Episode 34 - The Faith Driven Co-Working Space with Trevor Hightower, Payton Day, and David Salyers
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Today, we’re talking coffee, co-working, and Chick-fil-a cows. That’s right.
You’ve heard a lot about the ups and downs of WeWork, but now we’re going to look at a panel of faith-driven experts who are leading the way in co-working and how it can provide economically and spiritually for those participating in it.
Tune in to hear Trevor Hightower, Peyton Day, and David Salyers share their stories and what the intersection of their Christian faith and co-working looks like.
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Episode Transcript
Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
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Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the failure of an investor podcast. I'm here with William. William, good morning.
William Norvell: Good morning.
And we've got a special edition today. We've got three guests on to help us unpack what I think is a super important topic with regards to faith driven investments with real estate in particular coworking. So today we've got Trevor Hightower, Peyton Day and David Salyers on the show. So glad to have you all with us. Thank you. What we want to do is at the beginning, we want to give you each a chance to share your story, provide some background, and then women can ask the questions that we want to get everybody's input on as we explore this idea of getting out there and investing in coworking on the for profit side. What makes it a great investment and then what makes it a great ministry opportunity is people come in as they form their businesses, get together, have meetings, have fellowship and community. So, Trevor, I want to start off with you at the beginning. Tell us about your personal journey and then tell us about what craft coffee is in your strategy.
Trevor Hightower: Well, thank you. Henry and William would love to. Let me first say I'm a regular listener of the three faith driven podcast. So much so that my daughter Grace asked me what Bible verse I would be sharing today at the end of this podcast.
Henry Kaestner: That is awesome. That is my love language. Thank you for listening.
Trevor Hightower: Maybe that's not a good thing because that means I'm listening to podcasts instead of being present with her. So it could be more there. But I am deeply indebted to the great work that you guys are doing and listen to your guests and want to emulate their lives. And as I'll try to share in my story. It was ideas and content like yours that God used to help shape the redemptive vision for my work. So thank you for your great work. So Jesus rescued me when I was 27 on a wood trip trail in Hermosa Beach, and I had transitioned from being an Air Force officer to working in commercial real estate. So the gospel of grace completely reordered my loves and desires. And I grew up knowing Jesus. So I thought this meant I needed to go into ministry. And thankfully, I had a mentor who graciously said to me he was actually in the ministries that God has agents of reconciliation and restoration in every domain in society. And Trevor, he might have you and real estate for a reason. And I remember thinking to myself, I have no idea what he just said, but that is awesome. Whatever he said. I am all in for a lot of the framework, the rhythm, the framework really helped birth in me, a passion for the reality that there's no sacred secular divide. And so I was fortunate that my career in real estate started during the Great Recession, which allowed me the opportunity to be gritty and find places to add value and grow. And I worked for a publicly-traded in the office space and then worked for CBRE in leadership as a managing director in the Houston office about the time I was working for CBRE in Houston.
A mutual friend of ours, Dave Blanchard from Praxis, gave a talk that I listened to where he said something to the effect of, you know, if every entrepreneur. But I inserted to real estate developer could see a trend line and get in front of that trend line and create market value. How much more of a responsibility and advantage do we have as Christ followers that know that the ultimate trend line is heading towards new heavens? And they were? How much more of a opportunity do we have to get in front of that trend line and whatever? Now, in my case, real estate. And so that was in 2016 and I was already starting to see a major shift in how our corporate users were utilizing their space. The trend lines of shorter lease terms and more flexibility. The growing gig economy had already convinced me that shared office space coworking, that would be a huge part of the future of the office asset class.
But what really excited me about the operators I saw that really did it well and differentiated their offering was their emphasis on connection and community. And so with Dave's prompting in the Lawrence prompting, I created a coworking space that the vision of it was to create that higher vision of connection and community. Accidentally, it happened to be in a multi-family building. So we reimagined the front entrance way of a multi-family lobby in an amenity area and found out that those uses really traded a lot of synergies when they worked together, especially if you're operating it with intention to create connection and community. I met my now partner, Riley, who is had another great concept of a specialty coffee and coworking space combined, and saw really great synergies there. And we met in a really God ordained way and decided to. Merge those concepts together, where especially coffee and coworking, that would go into multi-family building and reimagine amenity spaces and lobby areas to really bring connection community in those multi-family buildings. So that is craftwork and what we get to work on today.
Henry Kaestner: So more revenue throughput in underutilized space, bringing in some community fellowship, adding some value to the property owners as they provide another amenity and some great business in ministry correspondence. OK. That's awesome. Craftwork. David, I want to move over to you, David. You've got a great background, a very interesting background, one that some people can have some familiarity with. What am I talking about? And what's your background?
David Salyers: Well, interestingly, Henry, my career started four hours after college graduation. I graduated on a Saturday morning. I started at a little company called Chick-fil-a four hours later. I had met Truett Cathy during my college career when I was a junior in college, and we'd kind of both pursued it. But what was fascinating is Chick fil A was not a startup at the time, but it was close. The headquarters was in a converted airfreight warehouse and they had run out of room in the warehouse. So they cut a hole through the wall, pulled up a mobile home. And my first office was in a mobile home attached to that warehouse. And I had no idea what I just signed up for, but it turned out to be much greater than anything I could have imagined. I think true could have imagined then kind of being a chicken salesman. Now for most of my life. But here's the main thing I want to tell you as a 21 year old kid. If you had asked me what would be the most remarkable career possible, I would have told you get out of school, make as much money as I could, as fast as I could, and retire as early as I could. That's kind of the paradigm that I had. I thought life couldn't get better than that.
Instead, go to work for Chick fil A and Truett Cathy. I found something a hundred times better than that, something I could not have imagined as a 21 year old kid even exist. In fact, some I wouldn't believe existed had I not seen it play out before my very eyes and really role model by Truett and the Chick-fil-a organization. Instead of finding the job, I could retire from early. I found the job I wouldn't want to retire from, and that thought had never crossed my mind that there could be a job you wouldn't want to retire from because my whole world is a 21 year old was all around money and true, its whole world was around mission. And if you find a job that's in alignment with a mission, it is the job you wouldn't want to retire from. And, you know, it's fascinating. I remember going into true its office when he was in his late 80s. Say true it man, your four one K fully funded. What are you still doing here? He would tell me why would I stop doing something I love this much. He said, if you love what you do, you'll never work another day in your life. And so kind of a message for me when you go back to the Bible and you ask, where does God first mention the word work? You know where it is. Oh, where Genesis one, where God had everything exactly the way he wanted it work was part of that equation. When life was paradise, work was part of that equation. So what that tells me is that work, ideally, if done right, is designed to be a source of satisfaction, fulfillment, enjoyment, contentment. All of that is the way work should be. But for most people, that's not the experience that they're having.
Henry Kaestner: So along the way, you talk about mission. I want to get back to this where you find a mission and purpose in it because you're bringing into the present day. But less we go over some Chiclet story. Part of your mission is to save the lives of millions of cows. Tell us what that means.
That certainly got added along the way. Well, we want people to eat more chicken. Save those lives. But you're right. I mean, in a sense, it's kind of a comical look at what Chick-fil-a is all about. In fact, the corporate purpose of Chick fil A is to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that's entrusted to us. And a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick fil A. Notice, it mentions nothing about chicken. It mentions nothing. It's being a faithful steward and a positive influence. And that's the way that we're going to glorify God through work and by doing work that way. What we've done is created jobs that people don't want to retire from, jobs that are fulfilling, rewarding, exciting, engaging. In fact, if you can believe this, in an industry known for turnover, we've got a 97 percent retention rate at Chick fil A, 97 percent retention rate for the corporate staff and for our Chick fil A operators, the independent contractors that run each location, 97 percent retention rate.
David Salyers: David, tell us about how you think about real estate. How do you think about faith driven investments and what you're doing right now?
Yes, so let me segue from a Chick fil A background, I took early retirement from Chick fil A two years ago. And the main reason I did that is I feel like to those whom much is given, much is required. And the easy thing for me to do would have been to stay at chick fillet, enjoy all the rewards of a long career there and all the fruits that are now being enjoyed by that corporation. But I felt like because so much of being given to me, what's required of me is to go out and help recreate the things that I was able to enjoy at Chick fil A. And so what we're doing at Rome, which is Peyton and I's concept here, we're trying to recreate the environment of chick fillet, but make it available to entrepreneurs, to major corporations, to nonprofits, etc.. And so Rome is a coworking facility built on culture, built on hospitality, built on all the principles that I saw make Chick fil A what it was. And what we want to do is create, first of all, for our own employees that kind of job opportunities that I enjoyed it chick fillet. But more importantly, we want a role model to all those who come here, what that looks like. And we think it's contagious. We think people see what Chick fil A has to offer. I notice when people come on tours when people would partner with and say, wow, this is so amazing, I want to go recreate it. So what Rome is all about for me is recreating and helping others recreate the incredible culture and the incredible results that I was able to enjoy for so many years at Chick fil A. But making those more publicly available, because right now, as great as Chick fil A is, there's a limit to the number of people who can be employed by Chick fil A. So how can we take that and scale it? So for us, for me and I want to speak for Peyton, but for me, what Roehm is, is an exercise in scaling culture, hospitality and creating a world where we reinvent. In fact, our mission at Rome is to renew and inspire the way the world does business as partners in the story of accomplished dreams. So we want to use Rome as a platform to renew and inspire the way the world does business, i.e. what I got to experience the job I wouldn't want to retire from instead of the job. I can't wait to retire. How do we create a culture and an atmosphere where that is common, that you've got people that love what they do and so they never work another day in their life? And then how do we partner with others to help them do that? So we want to create that for ourselves and we want to partner with others. And we do it for everything from individual entrepreneurs to growing organizations to non-profits to even major corporations that use us as an offsite facility for meetings, et cetera. But our goal is to use the real estate as a platform to do something far more important than the real estate. It's not about chairs and tables and meeting spaces. It's about culture and renewing and inspiring. The way people think about work and the way they execute work and the way they try and use work is an opportunity not to extract value from others, but create value for others.
Henry Kaestner: Peyton, I want to move back over to you as David talks about roam and its mission as suspected. Listening to this podcast understands the impact and the importance that David sees in being able to articulate your mission and be able to reflect back on it and come back and make sure that all of your initiatives flow from that. I think that must come from some of the Chick fil A legacy that you've got. Peyton, you come from a family that's focused on hospitality. Tell us about that and tell us about the idea for the formation of Roam.
Peyton Day: Well, thank you, Henry. And my story is different than David's and my first job out of college. Honestly, I was working for a leader I didn't believe in. In a culture, I really didn't want to be a part of pursuing a cause and I could care nothing about. And needless to say, I wasn't successful in that culture because in my life I had seen a father. My dad was my mentor, Cecil Day, and he developed a hotel chain. And of course, Chick Fillet was also just true. Kathy and the influence he had a chick fillet was certainly someone I wanted to emulate my life, a young Asian. As it turns out, my father and Kathy were good friends. You know, it's never been stuck with homes back in the late 50s. And so it's just an interesting twist to see God's hand and how David now we bought each other.
But nonetheless, I was part of this what I'll call a toxic culture. And I saw that there was a better way because I'd seen this from my dad at a young age. And people like to Kathy. My father was all about integrating faith and work.
And he did that in his own way. One way he did that was for every hotel guest that stayed in our hotels, for every single location. We had a chaplain on call. This is back in the early 70s for all 200 locations. You know, David. The United States. And so what was interesting to me. This is a nine year old boy just watching that and saying that's really neat to see that he's having a positive influence on guests that are staying in a hotel that really spoke to me. Because when you think about it. Hotels are a place where a lot of people go to contemplate suicide or divorce or lots of other things that are not good. And yet he used that as an opportunity to reach out to people in the most desperate of times. And so I saw that modeled at a young age, and it was attracted to me as a young person coming along. I said to myself all or be like my dad one day and do more than be like people like Truett Cathy of Chick fil A.
And so for us at Roam, when we came across from David and I did not come up with the original idea for Roa,. These were for IBM ers that were sent home because these big companies were trying to save on the cost of fixed office space. So they were IBM was ever sent home to work. And when they went home, they found it difficult to get work done because the baby's crying. The U.P.S. man is ringing the doorbell. The blower's for the landscaping is loud outside all types of distractions. And so these guys said there must be a better way. So instead of working from the home, they started going to coffee shops. And this is back in 2008. And so it was from there, they tried to go to coffee shops. And we all know that Starbucks or coffee shops can be a difficult place to have a meeting. So they said there must be a better way. So their original concept was a coffee bar with meeting rooms around a small meeting rooms. And so and Dave and I got involved in 2010. I knew I was interested. My background was with Marriott. I had the opportunity develop Marriott Hilton Hotels. And I knew that this was a very interesting platform for impact because first of all, it had all my passions, real estate, hospitality, entrepreneurship and non-profits ability to get back.
And I walked in and just basically cold call. These guys got so intrigued by it that they invited me to do some hospitality consulting. And as fate would have, it is God's providence would have it. David walked in nine months later and he fell in love with it. And we were able to be in a position to body ownership. Then from there, we started expanding the footprint to offices to meeting space, to catering and larger meetings and so forth. And so that's how we got involved. That's why we got involved. It is a very unique platform for impact, because whether you're Republican or Democrat, it really doesn't matter where you are on the political spectrum. What I love about wrong is it's good for the ozone. It's good for controlling emissions. You're creating jobs. You can do a lot of good things. And as Gaited said, our vision is to renew. It's part of the world, does business as partners and the story of others dreams. Well, everyone that walks in a room has a green. As a nonprofit, as an entrepreneur, as a large company, and it's our goal, the role that we play is we want to partner with them on that journey.
And we're an advocate for them. We look at ourselves as an extension of their brand. And so we are servant leaders that are other people centered in order to carry out that vision. So that's how I got involved and why we got involved. And it's a very, very interesting platform for impact. And it was until I was forty nine years old that I was able to intersect that passion, purpose and talent. I believe when we talk about three concentric circles and the intersection of those circles, that's the best role for us. Well, this is a very unique role for me and ideal. And so David and I, we endeavor to be leaders that others believe that I'm creating cultures that people want to be a part of pursuing a cause that people can get excited about. And I believe and I learned this from David. Businesses don't succeed or fail. People do. I got that from David. I think David got it from Truett Cathy. And I'm pretty confident that Truett Cathy got it from God because it's such a powerful concept that if you take care of the people, if you set them up for success, give them those are excited about your passion, about on purpose. Then you have something really, really special. And so that's what we're trying to do it wrong. And it's been a real honor to be able to do this with David.
William Norvell: Amen. This is William here. Thanks so much for sharing that story and is someone who's been to a couple of your own locations. It really is a unique experience. And a part of this podcast is really thinking uniquely about real estate and some of these assets. But another guy, John Marsh, on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast about a year ago that really talked about how to revive a community through real estate. And so I want to dig into that a little bit more. And for those that don't have seen Rome yet, you have your traditional freestanding building, which is really interesting to walk into. And it kind of feels about like I would expect. But the one I remember most was one of your locations. Sort of in more of a shopping mall area. I don't know how to say it. You may say it better, but the transportation that I experience walking into that, I'll be honest, I'm a little skeptical of. Oh, man. They put one in a shopping center. That's a little interesting. Didn't expect that. When I type this into the Google Maps, I kind of thought it was going to be a beautiful building somewhere. But what you did with the culture and what you did with the location, once you walk and you really are transported and you forget where you are and that's amazing. And that really took some thought and some innovation, in my opinion, to really take a step back into how could we look at a space in a different way. So we're going to dig into that a little bit on the swing. Back over to Trever for a second. And you mentioned how you're working with multi-family units. And I want to dig into a little bit of the spiritual integration side of things. We heard a little bit of what you're doing and what it looks like. How do you think about integrating faith and work through that? You mentioned Dave Blanchard, a frequent guest here, who I think has inspired many to think about things a different way. How do you see it? Craftwork today?
Trevor Hightower: Well, yeah, thank you. William and I also have visited Peyton and his team in Roam and can attest to their culture and their people is what really brings the space to life. And as beautiful as design and esthetics are, it's the way that you feel cared for by the people. And that's one thing that we really have focus on craft work. So we're a B to B to C company. Our B2B side is we partner with multi-family owners. So high rise, mid rise owners and the way that a typical real estate owner thinks about their multi-family development as well. We need to compete to attract a similar demographic by creating bigger, more expensive amenities. And we try to come onside them and say, you don't want to be in the menotti's arms race. You want to be and a connection arms race. You want to be an experienced arms race. And we really believe in this flows from our spiritual intent that you can bring to life. This what typically goes way underutilized, if utilized at all, kind of lobby and amenity area. You can bring it to life with a hospitality focused, human centered operation. And so what we essentially do is reimagine the lobby and amenity area into a specialty coffee and Corrigan's space. But our missional intent is we have people on the front lines who are our mission is to generously see all the people and the spaces that we operate. So our team is diverse. We have many believers. We have nonbelievers who are on that front line. But all of them are really passionate about our mission to draw people out of isolation and into community. And, you know, no one does this better than Chick fil A and Rome, but we really try to emulate the best practices around training and hiring and equipping our teams so that when a coffee. Customer or a member comes into contact with a craftwork teammate. They experience something very different, which is they feel genuinely connected.
William Norvell: Absolutely. That's great. I want to swing it back over to Peyton to talk about, you know, the special integration yours. And I'd be remiss not to mention one story has this funny image of the people. I was in one and then peyton was generous to give me a tour. And you meet some of the people and they do strike up a conversation. One of the coolest Faith Driven Entrepreneur moments that I've experienced. And there were then the investor podcast here. But the faith driven family was talking to the host at room, Mary London. She's mentioned that she used to work in Kenya and some other places. And at the time, Henry was actually doing a Faith Driven Entrepreneur event that night in Kenya. And I said, well, you know, randomly, we have an event that night and she e-mailed out a bunch people they were able to come. Amazing to see what God does. And I just mentioned that story to say Roam feels like that kind of place that you can just be alert to what the Holy Spirit is doing at any moment. Some craft workers as well just it's an amazing opportunity place for the spirit to work. And so I'd love for you to probably tell more stories than I campaign about how you go about that and how you built that culture intentionally and how it continues to thrive today.
Peyton Day: Well, I think it goes back to the saying, you know, people don't care what you know, they're more concerned about how much you care, make you care less about what you know. And I think for us, you know, we do our best to hire, again, people who love serving other people and who take great joy in that. And that starts with leadership in ensuring that we're hiring people who are committed to serving others. That's where it starts. And then from there, we really try to point them to this vision of this bigger vision of renewing, inspiring how the world does business. And they live that out in their own way. And we give them a lot of freedom. We're big believers in giving people autonomy to make decisions. And without autonomy comes responsibility. And we think about this ratio of autonomy divided by responsibility equals one. And that means that oftentimes I think we as leaders, we can be too heavy handed, too much of a micromanager. And so for us, we try to push decisions down through all levels of the organization such that they can address those problems. And oftentimes, I think people are concerned about giving people the autonomy to make decisions. But that's not the problem. The problem is, in some cases, they're either not trained for how to address the problem or in other cases you may have the wrong person. So what we try to do is hire leaders again, give them the vision, give them a lot of freedom and latitude within those guardrails to make those decisions. And then we turn them loose to do what they do and use their destinies to do that. And so day in and day out, that's what happens at Ron. So stories like you just shared with you. You know, David, I had the honor of hearing every day we have one lady whose mother was passing away. And it's just a heartwarming story. It's actually on our website. But somehow that same Mary London that you're talking about got wind of that and found out that her mother was dying. And she wrote the most beautiful handwritten note that to this day. This lady talks about and she just talks about how that was what she needed at that moment. So every day, you know, we have the opportunity to be a positive impact on those we come in touch with. And as I mentioned to you earlier, this is a unique platform for doing just that, because at a Chick fil A drive through, Davis mentioned this before, you had to maybe a 30 second encounter with someone at a Chick fil A drive through.
Well, in many cases, David and I and Trever have the opportunity to impact people over entire day or over an entire week, much longer extended period time. So from a ministry standpoint, we get a lot of touches with people. And because of that, we're able to forge deeper relationships. And that's one of the things I love about this model. It is a very unique platform for positively impacting those. We come in touch with.
William Norvell: Amen and jump back over to. David would be equally remiss not to ask you, you know, why you love cowls and dislike chickens. But that's a conversation for another time. But we would love to know a little bit about your banking experience there. Oh, Henry?
Henry Kaestner: No, no, no, no. I'm right with you. I just want to make sure you and pass over that. I mean, it's one of the greatest marketing campaigns of all time. We've got a guy guests on the show that had served at Chick-fil-a in the marketing department during the birth of the whole chicken cow thing. I want to hear about it.
William Norvell: Yes. So that's where we're going. That's the end of the question. I have long lead ends, as you can tell. But Henry is better again to the point. And so we'd love to hear about that as well.
David Salyers: All right. We'll talk about that is interesting. The first 20 years at Chick fil A was all mall locations. And we used to talk about marketing at a. All as a captive audience marketing strategy, in other words, it wasn't our job to bring people the mall, but once they showed up, it was our job to get them to eat while we were there, and about 70 percent of molesting was impulsivity. But once we got out in what we call freestanding locations out on the street, we now had to become destination marketers. You know, in other words, we had to get some I get up off their sofa. Get in their car and drive to us. And it's completely different situation. So as free standards started to become the largest portion of the offering that we had, we realized we had to revamp our marketing and we began a national search. And we started with one hundred and twenty agencies that we looked at and we were able to narrow it down to 20 that I personally went and visited. And from those 20 visits, we narrowed it down to three. And what you'll appreciate about this is the three that we narrowed it down to, all three of them. We're really good at their craft. But what we're really looking for is a cultural fit at that point. And we felt like the cultural fit. We weren't have a long term relationship with an agency which in and of itself is very different. Most agencies is high turnover. What have you done for me lately? It's, you know, come in and pitch your business at your expense. And we weren't in a completely different relationship. And where I can go into lots of details, but we did something that all three of those agencies had never seen before, which a lot of what chick fillet does is counterintuitive. It's the opposite of the way most everyone else is doing it. So we decided to pay each of those three agencies to do a project for us so that we could simulate what it would be like to work with them. And we spent a couple of months working with each agency to get a sense of what it would be like to work with. Contrast that the way a normal agency would work is you come at your expense. And usually they'd spend six figures pitching your business and you don't give them any information. You know, it's almost hands off and come impress us. We said we want to do just the opposite. We want to dig in with you. We want to give you everything you need to be successful. And let's see where it would be like to work together. And so out of all that, we ended up selecting the Richards Group out of Dallas, Texas. And the Richards Group was similar to Ticketfly. In a sense. It was a privately held business. One guy owned the whole thing and they were much more concerned about doing great work than how big a check your writing. And that's exactly what we wanted. When I first met with Stan Richards and went out to Dallas at that time, we were at a big disadvantage because relatively speaking, we would have been like on a list of the top hundred fast food chains. At the time we signed up with the Richards Group, we would've been much closer to 100 than never once. We weren't a very desirable client is basically because we're really small. We had a really small budget. So to overcome that, we went in and we said I said, Stan, we may never be your biggest client. We want to be your best client. Tell me what that looks like. And he went on for about 20 minutes telling me what it would look like to be his best man. And you could tell he had a gleam in his eye. And that was a very attractive question for him, because it wasn't about the size of our account. It was about the quality of the work they could do. And for a guy like Stan, almost like what Payton was talking about a minute ago, we wanted somebody who was very missional in their approach and he was very excited about doing great advertising and great work, getting great results. And it wasn't about the size of the check that you would write. So net net is a cow campaign was not the original campaign they came up with. It was several iterations later that they came up and actually was a combination of three different billboard ideas that they had done. And that was another thing all of our competitors were doing. Lots of television advertising, radio advertising. We said, let's pick a medium that we could dominate that no one else is using. And the one medium that no one else was using really in the fast food business at the time was billboards. They would use them as directional as what we'd call, you know, next exit go. Right. But no one was using as a brand building opportunity. And we got inspired by billboards we saw out in L.A., in Orlando, these 3D billboards. So we basically told Stan we want to do a 3-D billboard campaign as a brand building campaign. And that intrigued him because his background was graphic arts. And so this was a graphic art opportunity. Long story short, they did a number of billboards, three different billboards, kind of came in to focus. If you want to do another, I could actually bring and show you the three billboards. But pieces of those other three billboards kind of came together in the mind of one of their creatives, a guy named David Ring, and they came up with the eat more chicken idea and we were thrilled with it. But the problem was it was totally off strategy. It was a great idea. That didn't align with the strategy that we had. And we said, well, you know what? Sometimes if the idea is big enough, you got to throw out the strategy. So we tried it and we tried it in Atlanta, Georgia, right before the Olympics because we were looking for a great billboard because the world was coming to Atlanta and that one billboard was between the Atlanta airport and downtown. Got more recall than all the other billboards we had done put together to that tab in the research that we did afterwards. So I think the big aha moment was going from a billboard to a campaign idea. And that was the big leap, was how do we take it from a billboard and take it into the stores and make it a long term campaign. And they came up with some great ideas and we worked together. But it's really a story of culture and teamwork and not focusing on the size of the check, but focusing on the size, the opportunity and what stand would tell you. To this day, if we were to get him on the podcast here, he would say, you know what? Chick fil A's to this day is not my biggest client, but he's a billion dollar ad agency now world's biggest privately held ad agency. He said Chiclet to this day and write me the biggest check. But he said, almost every client I've gotten since the Cal campaign has come as a result of the Cal campaign. So you were their best customer? Yeah. Exactly. All these other customers, he said the first thing they want to know when they said our stand is tell me about the Cal campaign and create a cow campaign for us. So even though we were saying that the work led to him getting all the other checks, you know, and a lot of ways since that time.
Henry Kaestner: Well, I'll tell you, it's another billboard that really got me hooked on Chick fil A. And it wasn't the more chicken. It was a billboard that McDonald's had up in Durham, North Carolina, when it just said open Sundays. I thought, oh, my goodness. How did they do that? And so I have not eaten in a McDonald's since. And I love chick flick. OK, so if people tune in in this podcast right now. No, we're not talking about retail marketing. We're talking about faith driven investments. And so I want to talk, of course, about the big elephant in the room, and that is that you all have found yourselves in an industry that has been probably a little bit more higher profile over the course of last nine or 12 months with the challenges that we work has experienced. We've got an audience of investors. Can you make money in coworking? Trevor, we'll start with you.
Trevor Hightower: That's an easy question. Thanks, Henry. So what we see with Covid 19 these past 10 weeks is a lot of the trend lines that we were following are massively accelerated. So you can look at remote work, for instance, remote work was already a trend line that was heading in a certain direction. And then we had a mass adoption overnight of remote work. And so I think at least for us at craftwork, what becomes important to the model is something that other Kirchen operators have adopted as well. It's more of a management agreement, partnership model where you are sharing and the upside and also sharing and the downside. The least model is difficult when you encounter a little bit more of a challenging market like we've been in. But I think one pivot that we've really focused on as a service provider to come alongside our multi-family partners is to create more of an agile, less capital intensive model that essentially craftwork can go into the existing lobby and replace a lobby with a hospitality experience and then operate the existing amenity space as a corrick in space. And what this does for the owner is it allows them to differentiate their building in a increasingly competitive environment through creating a layer of service that's focused on connection and community and hospitality. And so we think in the new normal post-covid home is going to become increasingly important as some level of remote work is going to increase for all workers. And where people work is going to be important so that amenity space within their multifamily building does become important. It's not highly utilized now, but if it was really curated and really layered with service, with the type of hospitality that's groups like Rhome or Rappard could provide, then I think it becomes very differentiated, differentiates one asset to another. But I think the key is that partnership approach with the landlord.
Henry Kaestner: Got it. David Payton talked to us about roam. Talk to us about your model. Tell us about where you've been in terms of capitalizing what you're doing and what your prospects are, what you see as you think about expanding. Can an investor that might invest in a room or a craft worker that has a co-working idea, can they not only see that as a great opportunity, provide amenities and fellowship and community where ministry can happen, but can they make money and invest in it as well?
David Salyers: Peyton, why don't you start and I'll finish?
Peyton Day: Well, first of all, I would agree with Trevor said the answer. Yes, I do believe remote work is going to be accelerated for all the reasons that Trevor mentioned. I would also add that at some point we sincerely believe that meetings will come back. They may look a little different in my mind. If you believe that the Masters is coming back or NBA basketball or the NFL, you have to believe that meetings also will come back. They may be smaller. People may need to social distance more. Without a doubt, people may need more elbow room. Certainly, cleanliness has become a much bigger issue. And so for us, our model is based on diverse constraints. And that's what's so interesting about this. Even when you think you're bulletproof, you're not right. You think you've got it all figured out.
We've got all these revenue streams. And then, wham! Here comes covid 19. And so the next opportunity, virtual platforms, member services. We've got to find ways to create value for our membership. And by definition, value is what you get over what you pay. So every day we wake up thinking, what can we do to add more, more value to the membership? Even on a post covid environment. Now, I believe that a vaccine changes a lot. But I do believe while the last 10 years we've seen densification in real estate think we work one personally, 50 square feet. The office that I wanted to be a part of when I was growing up was a 200 square foot glass office. That's what we wanted. But the last 10 years, we've without a doubt moved to densification, more people and smaller places. I don't think there's any question that we're gonna have a period of detoxification. The question is, how long will I go? I think the vaccine will change a lot. Getting kids back to school are going to change a lot. But ultimately, I believe that this model is what people are looking for. As Trevor mentioned earlier, it's flexibility. It's giving people the ability to work from home, giving people options of different work environments in which they want to be productive outside of their home or a traditional office. People want to create. They want to collaborate. People need to be together. And we believe that the coworking platform is certainly an answer. And it's on friends. And we don't think it's going away.
David Salyers: And what I would add to that, Henry, is prior to the Corona virus, all of our locations were profitable, several highly profitable. Obviously, during the Corona virus, we've had to shut down certain revenue. The meetings, part of it, that kind of thing. But I do feel like the new trends coming out of it. Trevor, I would totally agree with you. I think what this is doing is making everyone rethink the way they do business and the way they have approached business historically. So I think it can be an accelerant for coworking in that I think we could be much more on trend with what people want. I think they don't necessarily want to have to go to an officer today, but they also don't want to have to work from home every day. I think we're a nice in between. And I do think historically, a lot of businesses have thought in terms of centralization of the workforce. Everyone comes to one office to work out of one place. And now we've experienced massive decentralization. And there are certain things people really like about that decentralization of office. But I think now they're going to desire more of that. But I don't think they want total decentralization. I don't think they want total centralization. I think what a lot of people are going to want coming out of this is some combination of the two. And I think that's where the opportunity is. Anytime you have a major world event like this, it kind of takes everyone back to zero. And the scrappy entrepreneurs are the ones that succeed. And we've got a whole team full of scrappy entrepreneurs and they're already coming up with new ideas to Payton's point about how do we create value, add new ways for people. Yeah. So I'm cautiously optimistic that we've got a lot of exciting things in the future and certainly ripe for cover. To answer your original question, can it be profitable? 100 percent of our locations were before growing matters.
Trevor Hightower: Yeah, I'll just add to what I hear David and Payton saying is that the benefit that coworking industry has relative to traditional office space is a maniacal focus on the end user. It really is what Payton was saying, this combination of hospitality and office space. And so what I just heard Payton and David describe is the ability of a good coworking operator to really Kivett is to the end user to attract what we anticipate. Being a larger supply is a benefit relative to a traditional office user. Really, they're going to probably have a challenging time in a recessionary environment with a little bit less demand for traditional office space. So the key is to really focus on end user experience. And I think that what we all really on this call is that it's not mutually exclusive, that end user experience and really creating something that is spiritually beneficial for people, which is training places of connection and community.
William Norvell: That's really good. That's interesting. I'm fascinated to watch how this industry shakes out. I mean, I agree with everything you guys have said. I also think there's going to be new customers, as you mentioned. There's going to be more work from home. There's going to be a reimagining at some level, maybe not for every company, but for many companies. I would imagine what work looks like and what teams look like and what office spaces look like. And I could see coworking. Being a big part of the solution there, it's probably easier would be my guess to set up a social distancing policy when you have disparate companies in a space already, you know, and you can kind of set up offices and things like that. And that's really fascinating to watch. And I thank you guys for walking us through that time and for sharing with us, because it's really going to be a hot topic. I think just the future of work in general is a hot topic right now. And I think many of us also believe or my wife's in medicine, you know, coronaviruses is something that will likely happen in some way, shape or form again. Peyton, you mentioned cleanliness and and all the things. It really is a future defining event, in my opinion. And I think coworking has a great place to play in the middle of that. And so as we do turn to an end here, Trevor, you already foreshadowed the event here, so you'd better be ready. It's coming to you first. We would love to know. We always love just seeing how God bridges our listeners and our guests and how his word is always continually alive. And we would just love to know where God has you. Today could be this morning, something you read on the way to wherever you may be working from could be a passage or story that God has had you in for a season of today or years, even sometimes our guests have said they've been meditating on something for a long time. So if you would bring our our listeners into your world a little bit, they'd be great. And then we'll go to David and Peyton.
Trevor Hightower: Thank you, William. Yeah. I am fortunate that I had my daughter Grace prompt me, and I always loved this part of the podcast. It's a joy to share what the Lord has been counting on in my heart. This is something that has been ongoing for me and it's really rooted. And I get into the beginning part of my story, but grew up in a very chaotic environment and at an early age, probably not similar to a lot of entrepreneurs and investors listening performance. It's always been an idol of mine and performing for others. And when the Gospel invaded my heart, it was such a release of freedom and peace that I had just obviously I described it as know warm water poured over a very restless soul. And so I've noticed that the best growth in my spiritual life is it really comes in reminding myself of that gospel. It's the gospel not only saved me and reminded me of who I am and Christ, but it's also what propels me and gives me motivation to change. And so the verse that I literally read every day is Corinthians five. Twenty one for our sake, he made him to be sent here and, you know, sent so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. And that verse and Romans eight one. I have to remind myself every day of the Gospel not only that Jesus took my sin, but then it is something incredible. He gave me his righteousness. And for a performer like me and I'm sure a lot of those listening, that is just the best news ever, that it's not my work, it's his work and that it's already finished. But what I've noticed is that if I really let that sink from just the words on the page from my head into my heart, then all of my relationships, from my wife to my children, to the people I get to work alongside and serve here at craft, where those relationships are all dramatically improved because I'm no longer thinking about myself. Ideally, I'm truly beyond grateful for like good God has given me. So it's been the best business tool ever that I've had is to remind myself of the gospel. And that's one of the verses that I literally read every morning.
David Salyers: You know, it's interesting. I go to North Point Community Church with Andy Stanley and he did a sermon series a few weeks ago that really posed a challenging question that I've been pondering this whole crowing about. He said, you know, one day this is one of those times in life and in history that all of us will look back on and have a story about, you know, it's a little bit like 9/11 or, you know, other times, you know, where everyone is focused on something said ten years from now, what story will we tell about this time? And I thought a lot about that, William, about will I be proud of the story I tell, you know? Well, I've just spent time in the basement hunkering down and or will I have seized the opportunity because, you know, the greatest value we can create many times during people's most challenging moments. And I've noticed that God seems to do his greatest work during our personal, most challenging moments. And I've seen a lot of that going on where a lot of the scrappy entrepreneurs out there are taking advantage of a time when there's a lot of despair and a lot of hurting people. And that's our opportunity to do some of our greatest work. So the question on my mind has been, will I be proud of the story I tell 10 years from now about what Payton and I and Roam did during the Corona virus? And we use that to help shape our whole culture. And what we've done during this time and. Seize the moment, carpe IDM, you know, seize the moment and then combine that with the fact that Chick fil A, we always used to talk about that every life is a story. And we used to say, how can we use our business as an opportunity to improve the story of those we do business with. So we've been trying to figure out how can we use this opportunity to improve the story of not only our own employees, but those we serve. And finally, true, it lived his whole life. His favorite verse was Proverbs 20 to one. A good name is rather to be chosen then great riches. So we try to use all of those thoughts to shape our decision make because all of us have had to make a lot of decisions during this time, some tough decisions. But I want to make sure we look back on the decisions that we made during this time and we're proud of those decisions. And those decisions helped improve the stories of those we do business with. Those decisions helped improve the stories of our employees, etc.. And how do we make sure that we maintain our good name during a time when it's not easy sometimes? You know, we all have difficult decisions to make during this time. How do we balance that with a good name? And that's what we've tried to do. I think that's what we've done, Peyton. And, you know, we've had to make a lot of hard decisions, but I think we'll look back 10 years from now and be proud of the decisions that we made during this time to do the right thing for the right reasons. Even when it hurts.
William Norvell: Amen. Peyton, do you have something that God's telling you today to pass along?
Peyton Day: Well, yeah, I have actually two things, and I'll make it really brief. First of all, it's something that David was talking about earlier in his talk. And this idea around, you know, the work is broken and going back to Genesis two. And when you really think about it, I think it's incumbent upon all of us as leaders to provide environments where people can thrive. And if we're going to ask employees to spend one hundred thousand hours of their life working, it only makes sense that we would provide an environment that is fun, meaningful and purposeful. And we you look at the numbers, 70 percent disengagement in the workplace. Imagine what it would look like if 100 percent of the people were fully engaged to what they do. And so it's just a constant reminder. You know, I think David and I share this and I know a lot of your listeners share this and I know Trevor does. It's just feeling some burden that we have. You know, as leaders in the workplace, not necessarily a burden, but an opportunity, a blessing to be able to provide environments where people can thrive. So my heart goes there quite often. And then the second thing is I go to something I heard recently from Tim Keller where he did a talk on Psalm 11 And it's this idea around when the foundations of the world tremble. Sometimes it seems like God is out of control, but he is not. And while we're all going through uncertain times today, guys are in control. He is the author of Our Lives. He knows what you and I are facing. And he will be our daily bread. And by definition, because he is our daily bread. He'll be our weekly bread, our yearly bread and our life bread. And he's going to give each of us whatever we need to face the challenges that we're facing today. And on the other side of this, we're going to come out better because God has done a great work in these days. And I truly believe that's what's going to happen in each of our lives.
William Norvell: Amen, great work. Well, thank you all for joining us. This has been a fun roundtable event to talk through a really hot topic right now. And then we went around a lot of things. And David, also appreciate you with the Chick fil A cup. You know, can't see that. Not everybody has video, but he's he's live in his marketing roots there.
David Salyers: I've got my shirt with the roam logo.
William Norvell: Staying On brand. This has been this super fun. I hope to have y'all back at some point in here how things have changed and how God has shown up, I hope and look forward to that day and four, five, six months, whatever that may be, where we can come back and say this is what God did in response to all of those things that we were praying for and looking for and trying our best to love and serve as he would have us. And so thank you.