From Motel Rooms at 12 to Hotel Developer: Kal Patel

Anthony Codispoti: Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome adversity. As you listen today, let one idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today's guest grew up cleaning rooms and doing maintenance at his family's 15 room motel and swore he would never work in hospitality again. And he kept that promise. for about two years. A near fatal car accident, a business partnership that left him financially wiped out, and a fall off a roof that nearly cost him his arm all came before he turned 40. Each time he rebuilt. Each time he came back with a clearer understanding of what he actually wanted to build and why. Meet Kal Patel, founder and CEO of Crestpoint Companies. a hotel development and asset management firm based in Mason, Ohio. Over the past 17 years, Cal has developed multiple Marriott and Hilton branded properties, scaled a home inspection franchise to 11 locations across four states, launched an urgent care concept built around hospitality principles, and co-founded a social media agency now run by his daughter. He also published his first book, Fueled by Purpose, earlier this year. What makes Cal's story impactful isn't the number of companies he's built, it's that he figured out the difference between building a life and building a business and spent 25 years learning which one he actually wanted. But before we get into all that good stuff, Today's episode is brought to you by my company, AddBack Benefits Agency. And you'll want to hear this because it's hurting almost every business owner you know. Health insurance costs go up every single year and hotel owners are furious about it. They're paying more, claims are getting denied, employees are opting out because they can't afford it, and it hurts turnover and morale. It's one of the most maddening problems in running a business and everyone just accepts it. But you don't have to anymore. Now there's a program that gives employees unlimited access to doctors, therapists, and prescriptions with no co-pays or deductibles to meet. But here's the part that really shocks most people. Unlike with every other employee benefit out there, your net profits will actually increase. We recently helped a client add $900 per employee per year to their bottom line. Results vary, but gains like that change how a business is valued. Get your free consultation today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, the owner of Crestpoint and so much more, Cal Patel. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Kal Patel: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Anthony, for having me out here. Appreciate being on the podcast and this should be a little bit fun.

Anthony Codispoti: Let's get into it then. So Cal, you grew up working in your family's motels in Oklahoma, doing the grunt work, housekeeping, maintenance, alongside your parents and siblings. What was that time in your life like for you?

Kal Patel: So growing up as a kid, basically all of my friends are going out there riding bikes, playing, doing different things. Us growing up in the motel business, was my dad, my mom, my grandmother, my sister, my brother, and myself. We were the housekeeping, we were the maintenance. You name it, we did it, right? we'd want to bring friends over and my parents would be like, you can't bring friends over and play around here. This is a business. So missed out on a lot of opportunities of being able to have people come over and hang out. But it was fun, right? We would go sometimes whenever we got a chance, we'd go and hang out with people. it was, I looked at it in hindsight and say, I'm so glad that I did grow up doing what I did. Cause it taught me a lot about just the hard work, the even little things, how to do maintenance, how to do housekeeping, all those tasks and skills that become important as you grow up. And you know, back then, obviously I used to get frustrated, get mad at my parents. I remember running rooms at 12 years old. You know, we would wake up in the morning, we do housekeeping. And we wouldn't do the full housekeeping, but we would do some of the things of stripping down rooms, whatnot. And then we'd get on the bus and then go to school, come back and then work again. but again, it was the being together with the family and just learning how to work together. the perseverance, the grit kind of, it was, I looked back and it was definitely the best years, not then.

Anthony Codispoti: You look back on it with gratitude, but going through it at the time, you're probably like any kid, you're like, this sucks. Like, I hate all this work. Why can't my friends come over to play like we can at their house? Why do I have to be different in this?

Kal Patel: yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, was gonna say but very rewarding, very rewarding.

Anthony Codispoti: So go ahead. So how old were you when you leave and you go to Oklahoma or when you leave Oklahoma and you go to Colorado?

Kal Patel: So I actually was in, sorry, in Oklahoma for about 17 years. So I graduated through high school, left, went to college there at University of Oklahoma, a couple of other colleges too there in Oklahoma. And then in 1997, I got married, moved to Colorado. And the reason I moved to Colorado was every summer during the college and high school years, I would go visit my sister. who had a t-shirt shop out in Colorado. And I would spend the summers there working and just having fun, right? So I was learning about the shop and I got very curious about how they did things and I would try to help them improve some of the systems. just, you know, different things of inventory. They used to handwrite all the inventory for all these t-shirts, hundreds of them. And I looked up all this information, came up with some POS systems that we could actually create little barcodes and we printed them, put them on the t-shirts and we're able to do inventory. So it was fun trying to solve some of the problems and Colorado is naturally beautiful and loved it being out there every summer. So.

Anthony Codispoti: So while you continue to go to college in Oklahoma, were you still coming back and helping out with the family's hotel business or you were removed from that?

Kal Patel: No, I was pretty much removed from that. My brother would actually go down and help out a lot more than I would. I think he still gets mad at me for that sometimes because I would go to Colorado where, you know, having fun and he was helping out mom and dad. But no, it was a different learning experience. was still, you know, when I think about all the things and I've had odds and ends jobs throughout high school and college. They were all restaurant, retail. So it's all about hospitality. When you really look at the big picture, it's been always about hospitality. How do you take care of other people?

Anthony Codispoti: So, okay, you're spending summers in Colorado, your sister's there, she's got a t-shirt shop, you're enjoying the beautiful Colorado scenery, you're learning about the t-shirt shop, having fun, fixing some of the problems, barcodes, you know, is one example of that. But at some point you start your own t-shirt shop. How did that unfold?

Kal Patel: Yeah, so got married in 97. My wife's from Tennessee. We moved out to Fort Collins, Colorado. About three months before the wedding is when I decided, hey, we got to move out to Colorado. She loved it out there too. And I said, I want to open up my own t-shirt shop. So I got to Fort Collins, started scouting around, you know, locations to where I could open up the shop, found a location. didn't have any clue on how to actually sign up a lease agreement. good thing was Steve, one of the real estate agents there helped me with that. He kind of walked me through how to go through and get the lease signed, got an accountant, got an attorney, and we drafted up all the agreements, got it all together and right. Well, I'll get into how I actually got the t-shirt shop started, but the first step was obviously I got to get financing and. I didn't have any money.

Anthony Codispoti: Who's going to finance a recent college grad, right?

Kal Patel: Exactly. No credit. So it was one of those where I was like, okay, what do I do? So I went to a couple of banks. They're all, no, we're not going to loan you any money. So went out to the family and friends circuit. was $500 from one person, a thousand from another, so on and so forth. Basically borrowed $30,000 to get the t-shirt shop started. What I didn't realize then was the 30,000 was going to literally buy me the equipment and the merchandise, right? The inventory. Then I'm like, okay, now someone's got to do the build out of the space. so figured out how to be a contractor. Um, went in there, started redoing everything. Luckily, my wife's friend from college was a interior designer. So she helped me, you know, like come up with the design and everything. So. Right up until the wedding, I spent three months just trying to get the store ready, got it opened, hired my first person to work there, Renee, who is still a great friend of ours. And I said, Hey, Renee, you're going to watch over the store now. I got to go get married. So literally left a week after opening to go get married. Cause my wife was in Tennessee. My family was still in Oklahoma. So the wedding was in Tennessee. got married, came back and then started up just going out and talking to different vendors, different companies and growing the t-shirt shop. So.

Anthony Codispoti: How did you grow it? I mean, who was your target customer? Is this like somebody off the street or are you trying to work with businesses?

Kal Patel: It was both. it was a, you you see a lot of those humorous t-shirts, right? So we did a lot of those, but then we also did screen printing and we did embroidery. So Fort Collins is Colorado State University. So we would go around to all the different sports areas and, you know, even restaurants, businesses, and just say, Hey, if you need any logo shirts, things of that nature, a lot of the fraternities sororities, they would want their t-shirts made. So. We would, it was me, I would go out basically and have people at the store watching the store while I took off and went out and did marketing, sales. and it was going well. We were about a year into it and my wife got a job in Denver. And so we moved to Denver and then I was commuting back and forth. So it was a little bit of a challenge driving back and forth, but, we made it work. So.

Anthony Codispoti: And then I understand that it went from a challenge to near disaster. The reason the t-shirt shop ended was because you were in a very serious car accident. Someone crossed the median and hit you head on. Walk us through what you remember about that whole experience.

Kal Patel: Yeah, that's a, an unforgettable experience. beautiful day. I'm driving back from Fort Collins to Denver, doing the speed limit, just, you know, beautiful sunny day. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a car crosses the median. He lost control of his car. Went through the median hit me head on. And I literally flipped over four times, rolled over and, the car landed in the ditch. And I still remember getting out of the car. Well, I don't remember getting out of the car. I remember being outside of the car. People were hovering around me and I was like, I'm okay. And they're like, no, no, you're bleeding. And I had blood along this whole side of my head because I hit the passenger or the driver's side glass and shattered it. So ambulance comes, picks me up. We get to the hospital, my wife comes over there and that's when we decided this is too dangerous to go back and forth. mean, literally the only thing that saved me was the car had rollover bars. And so that protected me from getting crushed. So yeah, the way that they made it, it was a Volkswagen Jetta. So they have these rollover bars. like it. I don't know what this is what they explained to me. And they said, literally that's what saved you.

Anthony Codispoti: You had a car with rollover bars? kind of interior of the structure. Okay. Okay.

Kal Patel: Yeah, interior of the structure. Cause when my wife saw the car, she's like, there's no way. I mean, it was literally just smashed. so came out with some stitches, staples and I said, all right, I'm done. Let's sell the t-shirt shop. we sold it. Didn't make a huge profit because it was only open for a year, but I was able to pay everyone back. and you know, made, made a good clean slate there and, said, all right. I gotta see what's next now.

Anthony Codispoti: And so what's next was you end up making your way back to the very industry that you had sworn off. You're getting back into the hotel industry with a project in Castle Rock, Colorado, with three of your buddies. You raise some equity from family and friends again. You went to the library. I love this. To figure out how to read blueprints. You secured a franchise deal and a construction loan. All of these things, you had never done them before.

Kal Patel: Thanks.

Anthony Codispoti: Walk me through all of this and how you're figuring it out.

Kal Patel: No, so it was, was challenging. was one of those where, you know, now I always, when I talk to people and they say, Hey, how do you do this? I'm like, knowledge, you have to go get knowledge. You have to figure out what you don't know. And so obviously I didn't know how to go get a loan. So started talking to some people researching, going to the library, didn't have Google back then. So we were going to the library reading on how to write up a business plan. Uh, putting all this together. So literally typewriter, putting a business plan together, um, went to a bank said, Hey, I've got an idea. We want to build a hotel. And they said, okay, what experience do you have? And I said, well, I grew up in the motel business. You know, I had 20 some years of just literally. Taking care of front desk people, uh, or, you know, guests being as a front desk agent, doing maintenance. Um, you name it, we've done it. And they said, okay, but do you have any experience with running a franchise brand? Cause at the time we were looking at a days in and I said, yeah, you know, we've, have friends that have other franchise brands and I've talked to them. So I think this is something that I can definitely do. And the bank was like, well, do you have a franchise secured? said, not yet, but I'm working on that. And so then went over to the franchise side. filled out the application, got all that done. And there, that was a little easier because a lot of our Indian population was becoming franchisees. And so they looked at it and said, okay, you've got plenty of experience. You know, you've got three partners there that are also, uh, their parents were all in the hotel business as well. So, okay, we'll go ahead and give you guys the franchise. Went back to the bank and they said, okay, do you have land? Not yet.

Anthony Codispoti: Ha

Kal Patel: So start going out looking for land, found a spot in Castle Rock, negotiated with the landowner, ended up securing the land. And then next step was finding a general contractor. So I'm interviewing a few general contractors, landed on one K2 construction out of Boise, Idaho. I still remember those guys. They were incredible. Met them on the phone, said, hey, I've got a project at 64 room hotel. You know, what do you guys think? They said, yeah, we can build it. And so we got all that together. My only concern at that point is I don't really know anything about building a hotel. I'm trusting a contractor that I've never met before. So I said, I got to go to the library again, pick up some books on how to read blueprints. And I have a quick little funny story. So I walked into the trailer one day, the construction trailer, and I'm wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. I get in there and two or three guys are already there and they're talking about, you know, some LVLs having to be moved, whatnot. LVLs to support the beam structures of the, of the hotel and the interior. So I'm sitting there listening and they go, who are you? I go, I'm the owner. And they were like, okay. Well, you know, have you ever done this? And I said, no, I haven't built a hotel myself, but I've been around construction long enough to know.

Anthony Codispoti: LDLs.

Kal Patel: I understand what you guys are talking about. They're like, really? So was able to explain to them that I know what you're saying. If we replace this LVL and put this other beam in place and they were like, So it wasn't.

Anthony Codispoti: And you knew that from going to the library and reading about this?

Kal Patel: I knew enough to be dangerous, right? So I didn't know the full on detail about it, but I knew enough that they knew now that this guy actually does know a little bit about something. So, cause really in this world, what I found is when you don't know anything, they'll say all these terms, different things, and then you're just like trusting them and hoping that they're going to do the right thing. so, you know, It was really helpful to learn and over the years I'm a continuous learner. So I'm reading books and just trying to figure out, you know, how to solve some of these issues. So anyway, we get the hotel built in seven months, I want to say. Yeah, it was fast. was October. We started construction. We were opened by May. And the whole promise behind me even getting back in the hotel business was I don't want to be

Anthony Codispoti: That's fast.

Kal Patel: the front desk manager, I don't want to be the general manager. So with the partners, we decided we would hire a general manager. Well, a month or two before they were like, Cal, you really should become the manager because you've also got sweat equity in this deal. You know, you've got dollars that you've put in. Um, why would you want to trust an outside general manager? And I was like, man, I don't want to relive my childhood. Right. And so I was like, all right, maybe they're right. I should go ahead and run it. So I start running the hotel. My wife is working for Accenture. She's traveling Monday through Friday, gone every week. About a year and a half into it, I remember reliving my childhood. I was doing front desk call-offs from Housekeeper. was making rooms. I think I remember what really did it for me was 72 hours straight that I had to work. And that was not fun.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah.

Kal Patel: At that point I decided, know, Hey partners, got to, I'm going to hire a manager. And one of the partners was like, no, you know, I'll come out and run it. I said, okay, that's fine too. So he comes out, they take over. I ended up moving to Cincinnati with my wife because at that time she was still traveling and Delta was a hub for Cincinnati at that time. So it made sense for us to live where she could fly in and out pretty easy. My family was in Ohio by then. Her family's in Tennessee. Kind of made sense.

Anthony Codispoti: your family had sold their hotel there. Okay, now they're in Cincinnati. Okay.

Kal Patel: Yeah. They're in Cincinnati. My brother's in Cincinnati. So I was like, all right, it makes sense. You we'll move to Cincinnati. So we get here and about a month later, I get a fax with a capital call and we were short to keep the operations of the hotel. Well, I don't have any additional capital and I was still looking for a job. So I said, I can't put any money up. And so naturally diluted some of my shares. A couple more capital calls, ended up getting the rest of the dilution done. And so I had lost my 150,000 that I had borrowed from friends and family. That was tough.

Anthony Codispoti: That's brutal.

Kal Patel: Yeah, that was tough.

Anthony Codispoti: Talk to me about these capital calls. What was going on with the business? Was this a strategy on their part? Was this like legitimate, like, we're just in a cash crunch?

Kal Patel: Yeah, I mean, look, at end of the day, and I've run multiple hotels since then, there are times when cash crunches happen. Me being disconnected so much, I didn't know really what was going on. my, inside my hope is that, you know, things just weren't working for it, for the hotel, and that's why they had to do what they did. And it's all in hindsight now. So, and I've talked to all three of the partners afterwards. Took me a couple of years to really call him and talk to him, but I did and, you know, kind of said, kind of leave it behind whatever happened. So that was all from a mentor of mine, Craig Oberg, who, when I first met him, he was like, you, you look like you have so much weight on your shoulders. And I told him about what all had happened. goes, Kyle, you gotta, you gotta let that go. You gotta call those folks and just make good. So.

Anthony Codispoti: Wow, bigger man. That's good.

Kal Patel: That was, it was a tough part.

Anthony Codispoti: Did you agree with him initially when he said that? or... No. Because you're like, what did I do wrong? Right?

Kal Patel: No, it took me like two months for him to, you know, like, tell me and, right. And, and that's, that was his point. He goes, it's not that you did anything wrong. It's not that they did anything wrong. You just got to let it go. Like you got to get the weight off your shoulders and say, Hey guys, it happened. I'm past it. If I see you anywhere, I'd like to be able to come up and shake your hands and, you know, give you a hug. So, and we've gotten to that, which is great. so it was.

Anthony Codispoti: That's tremendous. How long? What about what about that $150,000 that you had borrowed from friends and family? Was that something you were able to pay back?

Kal Patel: It was challenging. Seven years. I got a job working at Valley Total Fitness. My wife kept working and she's the main reason. mean, without having a solid partner that is going to stay with you through the thick and thin, there's no way that I would have made it. So, but we paid everyone back with interest and made good and yeah.

Anthony Codispoti: And then I understand Craig, your mentor, pointed you in a different direction.

Kal Patel: He did. So I met him at Valley Total Fitness where I was a general manager. And it's so funny because I was probably in the best shape of my life when I was there working. So, and again, Lino was still traveling. So I would be at the fitness club and after work, Craig was a personal trainer there. Him and I would go out and have coffee and we just chat about life, whatnot. And he kept asking me, what are you doing next? And I said, I don't know. And he goes, well, how about the hotel business? already know it well. I said, no, no, Been there, done that. Don't want to do that again. And he's brought up multiple different businesses. And he also taught at Honduras college, the real estate certification course. He had also taught home inspections, different appraisals whatnot. So I, he told me about the home inspections and I think you would be really good at it. And yeah, and I was like, what's a home inspection? I'd never lived in a home because I always lived at a hotel or in an apartment. So I'm like, why do people get houses inspected? It was, he explained it, said, go take the two week course. Don't take it from me. Go, you know, go up to Columbus, take it up there, see what you think about it. And I said, okay. So it took two weeks off from valleys. Cause just in case I didn't like it.

Anthony Codispoti: home inspections. Okay. Okay.

Kal Patel: wanted to make sure I had a job, went up there, spent two weeks and I loved it. It was, it was related to construction, which I had really gotten good at. and you're going into people's houses, walking them through the mechanical electrical plumbing, all the systems explaining why they're important. And you're helping people with one of the biggest decisions in their life. And to be an expert and help them through that decision making just felt wonderful, right? And then the bonus is you get paid. So it was nice. It was rewarding job. And so I thought, all right, I'll go ahead and start doing home inspections. And there was a guy up in Columbus that I went to work for. He was actually the instructor and ended up working for about three months. We didn't see eye to eye. So I came back. And I said, Craig, I just want to start up our own company. And so we started up first Ohio Inspection Services. Not knowing that we would actually grow this, right? So it was first Ohio Inspection Services, went out and started marketing. Literally, I would spend eight hours a day just knocking on real estate doors, real estate agent stores, trying to tell them why they should refer me as a home inspector. Biggest challenge there was I'm a young kid. I don't fit the pro. This was 30 to maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, but, know, when you look at the demographic of a home inspector, there is a, yeah, they're, they're typically in their fifties. They've done construction or, you know, something and.

Anthony Codispoti: How old are you at this point, Cal? How old? Number 32. Okay, not young, but not that young. You got a little experience, but. They're older, yeah. Yeah, they look like me.

Kal Patel: No, no, So, you know, it was one of those where that was challenging. People would, and I had people ask me, how long you've been doing this? Do you even know what you're doing? I'm like, yes, I went through the courses, I've built stuff, I know what I'm, and so it was challenging, but it was fun trying to overcome those challenges. Met some great real estate agents at the beginning of that, and it really helped launch what I was trying to do. And things were going great. I had two guys working. For me and so we had you know, we were covering all of Cincinnati Dayton Columbus. I mean I was driving three four hours just to do an inspection and It was fantastic. Things were amazing. I Well, so

Anthony Codispoti: until because because you're the you're doing all the work right you're you're up on the roof you're what unfolds now what happens next

Kal Patel: Absolutely. All right, that was right when we had just bought our house. My wife was pregnant. We had Dharma and my older one, and it was about a year into it. She's a year old, almost a year old. We were gonna have our second one too. My wife's pregnant with the second one. So August 8th, I wanna say it was August 8th. Yeah, it was like August 8th. in Fairfield doing a home inspection up on the roof. And this is it was my mistake, but I wanted to do a thorough job. And so I'm on the on a roof and there's a second roof. So I was like, all right, I got to pull the ladder up, put it on the shingles and I go up to the second roof. Coming down, the ladder slips and I fall 18 feet down on the concrete. Completely shattered my right arm. Can't straighten it out anymore. It's got all kinds of, yeah, I've got rods in here, rods in here, about 12 screws, but I'm alive. So fall off, go to the hospital. and my wife both come there. And the first thing they told my wife, by the way, she's nine months pregnant, right? The doctor's like, yeah, we're going to possibly have to amputate his arm. And I'm sitting here and they've got me drugged up and I'm sitting there listening. like, why would you say that to her? She's pregnant. And my wife was like, okay, Craig, we got to shut the business down. And of course I'm arguing with them and they're like, it's okay, he's on drugs. He doesn't understand what's happened.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah.

Kal Patel: And so I said, guys, just leave it alone right now. We'll talk after. so, yeah, it was.

Anthony Codispoti: After what? Like, because clearly you're here, you've got your arm, they didn't amputate, but there was some kind of like major reconstructive surgery that they needed to do.

Kal Patel: Yeah, it was a total of nine surgeries over six months. So it was, had compartment syndrome where I almost lost arm, had rods sticking out. And so five days later, go home on August 14th, my wife gives birth to our younger one, Sia, and less than a week later. So my wife's in the hospital for a week, comes home.

Anthony Codispoti: This is less than a week later. my gosh.

Kal Patel: has to leave the next day to go back. I went with her and I did give, you know, help with the first bath, one-handed. But it was, and thank God my parents were here, my brother was here, you know, all the family was here. My wife's side of the family came up to help. It was so crucial. If they weren't here, there's no way we would have been able to pull through all that.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah. And so what's going on with the business during the birth of your second child, the nine reconstructive surgeries.

Kal Patel: Yeah, yeah. So that's where it gets fun, right? So I had read a book called E-Myth Revisited years before. And so everything I had done for the business was set up in systems. So the guys were actually doing the inspections. The calls would come in, they would route it and they would just go do what they need to. So it was set up already systematically to where the business could continue. So I basically did marketing because I had my phone, I had my Laptop I can work from anywhere. So I'm at home Sitting there just taking the calls scheduling inspections doing what I need to and it continued to grow and a couple of years later We started franchising That was a whole different Yeah, would you like me to share a little bit about how that whole thing even started? Yeah

Anthony Codispoti: How you guys transitioned into actually franchising your own concept? Yeah, let's hear about that. Because I understand, let's just paint the picture today, you've got 11 locations across four states. So yeah, tell us how that unfolds.

Kal Patel: Yeah. Yeah. So one of my wife's, uh, friend, her brother wanted to open up a home inspection company in New Jersey. And so he called me and said, Hey, Cal, how do I set up a company? Four weeks I'm on the phone telling him how to do it, emailing him everything, saying, here's my sample reports. Here's, you know, here's everything you need to do. Four weeks later, he's like, can I just pay you? And we'll just set up a location up here. And I was like, Fantastic franchise. So got the FDDs created by the attorneys, got the, you know, whatever legal box I had to get ready, got him signed on and we just started growing from that. And it's been an amazing journey. So we've got, it's all been internal growth. So it's folks that have either worked for one of our franchisees that say, Hey, I want to go set up my own franchise. And so it's just kind of scaled on its own. organically.

Anthony Codispoti: You're not really doing any marketing. You don't have like a broker out there pushing this for you.

Kal Patel: No, and I've had multiple brokers call me. We've set up booths at different, you know, home inspection events. But for me, it's really about the quality of the person versus just getting a check and saying we're growing. And this will be 24, 23rd year just finished. And it's amazing. Everyone's like family. So all the franchise owners, come in once a year. We have a conference here. We'll spend three days with CE courses. And then we have a great time at the end of the day, end of the conference. We have one day where we just have a great time. And it's amazing. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti: That's really cool. So I understand this is going well, continues to go well to today. And then in 2008, you get a call from a friend about building hotels again. You said no, I've had enough of that. But he said something that changed your mind. What was it?

Kal Patel: Yeah. Yeah, so 2008 I sold my Cincinnati location for the home inspection business. So now they're all franchise locations. So then it became a now what and my plan was to just continue growing the inspection company and buddy of mine calls me up and says, hey. I want to go build a hotel. I know you've built. I've built one. And I said, that's great, but I don't want to do it. And he's like why? And I said, I don't want to manage. I love building them. love developing them. I really don't want to get into the management of hotels." And he said, good, neither do I. I said, okay, well, how are we going to solve this one? And he said, well, there's got to be people out there that have management companies. We can just bring them in as a partner. I said, okay, that's a good idea. I like that. Don't know why I never thought about it, but it's good. At least the idea came up. And so we went to a conference. Sitting down at a breakfast table, people we don't know struck up a conversation and they said, hey, we'd love to partner with you guys. We'll come in as equity partners. We'll be the management company. You guys be the developer. Let's do it. And so we started our first project up in Columbus and built the first hotel. It was a hundred room holiday express. And we got that launched, got it successfully opened. And then. we started looking at doing the next one and we did a second location up in Columbus, we did a Hampton Inn. And then I decided I'm gonna start doing my own development stuff and management, which was...

Anthony Codispoti: now you're changing your mind. Now you're going to want to get into the management space.

Kal Patel: Well, it that was also an accident. in 2011, I get a call from another friend who says, Hey Cal, I need you to manage a hotel for just two weeks. I'm like, for two weeks? Like that doesn't even make sense. And he's a broker. And he was like, look, we've got a hotel that's going into receivership. We need you to be the court appointed receiver and run it for two years, for two weeks. And I was like, all right, one. I don't know what a court appointed receiver is. So he goes, we'll go Google it. So get on Google, look it up. I'm like, okay. Right. Yeah. So go through, figure out what a receivership is. Said, okay, this won't be too bad. It's two weeks. It's five minutes from my house. And so was like, all right, I'll do it. Go to the court, did my oath, said I'll run this thing, you know, for, for the bank and for the court.

Anthony Codispoti: And now you don't have to go to the library like the old days. You've got Google right there at your fingertips. Okay.

Kal Patel: So I get in there two weeks later, the person who's gonna buy the hotel backs out. So my buddy calls and he's like, hey, get some bad news and good news. I go, okay, give me the bad news first. He goes on the fire walk. I go, what's the good news? He goes, you can continue to run the hotel and still make money from the management fee. I'm like, I don't like managing these things. And so, yeah, it was one of those where I was like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this again? And one of my other good friends that used to work at Valley Total Fitness, was the operations manager. Him and I always stayed in touch. He was out in Virginia and I was telling him about all this and he goes, well, why don't you start up a management company? I said, I don't want to do the management. He was okay. What if I moved there and I'll head up the management company. All right, move out here. Lo and behold, December 31st, 2011, he shows up and says, I'm here. And so. we started up the management company. Started growing from that. We did six receiverships total. We did third. We did and then we got into third party management and then we started managing the properties we were building and owning. So at one point time we got to 17 hotels.

Anthony Codispoti: You kind of found yourself a niche there. in a business that you never really wanted, but now you're really cooking.

Kal Patel: And correct. Correct. So yeah, it was, it was quite a ride, a roller coaster ride. we get to 17 and I'm like, man, I'm just right back where I was again. I'm running around taking care of all these hotels, you know, where we've got personnel issues and things of that nature. So I went back to our original partner. who did the management for us. I said, Hey, I'm looking at transitioning this over. And so the third party managements, receiverships went away. The six hotels that we owned, we basically transitioned and merged with their management company. And Jed, my business partner, Buddy, went over to them and basically started running all of our hotels via them. So now I'm outside of the management side. but still continuing on the development. correct, correct. So, yeah, and then obviously COVID happens and that was a whirlwind for the hotel industry, for everyone, but the hotel industry got impacted very heavily.

Anthony Codispoti: which is the part that you still enjoy. And so what's the state of your involvement in the hotel space today?

Kal Patel: So I took back the management post COVID and I have six hotels. We have five and I've got one under construction. So, and then I'm doing a third party development, just building for another gentleman. So that's where I enjoy myself doing more of, but the management it's when you have great people that know what they're doing.

Anthony Codispoti: for how many locations? Okay.

Kal Patel: It's so easy, right? But it's, it's the challenges come when, you know, personnel changes, things happen and you just gotta, you gotta, you gotta be involved so heavily to make sure that it's running right. but

Anthony Codispoti: And so all the hotel work that you're doing, this is under the Crest Point umbrella. So crestpointco.com is where people can go to see more about that. Yeah. Crestpointco.com. If you've got a hotel you want developed, want to learn more about the properties that Cal has, crestpointco.com. So COVID was a real whirlwind. When do you feel like you were finally kind of

Kal Patel: Right. Absolutely. Yep. Yep.

Anthony Codispoti: getting back on your feet in the hotel space post-COVID.

Kal Patel: I really, to be 100 % honest, I still don't feel like I'm back in the saddle. It's one of those where, I mean, I was at one of the hotels yesterday, taking care of some touch-up paint stuff that needed to be done, because my maintenance guys are busy at the other hotels, and it's just sitting there. And I'm one of those that's hands-on, right? I just want to get in there, get it taken care of. But that gets hard juggling with multiple businesses, work-life balance, which my wife would say I have no work-life balance, but I enjoy what I do, so I don't call it work. People always tell me, they're like, man, you must love what you do. And I go, I do. Otherwise it'd be work. So I thoroughly enjoy everything. know, Anthony, I'm going to share something with you. During COVID, my mom passed away. And that was a, both my mom and dad ended up in the hospital with COVID. And my dad's older, has multiple health problems. We thought he was going to be the one that leaves, but instead my mom ended up leaving. And so that was a, that was a very challenging time during that 2020, 21 period.

Anthony Codispoti: you able to visit her?

Kal Patel: Yeah. Um, she, she went to the hospital and then we went, we couldn't really go. I mean, we had to full mask on to even go see her, but it was one at a time that we got to go see her. Um, and then she was on the ventilator for quite a while and then, you know, things didn't end up, but, um, she's, she was my biggest cheerleader. She would always, uh, you know, anything good, bad. She was always there. And so I miss her dearly. I miss her dearly. But she, I was going to say, go ahead. I'll let you.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah. What got you through that hard time? What continues to get you through that? I mean, you've had this cheerleader your whole life through all the ups and downs, giant roller coaster, you know, that we've heard about.

Kal Patel: Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti: Where do you go for that source of encouragement now?

Kal Patel: So when she passed, I actually started journaling and I would go to the high schools and I'd talk about entrepreneurship, whatnot, and just share my story. And I had a lot of people that would say, hey, Cal, you should write a book. And I was like, about what? And they go, what you've been through. Like this is a, it's inspiring. It's a story that makes me want to go do something. And I said, I don't know. And so was journaling because that was really what was helping me through that greeting process was just journaling, just writing down. And so I started writing down from when I first started, you know, migrated from India to the U S and just started writing and writing and writing. And it took me about three years and I finally got my first book finished up. so it was fueled by purpose. So, and it's dedicated to my mom. So.

Anthony Codispoti: What's that called? And so what do people find in this book? just, this is the, it follows your story from, you know, coming from India to America and all the kind of ups and downs that we've talked about.

Kal Patel: Yeah, it goes through the details of, uh, and it's a short read. It's like a hundred pages, but it really just kind of goes into the different phases of life that have happened. really my message that I, even when I talk to people at the high schools or when I've spoken at events, it's not so much about where I'm at today. It's about the pitfalls that You know, I've went through that most people go through. Um, you don't get successful by not talking about the things that have set you back. Right. Um, I think the most value, the most lessons, the most, uh, growth and learning occurs when you have mistakes, when you have things that go bad, that don't always go the way you intended. Um, it's a roller coaster. It's a heartbeat, right? I always tell people, go, a heartbeat does this. If it does this, you're gone.

Anthony Codispoti: I haven't heard that explained that way before. I like that.

Kal Patel: Yeah, so life is like a heartbeat. It's got to go up and down. So, but.

Anthony Codispoti: It goes up and down, yeah. So the book is out, where can people find it? Fueled by purpose.

Kal Patel: You can go to fuelbypurpose.com or even on my LinkedIn profile I've got it on there.

Anthony Codispoti: And how would you describe your purpose?

Kal Patel: It is fueled by helping others. think everything I look back at every time and I forgot to mention this. So back in, I want to say it was seventh grade when I was in middle school or high school going into high school. My parents used to give us $2 to go buy lunch. It was always the same old lunch. And so I saved up $10 Monday through Friday, went to a payphone called a pizza place that delivered said, Hey, I want to order a large pizza. It was 10 bucks. They brought it. I sit down, open it up. All my friends come over and they're like, where'd you get the pizza? And they go, can I buy a slice? I'm like, sure. Two bucks. So all 10 slices, two bucks each. They all ate. They all felt great. I doubled my money. went out and. the next day ordered more. And so, you know, it's, helping others. And, that wasn't my intent to make money, right? That's not why I ordered the pizza, but it naturally happened. And so it's like, I think if you have the right intent of doing the right thing, helping people, everything else kind of falls in place. Should, doesn't always. So.

Anthony Codispoti: So let's talk about another one of your businesses where you get to help a lot of folks. Tell us about the urgent care concept.

Kal Patel: Yeah. So right after COVID, I had been going through a magazine and I saw an ad for urgent care. And I was like, wait, you don't have to be a doctor to own an urgent care? Cause I was not, you had to. And so my mom always wanted me be a doctor. So I was like, all right, this is as close as I'm getting to, you know, being in the medical field is to own and operate a urgent care. So. Started with the first one in 23 and opened that up, brought in lot of the hospitality elements into it. you correct. So yeah, so, you know, typically I'm a frequent visitor of urgent cares hospitals and I don't like it because you walk in, it's a very, just an eerie feeling, right? It's not a welcoming feeling. You walk in most of time.

Anthony Codispoti: hospitality into healthcare. Okay, I gotta hear about this. It's sterile. It's cold. Yeah.

Kal Patel: Yeah, it's cold, right? So when you walk into our urgent care, we've got ceiling clouds, sorry, cloud ceilings that are LED. And so it looks like you're walking into the outdoors. We have live moss walls, plants on the walls. again, giving you kind of a feel of being outdoor. We've got a music frequency that's playing at I forget exactly, it's like 943 megahertz, but it's supposed to naturally make you feel better. We have a espresso machine that is just like the ones you would find in our hotels. Brought that in so that people aren't having to put their fingers on a curicup. You're at an urgent care. Why would you want people touching K cups? Like, doesn't make sense. So just little things, right? It's not like it's massive. But those little things add up. And then when you talk about patient care, again, hospitality, we're there to serve you, right? So same thing over here. The concept is, hey, when a patient comes in, let's take care of them and let's have them in and out efficiently. So it's been wonderful. Our staff is amazing. yeah, so it's been a fun experience. we did.

Anthony Codispoti: And so where, what is your urgent care called? Where is it? Is it a single location?

Kal Patel: It's yeah, single location. It's in Westchester, Ohio, and it's the AFC urgent care Mason VOA Westchester.

Anthony Codispoti: What does AFC stand for?

Kal Patel: American Family Care. So it is a franchise. So I think they have over 420 locations now. So pretty big company.

Anthony Codispoti: and you're enjoying this, you've been able to bring in a lot of your own hospitality touches to it. Any thoughts of expanding? Do you want more locations?

Kal Patel: So we did originally sign up to do 10 locations. So we'll see how things go. Part of this also is gonna be what's my next five years look like. I'm 54 now, so I am looking at what's my exit plan on some of these things. So that's to be determined yet.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay. Speaking of what's next or what's already in process for those folks watching the video version, Cal is wearing a shirt that says social sci on it. Tell us what is social sci.

Kal Patel: This is probably my well, so first inspections I was telling everyone that was my first baby Social size is probably my second baby And it's very near and dear Yes, yes aside from them. So Yes, yes my work babies and the social side started about five years ago

Anthony Codispoti: Aside from your actual babies. Yes. These are these are your work babies. Yeah.

Kal Patel: And it was out of the pure necessity of someone needed to take care of our social media for our inspection companies and our hotels. And I went through at least two or three different companies hiring people to do it. I kid you not the inspection company. I, one of them social agencies that I hired, they put up an ad with a house, Palm trees in New Jersey and said, do you need a home inspection? I'm like, really? I mean, you know, that's all stock photos and I went to both my daughters and I was like, Hey, do you guys think you could do this? And so I was like, yeah, dad, I could do it. was like, okay. So I gave her access to 15 Facebook logins, 15 LinkedIn logins, and she would go in there and create.

Anthony Codispoti: Wait, you didn't start her out with just one to see how she did. Like you just opened it all up and said, okay. Okay.

Kal Patel: Well, no, you're right. You're right. So I did do, I did a trial run, but I knew she would do it because these kids are so talented. and she's, she's a marketing major. She just, she'll actually graduate May 10th from Ohio State University. So, you know, I knew she was. Yeah. Yeah. So very exciting. So she's, she's basically, you know, have the talent to do all that. And so I said, okay, let's see what you can do. So she put a few together and I was like, this is good.

Anthony Codispoti: That's a few days from the recording of this, folks, so very exciting.

Kal Patel: Let's go, let's roll with it. So, but it got to be a lot because she's managing logging into each of these things. So I started researching saying, okay, how can we find a platform that we can utilize or some kind of software, something, and we ended up finding the right platform, but it was going to come with a cost. So I went to sign and I said, listen, we've to make this into an official company. And she was, let's do it dad. So Social Sci became an official company through her college career. She continued working doing it. She has three interns working for her right now and we've grown to 27 clients. So it's not just.

Anthony Codispoti: So this is outside of just your ecosphere. So what other kinds of businesses is she working with?

Kal Patel: Correct. she's got a real estate brokerage, but it's all commercial. She's got a insurance company she's talking to right now. She's got a healthcare, Medicare, Medicare advisor company that she's doing, energy solution company. do like they help with rebates and whatnot. two doctors offices and then one catering business. And I forget the other one.

Anthony Codispoti: How did she find these businesses or how do they find her?

Kal Patel: So they're finding her because of things that don't contact me and say, hey, who's doing your social media? We love it. Like, social sciat. So I transitioned it over, led her. Probably about six months ago is when she really started taking over. And that was because of her mom. Her mom basically said, okay, you're graduating. You either go find a job or you need to have X amount of clients so that you can pay yourself what you would if you were working.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay.

Kal Patel: She just picked up her last client that she needed two weeks ago. Yes. Yep. So a lot of fun. And then my older daughter, she's doing architecture. She's in doing her master's at university of Cincinnati. She'll be graduating next year. Part of my personal internal goal is that she'll take over the development side of the company.

Anthony Codispoti: in order to get her to a sustainable point of wages of income. Okay, that's fantastic. Wow.

Kal Patel: She doesn't want anything to do with the management. Neither does my younger one. They're both like that. We don't want anything to do with that.

Anthony Codispoti: Well, they've heard the way that you've talked about it for the last how many years.

Kal Patel: Absolutely. But she loves the, you know, the older one loves the development side, the architectural side. So I'm like, that might be a natural fit for you. So keeping my fingers crossed that she'll eventually come over to this side of it, but we'll see what happens. Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti: lots of fun stuff. And the type of social media work that your daughter, Sia, does with social Sia is what? This is just like organic, like Facebook posts and TikTok and Instagram.

Kal Patel: Yeah, so what we'll do is we'll do social media content creation. So creating videos, creating posts, static posts, call to action, those kind of things for all the platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok. And then we'll also do listings management to make sure that your business is actually listed. There's over probably 200 platforms out there, right? You think about Google, but then there's Bing, Yelp, Yahoo, all these different platforms. And then with the AI happening right now, there's even more, right? You've got all the cars that have their own GPS software in there and all of those, if you're not listed, you're not going to appear at the top when people search you.

Anthony Codispoti: Did you say all the cars that have the GPS?

Kal Patel: So Mercedes has their own their own little platform Apple, BMW, all these different. So you have to get listed because they're basically working together with ways or whoever to integrate. And so there's so much behind the scenes. I didn't realize there's over 200 platforms out there that you're not. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti: I didn't either. But yeah, it really helps from an SEO perspective helps you get found on the search engines. Now it helps you get the AEO the you know, AI, you know, optimization. So that's really cool stuff.

Kal Patel: It does. yeah. That then we do review management, which is very important. People don't respond to reviews, business owners. They'll just say, I got a positive review. You got to respond to it because again, Google and the web crawlers are out there looking to say, is the business responsive? If they're not, their rank is lower. So that's a huge one.

Anthony Codispoti: So just getting good reviews isn't enough. Showing that you are a responsive business and you're interacting with those reviews is a big signal as well. And that's a big part of what SIA does.

Kal Patel: Right. Yep. That is and then we do website design and then we're just starting with the SEO, AEO optimization. So she's growing. Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay, natural migration into those services, because you're already laying the foundation with a lot of that social media work. Okay, so I also want to talk about Comet Skippers. a jump rope team that you've been coaching for 15 years. You got started with this when your daughters were competing, but your daughters are long gone from the team and you're still out there.

Kal Patel: Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti: keeps you showing up for that.

Kal Patel: So my daughter started when she was three, Saiya did, so it's been a little over 17 years now, think. 16, yeah, something like that. The last two years I have taken a step back and I try not to go in as much on coaching days. I still help out with all the technology side of things and I'm still on the board for the team. it was hard right after they graduated for me to just quit because you build relationships with all these kids. And so the kids that were freshmen, I still had ties with them and you kind of want to see them go through and get to that, you know, finish stage. so intentionally last couple of years, I told other coaches, said, I'm going to pop in just every once in a while because I can't get close to these kids. Cause if I do, I'm going to be here forever. So, so, so

Anthony Codispoti: Each new batch of freshmen is going to hook you for another four years.

Kal Patel: I know, I know. you know, all of them, and I've said this to many people, I'm like, if I can impact one kid out of the whole year, I've done awesome. Like I feel great about myself knowing that I impacted one person. Cause you can't hit all of them, right? But if I can at least impact one, so it's funny because they would actually, we have six coaches, each one of us has our specialty and I became more of a, life coach, where I would sit down with them and say, okay, what do you see yourself doing when you get done with high school? Where are you going to college? Okay. When you're done with college, what's your next step? And I would kind of open up some areas of thought that they, they may have never thought about, you know, cause people casually ask, but when I said, we're going to sit down, we're going to have coffee and I want to know about these things. And if you don't have the answer, it's okay, write it down and let me know. And so. Just trying to help people along the way. Again, when you think about that book, Fueled by Purpose, my purpose is to help impact other people's lives. If I can do that, I've done my job.

Anthony Codispoti: It's really cool.

Kal Patel: So.

Anthony Codispoti: I've just got one more question for you today, Cal. But before I ask it, I want to do three quick things for the audience. First of all, if you want to get in touch with Cal, I'm going to give you the socialsaiya email address. it's cal, which is K-A-L at socialsaiya and saiyaya is S-A-I-Y-A. I'm going to have this in the show notes, folks, but Cal is K-A-L at socialsaiya is saiyaya.com. cal at social sci.com. Again, it's in the show notes, go to inspired stories podcast.com to see that. And if you're enjoying the show today, please take a moment to subscribe wherever you're listening. It also sends a signal that helps others discover our podcast. So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now. And as a reminder, you can finally get your hotel employees access to therapists, doctors, and prescription medications that counter intuitively actually increases your company's net profits. No co-pays, no deductibles, net profit increases that change how the business is valued. So contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. Last question for you today, Cal. A year from today, what is one very specific thing that you hope to be celebrated?

Kal Patel: That's a tough one. One thing.

Anthony Codispoti: I won't limit you to one thing if you've got a few. Go for it.

Kal Patel: So yeah, I would say one, I am wanting to slowly exit out of the hotel ownership management side. So to have that off-plated, but then continue with the development side. For me, social sci-yah, like seeing that take off, that's gonna be what I'm really looking forward to. That's gonna be amazing. And you know.

Anthony Codispoti: Will you get, will you be involved in the business development side of things there? Or just kind of like a sideline coach or?

Kal Patel: So actually, I'll be more of a board of advisors. So I've told Saia, I said, I really want you, because right now she doesn't own the company, right? Because I told her, I want to make sure you're going to embrace this and do it. So the goal is for her and my wife to actually own it. And they'll be the owners. I'll be the board of advisors. I'll help them. My wife wants to retire. She's done with the Accenture. She's been there 27 years and she's done an amazing job. But I think she's also ready to kind of pivot. So hopefully this can all work out. And then my older one, I've already got a company name set up for her that if she wants to do her architecture, I can help again, get her launched. And it'd be amazing to just be able to have the family. Like we're all working together. You know, I look back at my childhood as much as I didn't like it then. I appreciate it so much today. And I think the same thing is going to end up happening 30 years later.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, love it. Cal Patel, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing with your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate you being here.

Kal Patel: So. Well, thank you for having me on your show. Appreciate it.

Anthony Codispoti: Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put that into action today.