God is. Every day for a year, I drove past that lady's shop. And every day something was like, just go in there and ask her to make your designs. Ask her to draw some of your stuff. I mean, make some of your stuff. And one day I finally just went in. And I went in and I said, Hey, you know, I love what you guys are doing. Could you make this for me? And I showed her some of my designs. She flipped through and she said, No, I'm not gonna make it for you, but I'll teach you how to make it. She said, if you come here uh after work and help me and my husband in the shop, I'll teach you how to sew, use the machines, and do everything. And she was right. They brought me into their family, and I would go there after work, and she literally taught me everything that uh I needed to know to take my sewing and my life to the next level. Shortly after that, I moved to Tampa with work and just carried it from there. YouTube University started teaching me a lot of everything that I that I needed to know. Broke a lot of sewing machines, but it came with growing pains. And then from there, um I went from DPA to the traveling tailor, which was uh dubbed during COVID. So before you know my clients could come to me and everything during COVID, I saw myself flying everywhere, fitting people, getting people measured for suits and everything. And uh on the way back back from one of my trips, I did a post and I hashtag the traveling tailor. And I said, that's it. Trademark that bad boy quickly. Changed everything from DPA to the traveling tailor.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

And that was after the pandemic? That was during the pandemic. That was during the pandemic, okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

What a way to capitalize during a downturn. That's awesome. Yeah. No, I that's been a common thread here. A lot of people have been working, you know, at some point during the pandemic, and their attitude about how to approach it and how to kind of you know navigate that circumstance seemed to be a defining factor for a lot of them. Like that was really their sink or swim moment for a lot of them. Do you feel like that was that for you, or what was kind of your sink or swim moment with the tailoring business?

SPEAKER_00 16:29

For me, I was furloughed from work due to COVID. So I had three months off, three months free time. And um, I think I I think a lot of people were in that mode that, hey, you're either gonna sink or you're gonna swim. And it freed me up to be able to really pour into the business. So I was like, all right, I gotta figure this out. I gotta do it. And I did. I it it it it blossomed and it grew bigger than uh DPA. Um, and it was fun at the same time, too. Um, and then during that three-month stint, I wrote my first book, The Power of a Suit, that married into the traveling tailor. It was like a twofold. So I had a lot of free time. It drove my wife crazy that I was in that house. She was still working, she wasn't off, she was working from home. What did she do? Uh, she's a director for Southwest Airlines, so she oversees ground operations for North America, and that's why we moved to Dallas for her job. Okay. But yeah, man, it was a doggy dog world back in 2020. But I think a lot of people found out who they really were and what they could do because their hands were tied. Okay. You know.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Well, we'll go back to that when we talk a little bit more into the deep dive in the business. But for your W-2, since that's where you made kind of your bread and butter for you know, money for the past 20 years or so. Um, what did that what did that path look like? Like from where you started, you start off as a sales coordinator and then slowly started making up the ranks. Start explaining that journey a little bit, what that looked like.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

So started as a sales coordinator. Um, and then around 20, I was promoted to catering sales manager. Um, and they moved me from Charleston, South Carolina to Columbia, South Carolina. It's only about an hour away. Um, but it's a different world.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Is that mainly the banquet coordination where if they're having a big event, you kind of schedule that stuff yet?

SPEAKER_00 18:13

I was the guy that worked with the companies and the brides and the this and the that and just coordinated everything. Um, it was the next level above a sales coordinator, right? It was the work that nobody else wants to do. Um, so I did the kiddering sales manager job for a couple of years. And then uh the company I was working for at the time, John Q. Hammonds, they had uh they owned a resort in St. Augustine, Florida called World Golf Village. Um, and they had a renaissance by Marriott on that. They had a national sales manager job available. And my VP at the time said, David, I think you'll be good for this. I'm like, dude, the golf resort. I never see national sales, I've never, but I applied for it and got it. It was an internal move. Okay. So they moved me down to Jacksonville. I lived in Jacksonville and I drove to St. Augustine every day because I just couldn't live in St. Augustine.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

And how many years in at that point when we started?

SPEAKER_00 19:01

At that point, that was about five years in. Okay. Yep, yep. About five years in, five or six years in. Um, and that was my first time moving out of state as well. Um, so went down, lived in Jacksonville for a couple of years, did the World Golf Village. That was an interesting experience, to say the least. Um, in order to work there, I had to, uh they had the PGA Golf Academy at the resort, too. So I had to take a 30-day class on how to play golf. Um, I still suck.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

But after 30 days of learning. 30 days of learning. Oh man, there's no hope for me then, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

I still suck, but I can drive the cart and and you know have fun. That's all that matters. That's all that matters.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

And then I You gotta let the clients win anyway. So You gotta let them win.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

You gotta let them win. After that, I moved back to Columbia um with another company called Pyramid Hotel Group as their area senior salesman, man, manager. We had two marriots in Columbia. So I moved back to Columbia, did that for a little bit, and then they sold those two assets, and my uh VP at the time said, Hey, we have the Hilton Daytona Beach. I'm going, we would love to have you come down. I was a beast in sales. I love sales, it's my thing. And uh so I went down, they moved me to Daytona Beach with uh I was at the Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront Re Resort, and I was their uh senior sales manager there. Did that for a while. Um, that's when I met Darlene and her husband. Okay. Um, when I really got into uh the whole fashion biz at that point.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

You know, you're you're not gonna believe this, but um, I did when I was in the military, like as I was getting out, I did a men's physique show at Daytona Beach. Really? I think it was at that hotel, if I'm gonna be honest with you. Uh is the big Hilton that looks like and it sits right there beachfront. Yes, yeah. Or I don't know if it was held there, but I I stayed there when I was doing the competition. So I mean, actually, I think we did do the competition in now that I'm thinking about it. So I could have run into you during that time. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Probably I don't know. It was 2011, 2012. All right, maybe a little before my time.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

But yeah. But great work. You set it on a great, a great uh framework for it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Yep, absolutely. So I did that for a little bit, and then um, they didn't have any growth opportunities there. And Daytona sucked. I'm sorry. I I uh the beach was nice, but a city for a young guy, it just wasn't for me. Um, so I uh took a job in Tampa as the assistant director of sales at the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront with a company called Remington Hospitality, who I ended up staying with for over 10 years. Um and I took that ADOS job. I was in Tampa for a little over four years. Best time of my life. Yeah. Love Tampa, love St. Pete, met my wife there. Um so I did that for a while, and then my wife got promoted, and uh we had to move to well, she moved to Maryland first. Um and then I gave the company an ultimatum like, listen, I gotta go. This is the girl. Like, no, she is even we were just dating at sure at the time, but I felt it. And when you know, you know. When you know, you know. So they had just taken over uh Sheraton in Annapolis, Maryland, that they were converting to a Crown Plaza. And uh they were like, okay, it's your first time being a director, but we're gonna give you this opportunity. You've been with us for a while. And I was young, I was like still wet behind the ears. Um ended up moving to Maryland and uh did a great job with with with that property. Um and uh after that, I stayed there for about a year or two. Um we got married in 2017, um, and I left and went to work for another company called GF in downtown Baltimore or Towson, right near Towson University. Okay. Um and it was a big opportunity. That was my big boy job. So I was a director of sales and marketing. Um I had a half a million dollar marketing budget. Um I had a team of 13, um, and that really set the tone for the rest of my career. That was the best job I had, but it was the toughest job I I had too, um, because I had to learn as I was building the plane. Um I had never overseen the marketing budget that big. I had never overseen a team that big. Um, but I did it. And um shortly after that, so then after that, I went back to Remington and I oversaw their independent lifestyle division as a regional director of sales. And I stuck with that until 2024 when uh we moved here. Um and right before we moved, I joined Shaner uh as their VP of sales and marketing in September of 2024.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Okay, so that was pretty recently. But back in Baltimore, that's where you put on the big boy pants and let me let's let's dig into that a little bit because I'm kind of curious what your experience was like there. What kind of what kind of a budget were you dealing with in terms of marketing?

SPEAKER_00 23:45

So I had a half a million dollar budget in terms of marketing, but the team was responsible though. The property generated over $20 million annually. Okay. So as a director of sales and marketing, you're responsible for the team that generates the revenue. You manage the third-party assets like people with expediabooking.com. Okay. And then I also manage the marketing pieces, right? All of the campaigns, the packages, the radio, the promo. Um, at that particular hotel, we hosted a lot of independent events. Um, so we did a lot of show showcases as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Um is that where most of the revenue came from? Was the events, or was it from booking the rooms? Like where are all the revenue streams that come in?

SPEAKER_00 24:21

So most of the revenue comes from rooms. Um, and as um when you're a director, you want to make sure that you have a good balance, a good mix of F and B revenue, which comes from the catering side, but also the guest rooms. The guest rooms flow better, right? Because it's you're reselling that same room over and over and over. Um the cost to clean it and the cost to manage it is relatively low. So you make more money, more money flows to the bottom line on your PL from the guest rooms. With food and beverage, you have food costs. Sure. And then you have labor on top of that. So you really don't make as much money off of food and alcohol as people think. That's why when you go to high-end restaurants, they charge you an arm and a leg because they're trying to flow more to the bottom line. So most of that revenue comes from rooms.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

If you want to connect with high performers like today's and previous guests, I want to invite you to apply to join the standard. We are a private membership community that improves the health, wealth, and relationships for six-figure earners who perform at the highest level physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, and financially. What we offer is simple. We will give you a vetted local brotherhood of men on your level or above. We will give you a customized plan to build true generational wealth. We will give you a personal liaison to achieve all of your goals. If you are tired of being the most successful person in your circle, frustrated with always pouring into others and not having anyone to pour into you, or you want to have conversations like the ones you're hearing today in person on a weekly basis with fellow higher performers, go to thestandardmen.com to apply. That's thestandardmen.com. Hit the link in the description below. Now back to the episode. Okay, because we don't typically have a lot of people that have like uh specific knowledge in this sort of niche category. So I'm kind of curious on like the business of hotels and how they really make money and what that all looks like. So if you let's say I'm building a hotel, right? Um, we'll say it's in Baltimore, something like that. It's like a big first off, tell me what I should be looking for in a type of hotel to build. And then once I build it to my ideal standards, what would be the best way for me to generate revenue from it? I'm starting from scratch. You you you tell me what I should do.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

For sure. So it depends on what you're looking to do. So if you're a first-time hotel buyer, you don't have any other assets in the hotel world. Um, a lot of people think, well, hey, I want a Waldorf Astoria or I want a Conrad Hilton. Okay. No. You want a Hampton Inn, you want a town place suites, you want something that's just going to generate revenue, low overhead, low franchise fees, and not a lot of FB outlets, right? Okay. Those properties. Have you seen Woodspring Suites on the side of the road, you're driving down the highway? Yes. Best investment you can ever make. Okay. A Wood Spring Suites generates more cash flows for its ownership group than the Waldorf Astoria New York does for its owners. Why is that? That's because of the franchise fee, or why is it low franchise fees, low overhead costs, um, low product costs. Like, you know, you stay out of the Waldorf, they're probably gonna have Malton Brown soap. That soap's expensive. Sure. You stay at the Wood Springs, they probably got uh ivory from the Dollar Tree, right? So you're paying less to run the operation. You can run it with the leaner staff, so your labor cost is low too. You don't have you rarely see any marketing. They the marketing budget for a Wood Springs suites is almost non-existent, right? Okay. So, but their occupancy is about 65% a year, and their average rate is between $120 to $180. So and they're cranking, cranking, and all that money just flows. What is a good occupancy rate for a general hotel, or does it depend? It depends on the market.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Let's say you were in South Beach, Miami. Um, you know, seasonally, you want to be about 70 to 80 percent occupancy. My Hilton, Miami Aventure that I oversee, uh last year we ran 92% occupancy.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

For just a particular season or year long? For the year. That's insane.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

I know, broke records. Now I'm gonna have to pay for it this year, but crazy. But this year we have FIFA coming and um and we have uh Grand Grand Prix in Miami. Yeah. So we're probably gonna do a little bit better. Okay, but 90% is crazy. On average, you see between 60, 70 is a good um is a good budget for a hotel from an occupancy standpoint.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Okay. So if I have like a Hampton in or whatever side of the road and I'm doing 60, 70% occupancy rate, I'm doing pretty okay. You're doing good. I'm doing good. Okay. What um what else? Is there anything like should I have like luxury restaurants or this or that? Or is all that just kind of fluff that like why why would hotels even have that if it doesn't generate the kind of revenue that like occupancy would have?

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Well, you still have to cater to a certain type of guests, right? Okay. Um and that's why you see so many hotel chains with all these different brands, like Hilton, they have Hilton Garden Inn, they have Spark, they have Hampton Inn, and then they go from Conrad to Waldorf, so they have different levels of tears. When you travel, do you stay at hotels that might not have a restaurant, or do you prefer to stay at a hotel with a rooftop pool and a restaurant and a bar so you can have that lifestyle?

SPEAKER_01 29:20

So do those things drive occupancy rates if you have those amazing? Okay, yes. Okay, yeah, yeah. So that's okay. So it sounds like that's kind of the trade-off is like you could have they're more like lead generators. You have all this stuff in there that even though that's not making you the money, it is driving up the occupancy rates. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

And then you can look at ways to activate those areas, right? So in my hotel in Sarasota, we have a rooftop pool and a rooftop bar. So we sell that space out to companies that want to buy it, but then also we activate it. So when people are sitting around the pool, we have servers go and put a napkin down and say, What can I get you to drink? You know, you might have not been thinking that you wanted a cocktail until she asked you, right? So we train our teams to uh have an intuitive touch, to approach the customer, give them an opportunity to spend money. Otherwise, that area is not activated. So if you have a uh spot in a hotel, uh there's always a way to generate revenue from it. Even if you just uh put a selfie booth there or you do a wall similar. So what we're starting to do now is we're doing these Instagrammable activation walls. We don't make money off of it, but people come into the hotels to the bar and they go to the selfie wall. It's just another thing, and then they're gonna tell their friends and then they're gonna come back and do it again. So it's a number of the uh the different ways to skin the cat.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Okay, well, now I feel equipped. I'm gonna go up, open the hotel, 70% occupancy rate, all that. But now, but that that does make a lot of sense. Where I think intuitively people think like the more higher end ones are probably doing better, but the way that you kind of described it, it makes sense on why that business structure works. But with the you said a half a million budget. Yeah. What's that? Okay. What did you primarily use that for? Like, what do you think like a good since you were managing it? What was like the best use of that?

SPEAKER_00 31:05

So we did a lot of trade shows. Um, we did radio activations too. Like we plugged ourselves on uh on the radio a lot, but we hosted uh sponsored events. So Thanksgiving, Easter, uh New Year's Eve, we hosted these huge parties, um, which generated money. We had to spend a lot of money to promote it and mark and market it too, but it generated a lot of money too. Um, and with for me, that was my first time having my hands on that much. I would say I probably did uh about a 70% of a good job because I was learning, you know, and it was the first time with the big boy budget, the big boy everything. And my mindset at that time was okay, I just need to get by. Let me do with so my boss at the time was in my role and she got promoted. And uh, so I was reporting to the person that sat in my seat. No pressure, right? So, but I did have somebody to guide me, and she had a game plan already in place that I could go off of. So I just stuck to that.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Okay. So when so you said um this year with FIFA and everything else coming in, how do you plan on capitalizing on those? Because I would imagine the the thing that's always been described to me is the seasonality with it. You have your high points, you have your low points. How do you mitigate that where you try to keep it as consistent as possible?

SPEAKER_00 32:26

So with FIFA, man, we're excited that so I have them in a couple of different markets. I have a hotel in at Atlanta, so we're gonna be impacted by FIFA and then the Miami margin. So the Hilton Miami Aventure is not too far from Hart Rock Stadium. So we're gonna be in benefit just from our organic location. But one thing that we did is it's important to have a group base. So what group businesses is like people, you need a group block. You're let's say you're ESPN, you're coming to cover it. So you need to put all your news people, camera people in a hotel, right? So we have a good group base that's gonna allow us to charge a higher average daily rate because we have a solid group base. Um so we layered in good, good group. We have a little over uh 260 rooms there. So we layered in about 100 group rooms, so we have 160 rooms to sell to Transient and everybody else. Now that we have that, we uh we just opened up our transient rates. So that means that we just allowed people that are coming into Miami for FIFA to start booking. Right. So that was strategic too, because you know, everybody else is gonna fill up with the garbage and we're gonna be able to charge a thousand dollars per night. Okay. Um so that was a piece of the strategy too. Um, and then we also leverage our uh brand affiliations. So that's a Hilton. So Hilton has their Hilton worldwide sales folks that go out and they negotiate uh master service agreements for hotels in certain markets, so they feed us big business too. Um we close our all our OTAs, Expedia, Travelocity, we don't want any of that because we don't need need, need this one organically going to flow in at higher rates. So that's the strategy that we took. We budgeted it in and it's working.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Here, as a question, because I've been in medical device for a while and we always have conferences for stuff like that. Do you guys ever leverage things like that? Because along with those conferences, you also get some occupancy in there as well. You block out a room and all that kind of stuff. Was that ever a part of the strategy or was that a relatively not during FIFA? No, not during FIFA, but during some of the more like off-season. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Yes, yeah. So that's the that's one of the main reasons for having a sales team. So they service in in and solicit uh group business that have meetings, events, the guest rooms, and meeting space. Okay. Um so that's one of the biggest reasons we have a sales force.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Okay. Well, so what is a typical margin for some of these things? Like as far as I know the hotel space can be difficult to work in. After all the expenses are done, what kind of margins are you looking at? Like let's say you get through FIFA. What's I'm trying to figure out the best way to phrase this? From a revenue to like all the expenses and all that's done, what's the typical margin that you're looking at? A good margin.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

Net operating in income or cash flow, we like to be at least about 55%. Okay. At least.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

That's higher than I thought it would be.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Yeah, no, okay. At least. Because again, you of course you have your you we bring in, so sales, we're responsible for top line. So we bring the money in, the general manager manages the expenses and uh the asset, and then everything else flows to the bah, bah, bottom line. Our main responsibility is to the ownership group. So if you own the hotel, my main job is to make sure that you walk away with as much money as possible. Okay. So, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Fair enough. Well, I know you have the entrepreneurial spirit too. Do you always want to work on the corporate side of this, or do you ever hope to kind of break out and use this knowledge that you've used in this space?

SPEAKER_00 35:53

It's funny you ask that. I mean, I love what I do. Yeah. I really, really do. Um, my goal is to one day own my own hotel portfolio.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

But I look at my job as like I'm an independent contractor and they're paying me to do a service. I think um, similar to how I run my businesses too, I'm providing a service and they're paying me for that service, right? So I don't look at it as um, I'm tied to the old wagon, right? Um burning the oil. No, I look at it like, listen, you're paying me top dollar to do ABC. I'm gonna do that, but it's not the only thing that I'm gonna do. Sure. Right. Um, but ultimately, yes, I do want to step away from corporate America when the time is right, but to build my own corporate America, not to step away fully.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

Okay, well, and let's let's talk about that because a lot of the people that we brought on the show, you know, there's a strong entrepreneurial spirit, but we also have a lot of executives in the standard as well. And that's always a talking point of like when do you make that transition? Or do you even necessarily have to? Because there can be a time where the two can be a little bit synergistic with each other. So, what's your philosophy on that? Do you do you see a world where you never actually leave corporate, but you're just leveraging that expertise to build your own portfolio anyway? I mean, what's your what's your philosophy on that?

SPEAKER_00 37:06

So I'll say my job has afforded me to be able to do everything else that I'm doing. Okay. To buy the real estate, to invest in my business, to do all of these things. So without that, you you know, I might not have been able to accomplish everything else that I did on the side. I think there's a stigma going on going around on social media. Leave your job, go out there, do this, do that, do it. You're you'll be a damn fool. You need to be strategic. You and then yes, it it can be done right, but you need to be strategic. You need to make sure that if you do leave your job, especially if you have a family or a wife, that you're still able to maintain your household, right? And I think you need 10x what your job is paying you in order to have a year or two to be able to focus fully on your on the business. I'm going to keep my W-2 as long as I can. Yeah. And I mean, I I'm not making Trump change. You and like I said, it's also allowed me to be able to do everything else that I'm doing. Me being in that career changed my life. It changed my life and my family's life.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

I mean, that's also a lot to hand because you have, you know, your main job and you have the tailoring elements and all that kind of stuff. Would you is it a lot of pressure, or do you have you found systems to kind of manage everything in conjunction with each other? Like talk talk a little bit about how you balance everything.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

I drive on under pressure, but I live a routine-based life. Okay. I think that you have to have structure and you have to have a routine, especially to deal with as much as I'm doing. Right. Um, so that's where I drive. I have a plan, I stick to it. So I plan every day out. When I get up in the morning, I have my to-do list, not only for work, but for what I have to do for my businesses too. Um, and then I develop systems and put systems in place. Like every month, me and my wife sit down, we reconcile our real estate portfolios, put in the rents, do all of that. We log everything. So when tax season comes, we don't have to just scramble to do everything. So, you know, living a routine-based life has helped me. You know, we got skincare routine, we have a workout routine, we have so why not develop a routine around your work, around your businesses to make sure that you can achieve your optimal goals. And that's what I've done.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I I'm recently going, um not recently, I'm currently going through a moment where I have a lot of different things about I'm probably balancing more initiatives now than I ever have. But I found that just being really diligent about putting everything in a very specific time in a specific place and just being very organized and structured about it. Because I think a lot of people think when you're doing all those things like, oh, your life must just be chaotic and crazy and you're running around with your head cut off, which is often the case. I'm not gonna say it's never like that, but it also forces you to have to be more structured. Like I think I'm the most structured I've ever had. I'm lucky to be in a position right now where I have a W-2 where I can afford like a really strong amount of structure. I know in the OR, like life is chaos. And so it's just naturally that way.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

You know how much you can bear, yeah, right? And I've had family members who care about me, and I and I know it came out of love. Say, oh, you're gonna burn out. Oh, you're doing too much, oh, this, oh that. And um, but we're all built different for a reason.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Now, and I could be wrong, but you don't look anything close to burnt out, you look passionate if anything.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

So I am very passionate. Nope, not burnt out yet. Okay, not sure it'll come, but um I think back to what we were saying, though, those routines and and and uh aligning um makes a big difference. But then also um not living with regret. I think there's a large amount of people that won't do something because they don't think they have the time, they don't think they have the knowledge or the resources. Um I'll put a blindfold on and step out on faith because you know, great things come out of risk. Um, and I think that when you put yourself in a box like I can only do this one thing or I can only uh limit myself to doing this, you limit yourself organically. Um and that's I've never been my mind doesn't work that that way.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

It's like no, I I do think um I was listening to uh Jay Cutler talking about so I'm preparing for a bodybuilding competition, a men's physique competition. One thing he says a lot in the fitness is like you can have all the knowledge in the world, but at some point, once you actually get in there and do it, you kind of figure out what works for you. There's certain systems that just work better for individual people that don't work well for others, right? Until you figure out that system that works best for you. You know, yeah, you can kind of take the advice of other people because it's kind of get you generally on the right track. Yeah. But then when you figure out the systems that work for you, how long did it take for you to kind of figure out how to put all the pieces together? Or were you pretty good at managing everything?

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Pretty good at managing them, but I'm still figuring it out. Still putting pieces together, right? Because every day is a little bit different. Um, I think that I was able to strategically grow each of my businesses on the side. So started out with the fashion, got that to a good place. The real estate happened organically because we bought, we lived in it, and then we moved out, bought something else, and rented that, that, that, out. So that's how we started building our real estate portfolio. So it's not like I woke up one day and just said, I'm gonna do all these things. Yeah, right. Uh, each thing was strategically done, strategically placed in its own time. Um, so I think that helped me because when I moved into something else, I already had a system going for A and B, right? So C, I had to develop a new system or a new process for it. But ultimately it lined up and it worked out. What what is the real estate?

SPEAKER_01 42:34

So we talked about the tailoring, we've talked about the hotels. What's your real estate?

SPEAKER_00 42:38

It's the president group property management company. So, like I said, we house hack, we take that approach to it. One only one of our real estate assets we didn't live in. I bought this row home in ball, ball, and ball, ball, baltimore, um, as an investment property, but that's the only one that we didn't live in physically. So our real estate um is a moat. That's the moat around our our life. It's it protects us, um, and uh it's it's our retirement plan too. Um we have one in Atlanta that's almost paid paid off, and we leverage the tax benefits from all of the real estate now, too, um, which has been a big help to us. A huge help. The amount of knowledge you learn when you own real estate about what you can really do is a game changer. Um so that piece of it happened organically, and then when we started turning the property into rental properties, I said, well, we might as well create a company that manages them because we manage them. Okay. And pay ourselves a fee too, and get the tax benefits from that too. So have your cake and eat it too. Yeah, might as well. Everybody else is do is do it. But if you don't know, you don't know. Sure. You so I did research, studied, and I and I learned that that was easier said than done.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

How many properties do you have right now? You have four. Okay. So you have a company that manages all of them right now? Yes. Okay. And And um forgive me, I probably missed it, but where where are these locations at right now? Atlanta, Baltimore, and Fort Washington, and this one here in Texas now. Okay. And so what's the general? So my understanding is that you you bought them, you lived in them, turned them into a rental, rinse and repeat with another home, and you'll just keep doing that. How how many properties do you want to have?

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Well, the next one, we're tired for one, of moving. Okay, fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Okay. So probably not gonna go live in another one, but probably not.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

So right now we're we're we're looking to move into a building. We want some amenities. I'm tired of cutting grass. So we're looking at that rope. Uh but we will continue to invest in rental properties and real estate, maybe a multifamily next. That's next on our list. I would love to have at least 20 to 30 keys within the next 10 years. 20 to 30 keys.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Okay. All right. So with all that, so you have your tailoring business, you have the hotels, and you have the real estate elements. What do you think your phrase this? What do you think is gonna be the highest like return on investment for you as far as effort that you're putting into it?

SPEAKER_00 45:06

So with my tailoring business, I have no overhead. It's cash flow king. It is, it's been good. Okay. It is. Um, but long term, the real estate. Okay, yeah, definitely. Because you make money off of real estate in many different ways. You get the rent, of course, which is passive. Uh, you get the depreciation, you have the person that's living there is paying down your mortgage, and then you get the tax benefits as well. So, real estate, you're making money in four ways just off one investment.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

I want to ask you about what are some of the tax advantages too. I hear that all the time, but I don't think anyone like talks about exactly how when you add that to that, how that can help you save on tax. Like you said, for people with high-earning jobs, they use that as a vessel to help them save you know money from paying to Uncle Sam. How exactly does that work?

SPEAKER_00 45:54

So with rental real estate, you want to force a paper loss, right? When you have a pay pay paper loss with rental real estate, that reduces your W-2 income significantly. So all the money that you uh invest, you get to write off. Your interest, you write off. Anything you did to repair, fix, or anything to the property, you write off. If you're traveling to the property each year to do an annual review, you write it off. Pest control, all of that you write off. So that's just some of the ways that rental real real estate helps. But the big one is if you have rental real estate, you can do a cost segregation study.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

Which allows you, and uh uh our current administration just reinstated 100% bonus depreciation. So what the top 1% do is they have these real estate properties, and say, for instance, you had a great year in business and you can't find a way to take a loss, right? So you would do a cost segregation study on one of your rental properties, claim 100% bonus depreciation, let's say that it's $300,000, $400,000 on one of your properties that the cost segregation study finds. You write off that entire $300 or $400,000 in uh uh in taxes, and that forces a pay pay paper loss, and the government pays you an amazing check.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

Is it can that just be for your primary residence, or does it have to be a rental? It has to be a rental. It has to be a rental. Okay. That's interesting. That's okay. I'll have to talk with you a little bit more offline about how that all works. But I so when did you find out? Like how did you just kind of figure that out as you started doing the rentals, Vera? Oh, this is how I can use this, or did you know a lot of that going into it?

SPEAKER_00 47:34

No, I I figured everything out while I was in it. Um, but I am I love to learn.

unknown 47:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:41

So in my spare time, I listen to audiobooks, I I watch YouTube, um, educational stuff, not the garbage. Um, and um, and I surround myself around good people like so we had one real estate agent, we had another rental pro property, but we lived in it. So in America, if you live in a property for two out of five years and uh and you sell it before five years, you don't have to pay any capital gain taxes on the revenue you make from it. Okay. Um that was a game changer too. We had one, one, one asset that we lived in for two out of five, and our real estate agent taught us that. She was like, Well, you guys know if you sell it, you won't have to pay any capital gain tax. It's probably the biggest check I ever got in my life, and I was able to use that money to do other things. Um, so there's so many things in real estate once you get into it that you can learn, but everything is has been trial and error for me.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Okay. And you see that as the biggest legacy building tool that you have. 100%. Okay. Well, I also know you're very passionate about the tailor business. I know we're kind of going all over the place, but given your lifestyle, I seem I think this conversation kind of matches a little bit. Because you said the tailoring business generates the most cash flow because you have no overhead. What go through the business of what that looks like.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

Yeah. So, you know, most people have a uh a shop or they have a rent on a building that they have to pay. I only pay for supplies. Okay. Um that's it. And um, so for me, and of course, website maintenance and little things like that, um, the platform that I use to operate, but it's minimal, right? Um, and I can be strategic about how much money I want to make. You know, so right now the way my schedule is set up is Monday through Thursday. Um, I really don't take any consultations for my tailoring business. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is when I usually have the bulk of them. Um so uh that allows me to really Monday through Thursday focus on work, my W-2. I'll have a virtual consultation sometimes in the evening if someone can't do a weekend one. Um so that helps. But I can really pick and choose, you know, how much money I want to make and when I want to make it. And that's been amazing.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

Is it just you doing it, or do you have people underneath you that are doing the tailoring services?

SPEAKER_00 49:53

So I have tailors that actually make the clothes now, so I no longer have to sew. Ah, okay. Yeah, all right. So that's been huge. Um, and that's one reason why I went strictly into made-to-measure, because um, you know, when I was sewing, it's time consuming.

SPEAKER_02 50:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

You cut, you fuse, you sew, you gotta do all this stuff, and uh the margin for error was just higher. Um, so once I found a relationship with the company that could actually produce the products for me, um, it was a no-brainer. Because all I have to do is sell and design now and provide feedback on the way things fit and look.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Okay, so you're just doing the consults in the beginning and then taking what they want, and you have a team that'll actually provide the service for them.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

Yeah, so I just do the consultation, we design it, they select the fabric, we bit we build everything out, and my team just makes it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:45

How many people are on that team? It varies. It's about 11. About eleven? Okay, give or take. Yeah. Okay. Well, and I I know why are you so passionate about tailoring? It's it's not uh a business I hear a lot of people like getting super excited about, but I mean, you seem pretty excited about what is it about you love?

SPEAKER_00 51:02

Embedded in me, man. Um, you know, my uncle was a tailor. Okay, my grandfather, those guys were always sharp. And um, you know, your appearance mattered uh in my family, right? So there was always, hey, you you are if you're going outside, you need to look a certain way. So it was embedded in me. And then I always had the love for fashion sketching at a young age. So when I had that job in interview, when I got the sales coordinator job, my grandfather took me to good took Goodwood, bought me a navy blue suit for that interview. And when I went and I was sitting in the lobby and the general manager walked up, I I didn't even know he was the general manager, and the first thing he said to me was, looking sharp. How can I help you? Right? So, first impressions are everything. People think that your first impression is when you speak. No, the way you look is your first impression. But as soon as I see you, I've already analyzed who I might think you are or judge you based on how you look, right? So that's really where the first impression comes from. It brings me joy to provide this service. You know, some people just service the top 1%, some people just service a higher-end uh clientele. My customer is the everyday guy. Okay, that trash man, that fireman, that son that's going to prom that never had a tailored suit, uh, that preacher. Those are my clients. Those are the people that I go after because I'm doing more than just providing a suit to them. Um, it's life-changing. And uh I think that's what motivates me to keep going, seeing that smile on people's faces, um, and providing a service to them, to someone that normally wouldn't be able to. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

I'm gonna be a little vulnerable here because um, as my wife will probably say, I I could use some fashion advice every so often. And since we have a tailor, um a man that's uh very invested in a men's fashion, what makes a really good suit? What are some details that you look at that just make a suit really pop? Great question. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

Body posture. Okay. Your measurements, right? We're all built different. I can look at you, I can tell you have sloped shoulders, right? They roll just a little bit forward. Um I have sloped shoulders too, right? Some people have a sway back or a hollow back, prominent stomach, prom prominent chest. Some are knock-kneed or bow legged. That matters, right? It's not just about taking the waist, the this and that. Because how the tailors cut the fabric should align with how your body naturally sits. So when the garment falls on you, it drapes. So that's the most important piece that you can. So if you ever get a suit made, make sure they measure your posture, right? They should be taking uh specific measurements based on how you stand and how you move.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

Can you work with suits that are already made and then tailor it to there, or do you like to start from scratch?

SPEAKER_00 53:45

I can alter a suit, but I prefer not to. You prefer not to? All from scratch.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

Um so some other questions, like for me, again, I'm getting ready for this competition. I've lost probably 15, 20 pounds. At what point with weight fluctuation should you go back in and try to get everything resized?

SPEAKER_00 54:02

So I measured a guy last year, and his wedding is this April. And um, I measured him last year just to see where he was. Um, but I told him that we would have to do it again in February because he was working out and trying to get ready, and I didn't want him to have a bad fitting suit. So I'm actually flying up to DC on Saturday to get his final measurements. So I would say uh anywhere from six to ten weeks out before a big event would be a good time because your measurements are your sizing is probably locked in then, unless you're drastically, if you're on a GLP one or something there, I don't know, that might change. I might have to come and tighten you up a little bit. But yeah, I would say six to ten weeks out.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

Okay. What else? Um, accessory actually, there's um you do you know Justin Waller? Have you heard that name? No, he's a he's a uh influencer. Uh he he hangs steel. He's kind of like a blue-collar trade entrepreneur type person, but he made a a comment that like he's like the the best way to look good in a suit is to be to look like the mannequin, essentially. So I always took that where I was like, yes, there's there's an element of that, but she from your perspective, does it make it easier if you are fitting a body that looks like the mannequin? Or can you make any body type look great in a good suit?

SPEAKER_00 55:16

Yeah, my best client is the ones that can't go into a store and buy something off the rack.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

Yeah. Um, because I mean, like I always tell people, I can build a suit around you. You got a gut, I can build a suit around you. You you know, you widen the hips, I can build a suit around you. Okay. So that's where the posture and those and that eye for those detail comes in at. Okay, well, thank goodness. Okay, I can lull this a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

No. Um, okay, what are some other where are some other fashion chips? So you're getting a suit and everything else. Where are some other things? Well, we'll even kind of downscale a little bit since you seem to be into men's fashion. What are some other things that you think can help like just a casual outfit pop a little bit more than usual?

SPEAKER_00 55:52

I would say know your style, know what color works for you. Um, like um, it can be a simple like, listen, I black works for me. So we can do a whole line of black items for you in different variations of blacks and grays and and tones, because some people just like it to be easy, right? So know your colors. Uh know your fit too. A fitted suit does not work for everybody. A fit, and I and sometimes I have to be brutally honest. One of my clients, he has a muffin top, he's really big on the top, small legs. And I'm like, dude, this fitted suit is not gonna work. I I need to box out your bottom a little bit more so we're gonna have to do a bigger pant, and then I can probably taper the waistline around your jacket to bring it in. So know what works for your body too. Just because it looks good on a model or a mannequin doesn't mean it's gonna look good on you. And then two, be authentically you. If you like something, you know, color pattern-wise, you know, stick to it. Or add a little piece of that in there because you still want to be comfortable. You know, you don't want to be uh a zombie just looking like everybody else. So uh that I that self-identity piece is equally important. I usually tell my clients, have fun with the inside of your jacket. Okay, yeah. You feel me? Your bride might want you in a cream suit, but we can go crazy on the inside. You know, it's great. It's great. And and and they appreciate that because they're like, yeah, you know, I want something wild. So, you know, be authentically yourself.

SPEAKER_01 57:13

Okay. Yeah, so you have the little uh the what what's what's that called?

SPEAKER_00 57:17

So this is actually the lining, but it pulls out as a pocket square. Okay, yep. So this is that. And then you see I do colors on all my suits because that's me. I love color, love fun. Even if it's a black suit, I'm gonna add a spice of color to it. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 57:29

Okay. Well, I appreciate the advice. I'm sure my wife will very much appreciate it. Um, you know, we're kind of talking about, you know, how it works with men and everything else. Um, we've talked a lot about business and everything else. One question I have for you, because I want to I want to kind of get into this a little bit, was what attracted you to the standard? Because it seems like you have a lot of great things going on in your life. I mean, were you looking for a community or how how did that whole thing come about?

SPEAKER_00 57:54

I was missing uh male companionship. I was missing a brotherhood of individuals that had shared uh uh like-minded conversations, people that were equally ambitious. Um I I needed to fill that void. I uh, you know, we moved around a lot. Like my wife is my best friend. It's a good thing, but sometimes you gotta be around your guys. Yeah. I agree. That's indeed. And um, so when we moved to Dallas and I stumbled across the standard, I was like, okay, this looks like an organization that I could really be a part of, pour in into, and get poured into as well. Um, and that's what led me to the standard.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

Okay. Uh, did you know Javis before you went in? Like, did you know of him? No. Okay, okay. What's so how how did you exactly did you find it? Was it via Light? Via Instagram? Okay. So walk me through that. How long have you been in the standard for? Since uh last February or March? Almost a year. Okay. So you actually joined not too soon before I did. Okay. So what were some things that you found within the community? Did you find what you were looking for? Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. Explain that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 59:01

Yeah, yeah. So um, well, first off, the beginning stage, that assessment that you have to do on yourself, uh amazing. Um, I think that really opened my eyes to some of the past traumas and things that I didn't deal with that I thought I did. Um, so that helped me mentally and uh just grasped everything that I had been through. Um and then coming to the events and meeting the guys, I found some friends, lifelong friends now, that me and my wife hang out with and we do do things. And so, yes, I found my brotherhood. I really have.

SPEAKER_01 59:38

Yeah. What's so talk about that assessment? Because I don't know if everyone necessarily knows what what does that assessment look like?

SPEAKER_00 59:44

So it's a list of uh questions that you have to pretty much answer to yourself. Um, and then there's some activities that you have to do too. Um, you you you know, like uh and it's confrontational questions like have you deal with your past traumas or what's most important to you, love, or things like that. Um, you know, what's one thing that your mom or dad did that blah, blah, blah. Sure. So it was direct. Um, and I think it was questions that we never ask ourselves. Questions that force you to dig deep and really look inside to be like, yo, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a little scar. Yeah, my mother did make me feel like this, or this did happen to me and I never recovered from it, you know, or I needed to talk to myself about this so I can get through it. So that's what those questions did for me. What what did you do with that information after the fact? I took it all and I feel like I healed. Okay. Essentially, because I had a chance, even though I used to look back at my life and I'm grateful for all the stuff I've been through and all of that, but I had never assessed how far I had to come and how I dealt with those things until that moment. So I had a chance to really assess it, sit down and say, Whoa, yeah, that hurt. You know, for me, I bottled a lot of things up and moved on. You feel me? That's how I dealt with a lot of the traumas. It was like, okay, boom, that happened. I'm past it, right? That brought a lot of it back to the surface and forced me to deal with it. And yeah, and I did.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:24

We've had some people on here that we talked a little bit about the emotional resilience part of it. And I think a lot of high-performing men kind of fall into the trap of becoming kind of a cognitive machine, right? You're you're you're focused on making money or being fit, kind of some of these more external factors, and we kind of negate the spiritual, emotional, and social elements for you. Did you find any use in kind of digging into those a little bit more? Did that provide any value for you? Like how what was the result of that self-examination?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:54

So I probably would classify myself as a non-emotional person. Um, I think that that's how I was able to cope, deal with, and get through. And in my grandfather's house, if you were a man, you had to be strong. Sure. There wasn't any other way. Um that forced me to be a little bit more vulnerable. Um, you know, and forced me to even um, I would say break down in a sense um to be able to deal with a lot of that stuff. Um, you you know, I am big in my faith, and um that's helped me uh remain in a safe space for the majority of my life, knowing that uh that God had my back always, right? Um, but I think you still have to address things and uh emotionally that was I I would say I was like most vulnerable when I was going through that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

That's that's in you well, I'm looking at your hat, keep praying. I love that. So is that your own hat? Did you design it? Yeah, yeah. So this is great. No, I and I uh again, that's also one of the pillars is you know spiritual awareness and too and and spiritual growth. And so, how did your faith kind of help you navigate those, you know, that healing journey to come out to the other side?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:08

So I believe um, you know, everything happens for a reason. And um, you know, God is always on time. I remember being young, and when my mom was in jail, I would send her scriptures. I've always been knee deep into the word, just organically. Um, nobody had to force me. Um, it was just something that I attached to because I always felt God's presence in my life. And of course, my grandparents were a big piece of that. Um, but I I saw him. I saw him in my life. I knew he was real. Um, I knew how he protected me and moved me. Um, so my faith carried me a long way. There were a lot of dark times that where I saw light and was able to get through it. And it's all because of Christ and what he did for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:50

Was that faith just during this healing phase, or do you were there other times throughout your life where you needed that faith to kind of get through that dark time?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

Oh, I've had it always. There's always been um uh faith. It's really all we have when you narrow things down to the microbe is that belief in something that you can't see. Even stepping out and taking risk, right? Risk is essentially just faith. I believe that I can do something, so I'm gonna step out and do it. Um, so I've always had and lived my lived a faith-based life. Yeah um, and I think that's another reason why I've been able to do the amount of things that I'm doing now, because I've always stepped out on faith.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:29

So just so you know everyone can have some context, what's give me probably the big the biggest example in your life of where your faith kind of carried you through a dark time.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:40

Whew, I got some stories, man. Um I would honestly say um that first time that I moved out of the state of South Carolina, so backstory there. So I had got promoted and moved to Columbia. Um, and I had my first apartment. It was making about $35,000 a year. But that was $21. I was balling. Yeah, I know. That's a lot of money. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:04

I remember making my first paycheck. I'm like, I'm rich, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:07

Yeah. Um, but when I got my place, my mom and my brother moved in with me. So I was going through a lot there, and when that job came about, I literally packed up my little busted Cadillac with my clothes only, got on 95 and drove and cried the whole way. Because not only did I leave everything I knew, I left my family, I left my friends, and I left my life, and I stepped out on faith. And I think back if I didn't move to Florida that time, if I hadn't left and just uh just did it, I don't know where my life would be. Yeah. And it was a faithful move. I left with nothing except the clothes in my car and a job. Thank God I had a job. Sure. But um I left and I never turned back. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:57

What's um what daily practices do you use to kind Help stay connected to God.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

Yep. Glad you asked that. So my wife and I, we do Bible study at night before we go to bed. We do about 30 minutes of devotional. And then we also do it in the morning too. We have prayer sessions in the morning around 6 30. So we start our day. I start my day in prayer. I pray throughout the day. I prayed before I got out of my car on the podcast. And I am just connected to God in more than one way. I feel like we live in a world where it's so easy to be distracted, where it's so easy to um read the word and not live it. Where um most people want to show that they're saved um but not really lived a saved life. So I practice um being a student of the word. Um and that's why I'm really picky about uh which church I go to. So my wife and I still haven't left our church in Maryland. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:00

Because pastor. You're a long way from Maryland, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

Yeah, but they have a great online church. Okay. And I love that pastor because he teaches the Bible. He breaks it down, he makes it make sense, um, and he doesn't stray from it. Um, and I find that that's where I'm fed. I have to be fed if I'm going to a church. I just don't want to be there because the music is good. Yeah, right. I want to leave filled, not hungry. I want to leave filled. So I live a praying life, but then we also fast uh uh often too. So from October through uh January 1st, I do a 90-day no alcohol fast.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:33

And I do it during the last quarter of the year because it's the time where we drink most. You got all the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, you're around family, you're doing this. So, you know, we can only give God a few things, and fasting is one of those things where I take a lot of pride in. So, you know, that's I I would say it's the first thing I do when I wake up, and the last thing I do before I go to sleep is is read or pray to God. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:55

Well, talking about faith and transitioning into, I know within the standard, you know, which was prompting this healing journey for you, um, we had the the conference, you know, last year where it talked a lot about legacy. And so from your perspective, you know, because you're married and everything else, what does legacy mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:13

For me, it is my nephews and nieces, because we don't have kids. Um, we have godchildren, nephews and nieces, and we're a big part of their life. I don't ever want them to have to go through anything that I went through. Um, I want them to know God, and I want them to be um authentically themselves and do what makes them ha happy at the same time. So, legacy for me means everything that I'm building, we're either gonna leave it to the dog or or the nieces.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:39

Lucky dog. That dog's gonna have 20 rental properties. Let's go. Yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:45

Yeah. So that's legacy for for me at this stage of my life.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:48

Okay. And then uh one of the final questions you usually ask is how do you want to be remembered at the end of your life?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:54

I want to be remembered. I want people to get up at my funeral and say that I brought them closer to God or that I was able to impact their life um in a way that made them change it for the positive.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:06

Okay. It's really powerful. I I definitely feel blessed by this. Um, so for people that want to get a hold of you, like let's say uh, you know, with my medical device company, I want to uh order a conference at one of your hotels. How was the best way of getting in touch with you?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:21

So for uh the professional core, core, core, corporate world, LinkedIn. Okay, you can find me on LinkedIn at David President Jr. Um for uh my business, uh you can follow me online at Suit Sharks um or visit my website at suitsharks.com. Um and if you want to learn more about real estate or anything that I'm doing in that side, uh you can DM me at David PresidentOfficial on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:45

All right. Listen, I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope everyone listening did as well. But you know, you have a God blessed day, and I'll see you around. Likewise, thank you.