As you know, through LOBBY Studio, we craft places for others by creating a concept that includes all the narrative part and brand identity.
But why people hire us, is also to challenge the business, ops and the P&L of their place.
And we had this cool conversation last week, about how to manage invisible revenue of a place.
The easiest way to look at a place is to look at what it sells.
Rooms. Coffee. Dinner. Desks. Objects. Tickets. Events. Whatever is written on the receipt.
That’s the visible revenue.
And of course, it matters a lot. I love poetry, but sadly poetry has never paid a supplier invoice on time. At least not in my experience.
But the more I work on hospitality projects, the more I think some of the most interesting value of a place doesn’t look like revenue at first.
A small event that creates trust. A newsletter that brings better clients. A house that becomes content, partnerships, and community before it becomes only nights sold.
These things don’t always look impressive in the first spreadsheet.
Sometimes they look like extra work and sometimes they look like small lines.
Sometimes they look like why are we doing this again?
But they can change everything.
Because a good place creates gravity. And gravity has value, even when the accountant doesn’t immediately know where to put it.
That’s one of the reasons I’m interested in hybrid hospitality. Not because every place should do everything. Please no. We don’t need a bakery-coworking-gallery-fitness-wine-radio concept in every empty garage.
But because when the layers are coherent, a place can create value in more than one direction.
The coffee sells coffee, yes. But it also brings people in. The event sells tickets, maybe. But it also creates community. The restaurant sells dinner, of course. But it can also lift the hotel’s desirability. The workspace sells desks, but it can also become a business development machine. The shop sells objects, but it also tells the story of the brand.
So this week, I want to talk about the invisible revenue of a place.
The value that doesn’t always appear first on the till, but can make the whole project stronger.
Let’s go deeeeeper right below:
