When you’re facing failed QA inspections, bad guest reviews, and the threat of losing your franchise flag, there’s no time for slow fixes—you need a turnaround expert. Jake Isaacs has made a career out of stepping into these high-pressure situations and leading hotels back to health.

In this episode of The Room Key, Jake sits down with Chase Keller to discuss his remarkable journey: growing up across the U.S., launching his first business in high school, entering hospitality as a chief engineer, and quickly rising to general manager.

Jake walks us through a real-world turnaround story—how he revived a struggling SpringHill Suites in Dallas, passed critical QA inspections, rebuilt guest satisfaction scores, and did it all without big budgets. He shares insights on leadership, cross-training teams, removing “pain points” for guests, and why a $7 toilet flapper can be worth thousands in revenue.

Whether you’re a hotel owner, manager, or just love behind-the-scenes stories of operational success, this episode delivers practical takeaways and inspiring leadership lessons.

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) One of my very early mentors in the

hospitality space told me, she told me one

day, she's like, if you're not doing something

every day to teach someone how to do

something that you know how to do, then

you've wasted your time.

Thanks for coming in, drop your bags and

welcome to the Today, I am exceptionally excited

to have Jake Isaacs come on to the

podcast.

He's got some very interesting stories.

Jake, when I first heard about what you've

done in hospitality, the only thing in my

mind is Winston Wolfe from Pulp Fiction.

You're coming in with your tux and you

are taking care of business.

Taking care of business, exactly.

But first off, I love origin stories.

Sure.

Jake, where were you born?

Where'd you grow up?

Yeah.

So that's kind of a funny story.

By the time I turned 18, my parents

had moved 12 times.

And so I have lived all across the

United States.

It's been just a real blessing to be

able to experience so much of this great

country.

So for the longest time, I told people

that I was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but

that's actually a lie because my real birthplace

was Nashua, New Hampshire, not even the same

state.

But I could spell Boston a lot easier

than I could spell Nashua, New Hampshire.

And so I just rolled with that.

Yeah.

And so like on all of my government

forms, I have through 40 years of my

life, put Boston, Massachusetts as my place of

birth.

All right.

As long as you're consistent.

Yeah, I'm consistent.

Exactly.

So, you know, but I was born in

born in Nashua, New Hampshire, and my family

just moved around a lot.

My dad was in sales and I joke

that he was either really good at what

he did or he sucked at it.

But like every time we just kind of

kept climbing the ladder and go in different

places and he seemed to have more influence

and more success everywhere he went.

Yeah.

Did you have a favorite place?

Yeah.

I think that when I think about my

childhood and like where I'm from, we spent

my elementary school years here in Kansas City

where we're recording this episode.

And that is when I think about the

most fond memories of my childhood.

It all stems from Kansas City.

OK.

So, yeah.

Who was Jake as a kid?

I mean, my mom would probably disagree with

what I'm about to say, but I think

Jake as a kid, he was he was

very driven.

I have a brother who's 16 months younger

than I am.

And so I was a protector.

He and I have been best friends our

entire lives.

We we had to be because we were

like our own support network as we moved

around the country to all of these different

places.

Sure.

So he was athletic.

He was fun.

He struggled in school and he he had

a heart for protecting people.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

All right.

So growing up, what was your first job?

Yeah.

So my first W-2 job was working

for the Chicago Bears.

Really?

Yes.

I joke that being a good kid in

high school actually does pay off for people

because unbeknownst to anyone in high school, the

locker room attendant at my high school also

moonlighted for the Chicago Bears.

And one day he came up to me,

he said, hey, I've been watching you for

the last couple of years, which might sound

creepy coming from the locker room attendant.

A little bit.

Yeah.

All right.

But he's like, you seem to be a

really good kid.

You've got a good head on your shoulders.

There is an opportunity with Chicago Bears.

I would like to put your name up

for an interview.

Nice.

And so he did that.

And I went and I got the job.

And so I worked for three seasons for

the Chicago Bears.

What age did you start?

I started as a sophomore in high school.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I worked there my sophomore, junior and

senior year of high school.

Nice.

Yep.

It was a blast.

That's a good gig.

Yeah.

It was a really good gig.

Really good gig.

The first entrepreneurial money-making scheme that I

got myself into though, was my brother and

I ran a paintball company.

Really?

And so we leased some farmland.

We were living in Chicago at the time

because of the Chicago Bears, but we were

in Chicago at the time.

And so we leased some farmland on the

Illinois, Wisconsin border.

And we just charged our buddies to come

play paintball with us for the day.

So we'd hundred bucks to come play all

you could play and eat.

And you know, we'd walk away with a

weekend, $4,000 in cash.

And really?

Oh yeah.

It was incredible.

That's a lot of money.

It's a ton of money.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's incredible.

Right.

Still in, while in high school.

Still while in high school.

Yep.

That's awesome.

Yep.

I love it.

How long did you have that?

We did it for about four years.

When I went away to college, my brother

didn't do it on his own anymore.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But we started when I was a freshman.

That's incredible.

I had no idea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or were you good?

At paintball?

Yeah.

No.

Okay.

No.

Good.

Terrible.

Good.

Terrible.

Me too.

But I was extremely good at like collecting

money and telling people that they should come

play with us.

Yes.

The important part.

Right.

I was good at solving problems.

Yes.

Nice.

Yeah.

I love that.

All right.

So how, we'll get into how that led

to where you are today, but where did

you go after that?

Did you go to college?

I did go to college.

Okay.

Yeah.

I went to a small Native American college

in Lawrence, Kansas.

It's called Haskell Indian Nations University.

Okay.

So it's partially funded by the Bureau of

Indian Affairs.

And so that's where I went to college.

Awesome.

Major?

Business administration.

Okay.

Makes sense.

With a minor in speech communication.

All right.

Yeah.

Awesome.

So where did you, where did you go

from there?

Yeah.

So my, I disappointed my parents.

Good.

I went, I went for my freshman, junior

or freshman, sophomore and junior year of college.

And then I dropped out for five years.

Okay.

And so I ended up going back and

finishing, but it took me about 10 years

to finish my college education because I, I

dropped out to pursue success in a multi

-level marketing business.

I was on fire for, and the best

practical business school I could have gone to.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Did it work?

Did you learn?

A ton.

Did you make a little bit of money?

A little bit of money.

All right.

Yeah.

And just a ton of life lessons.

And if you got back to college to

finish it up, that's, that's absolutely a success

to me.

So what, obviously getting into the hospitality, when

was your first venture into the hospitality world?

Yeah.

So after I had dropped out of college,

I'd moved back to Kansas city.

I'd gotten married.

We were married for about seven years.

And then we got divorced and in the

process of me, like recovering from the divorce

and trying to find myself, I moved to

Dallas to be closer to my brother and

just to start life over again.

We had so many like friends and memories

here in Kansas city.

I just didn't feel like I could continue

to live here as I was trying to

heal myself and find myself after the divorce.

And when I got to Dallas, my buddy

introduced me to a friend of his and

that friend happened to be a regional vice

president for a hospitality company that was based

out of Dallas.

Okay.

And he knew a little bit about my

background.

And part of my story is that I

used to run a home handyman company.

And so he's like, Hey, I've got a

couple of Marriott properties that doesn't have a

chief engineer.

And so you don't have a job.

Why don't you go screw in light bulbs

and plunge toilets for me until you figure

out what you want to do with your

life.

And it was just mutually beneficial for both

of us.

And what I wasn't expecting to do chase

was just fall in love with it.

Like every time I walked by the front

desk, I would ask someone to teach me

something new about the computer system.

And, and I just absolutely fell in love

with hospitality.

And within six months of that first chief

engineer job, I was promoted to an assistant

general manager job at one of the hotels.

I was chief engineer one AGM of the

other.

Okay.

And then within a year, they made me

GM of my own hotel.

And from there, it was kind of off

to the races.

This is still in Dallas, still in the

Dallas area.

Okay.

Yep.

All right.

What, what, what level of class all select

service?

Okay.

Yep.

So primarily Hilton and Marriott at the time

when I first got started, I was working

for Marriott properties and in the Marriott world,

they called them seafirst.

So it was courtyard Fairfield, Spring Hill town

place.

Okay.

So kind of all seafirst hotels for Marriott.

Okay.

And so you got your first GM role.

Give us, how was that experience?

How long did you do that role in

that hotel?

Yeah.

I was the general manager of that first

hotel.

It was a Spring Hill suites.

And I was a general manager there for

three years before the ownership group that owned

that hotel ended up selling it selling off.

Yep.

And when they, and when they sold the

hotel, they retained me, or I'm sorry, they

retained my staff, but they didn't, they brought

in their own management team.

And so my management company sent me somewhere

else.

Yeah.

So you, you were out of a job

there, but the same company sent you to

a different hotel.

Yep.

Still in the Dallas area, still in the

Dallas area.

Okay.

What was that transition?

Like, is it easy?

I mean, cause you are used to being

uprooted and moved all over the place.

So was it an easy transition where you,

you know, putting down some roots in that

hotel anyway, and was it difficult?

How was that experience?

Yeah, it was really difficult because we had,

we had taken that hotel from it was

in the bottom five, not bottom 5%.

It was in the bottom five of all

Spring Hill suites within the Marriott system.

It was a very underperforming hotel with a

lot of challenges.

And we were able to turn that hotel

around over the course of a year and

a half, which led to the ownership group

being able to sell it.

Yeah.

I think when I left, we were in

the top 50 hotel, 50 for the brand.

And so our, our GSS scores, our guest

satisfaction scores were, you know, constantly in the

green.

And we really turned that around, but through

that fire of turning the hotel around, we,

I developed a lot of really great relationships

with people that I'm still actually friends with

today.

That's fantastic.

And so when I left and they stayed,

it was a little bittersweet.

Oh, I'm sure.

Yeah.

I'm sure.

What was the process like?

So obviously they, they sent you in, they

said, we need a Winston Wolfe, pull the

guns out.

Yeah.

Take care of business.

Yeah.

What, what needed to be turned around?

What was wrong to start out with and

what needed to be fixed?

Yeah.

Just the lack of attention around customer service

was really our, our downfall.

The hotel had been managed as a profit

center for the ownership and the management company

and not necessarily as a hotel that they

cared about the guest service scores.

And so as a result, there was underspending

in the maintenance and upkeep of the hotel.

There were just a lot of things that

were allowed to slip.

And because of that, over time it compounded

and it just was a really dump.

It was an interesting hotel.

So was this one that was within, did

they buy the hotel and it was in

that bad position or it was already in

their portfolio?

It had been in their portfolio, just not

being run well.

Yeah.

It was in the portfolio and not being

run well.

When my management company that I was working

for at the time took over management of

those hotels, it was inside of that portfolio

that they took over.

Okay.

And so they took over the portfolio so

they weren't mismanaging it themselves.

They had pulled it into the portfolio and

obviously needed to turn it around.

Correct.

Okay.

As far as the relationship with the brand

themselves, obviously they don't like when the reviews

are bad, when customers aren't happy, when the

property's in bad shape.

What were they requiring?

Were they looking at pulling the flag?

Yes.

Yeah.

When I took over as general manager of

that hotel, we were three quarters of failed

QAs.

And so Marriott would have pulled the flag

if we would have failed the fourth quarter.

Right.

That was really close.

It was really close.

Yeah.

I mean, when I took over, I had

a 90 day mandate to, and the 90

day mandate was to pass the QA.

It wasn't to improve guest hotel scores.

It wasn't, you know, the rest of that

stuff kind of happened over the course of

time.

But yeah, it was to get the hotel

to pass the QA score and get off

of the radar of getting the flag pulled.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And those reviews, the customer, a lot of

that kind of depends on the quality and

the condition, of course.

So naturally that will start to improve.

Did you have to replace a lot of

the staff?

Did you keep a lot of them in

place and just changed systems?

So how did you start to work through

that?

Yeah.

Really what needed to happen is it was

a couple of key positions that I needed

to hire for.

I retained most of the front desk staff

because they were actually really great.

I hired a new executive housekeeper that had

an alignment with my vision.

And then I hired a breakfast person.

And in those C-first hotels, you know,

breakfast is included.

Yes.

That's a big selling point for those types

of brands.

And so I needed a really dynamic person

that would be in breakfast that understood maintaining

standards, but really was like the face of

the hotel.

I found this just amazing guy.

He's still one of my best friends.

He actually, when I got married the second

time, he was, he got ordained in order

to perform that service.

Nice.

Nice.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Those relationships and you're in the middle of

fire together.

Right.

And that is either going to completely push

you apart because you don't believe in the

same mission or bring you together because you're

working for the same thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's exactly what happened to us.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

It's a lot of fun.

What are some key things that really helped

you turn it around?

Was it just throwing CapEx into the property

or was it obviously hiring these couple key

roles, but how much capital needed to go

in to get it into a better QA

position?

Yeah.

Good question.

Because there was so much volatility around whether

it was going to be able to remain

a Marriott property or not, the ownership group

actually wouldn't invest any money.

And so they understood that there was going

to be a need of investment into the

hotel in the future.

But it was like, you got to prove

to us that you're not going to lose

the Marriott name in order for us to

invest real money into the hotel.

Interesting.

And so it was just doing a lot

with a little.

Yeah.

It was very little.

If you can't, if it's in a bad

QA position without any money.

So it was one of the hotels that

I started as a chief engineer.

And this is just kind of some of

the thought process from the management team that

I took it over from.

I had a room that was out of

order.

This was in Dallas in the market.

That's right down the street from Rangers Stadium,

right across the street from a Six Flags

water park next to the Cowboys Stadium.

It's a high volume area all year round.

And we had a guest room that was

out of order for 31 days because the

toilet was running and he wouldn't approve me

going and buying a new flapper for the

toilet.

And so this is early 2010s and we're

selling guest rooms at $119 a night during

the summer.

Yeah.

And so for a $7 toilet flapper, we

lost out on 30 days worth of revenue

on that room.

Right.

And so that was just the thought process

around spending money because it was going to

put us over budget.

We couldn't spend the money and it was

like we were cutting our nose off despite

our face.

Yeah.

And there was a lot of stories like

that that just was real frustrating too.

When I took over, I was like, I'll

take the heat if we're over budget by

seven bucks for the toilet flapper.

Right.

But no one's going to complain because when

the star report came out at the end

of the week and our OC and our

revenue was up, it'd be fine.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And it's a very short sighted mindset to

be worried about a few dollars, but knowing

that a few dollars can mean a lot

of dollars, you know, $3,000 in revenue

for a $7.

For a $7 part.

Yeah.

It's just crazy.

And that was while you were the engineer,

but when you took over, you were like,

we're not making those decisions.

Correct.

Was that decision from the general manager or

the ownership?

Yeah, it was from the general manager.

So that was.

Yeah.

I mean, in, you know, I understand it

once I got on his side of the

desk because so much of his bonus structure

was tied to those performance metrics.

Yes.

Right.

And so it probably would have adversely affected

his money personally if he would have done

it.

Right.

But when you like zoom out and you're

talking about a $3,000 potential revenue on

a room for a $7 part, like it

just doesn't make sense.

The fact that he was even in that

position to have to make that decision.

Right.

Is silly.

Yes.

Yeah.

And that's that's just an example of a

poor payment structure that is even considered that

he's going to kill the revenue that much

just for adding a little bit to his

own pocket.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not necessarily his fault.

I mean, that's the deal that they had

written up for sure.

He was he was doing what he could

to make his own money.

Obviously, it doesn't work for ownership for the

property itself.

So you were given not a lot.

Not a lot.

To be able to turn it around.

Yeah.

I would imagine you were able to turn

it around without putting a lot of capital

in.

Right.

Past the QA.

Past the QA.

All right.

By a lot.

By a little.

By a little.

OK.

But pass is a pass.

A pass is a pass.

Pass is a pass.

Yeah.

And that got you to convince them to

put some capex in.

Yeah.

To put some capex in.

And so immediately what they did, one of

our concerns, because it was such a high

volume area, you know, on a Saturday morning,

the way that we were kind of tracking

the usage of the hotel was by the

number of plates that we would serve or

like go through on a Saturday or Sunday

morning.

Interesting.

That was just like a real quick way.

Like we went through 500 plates, which means,

you know, that's how many because families would

come in and it was a hundred and

fifteen room hotel.

But a family of six would come in

and be in a two bedroom standard room

and just destroy everything.

Yeah.

And so, you know, when we had that

much volume or traffic inside of our lobby

area for breakfast, people couldn't eat like we

would have lines down the hall on the

first floor, people waiting to get scrambled eggs.

And, you know, they're making noise, standing in

line, talking to each other, disrupting the guests

that are trying to sleep in the room.

And it was just a really bad set

up and really bad flow.

And so one of the very first things

that the ownership group did for me is

they actually expanded my lobby.

And so they came in and added a

bunch of extra square footage to the lobby

so we could get some more tables and

really kind of alleviated some of our breakfast

pain.

OK.

Was that taking out rooms in order to

do it or adding onto the property itself?

Yeah.

Nope.

We just we had some outdoor seating area.

And so they just pushed out the enclosure

to absorb some of that outdoor seating.

And yeah, it worked out really well.

Smart.

Smart.

I like that.

So, you know, multiple problems at once.

The other thing that I convinced them to

do is to get rid of our hot

tub.

Why you would have a hot tub at

a hotel these days is just crazy to

me.

They are so finicky in the maintenance and

they're so dang expensive.

And so the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

In fact, later on in my career, I

made it my mission to every hotel that

I was at to remove the hot tub

just because they were such a pain in

the ass and just a cesspool of germs.

It was just nasty.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's got to be a certain level of

risk there with hot tubs because they are.

I used to have a hot tub and

it was a pain in the rear end

to just keep it up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Much, much more difficult than the pool.

Right.

And so we had a hot tub that

wouldn't function as a hot tub.

So it was like a cold plunge pool

before plunging got cool.

Right.

And so I convinced the management group to

get rid of the hot tub.

And that immediately brought our guest service scores

up because now there was nothing to complain

about.

Yeah.

Right.

It was broken and they couldn't use it.

There was something to complain about.

Yes.

But if it didn't exist, there's nothing to

complain about.

Exactly.

Like the story.

I think Tony Robbins talks about he was

on a plane.

It was the first plane to ever have

Wi-Fi and everybody was so excited.

They got up in the air and the

Wi-Fi stopped working and everybody was pissed.

Yeah.

Couldn't believe how upset everybody was for a

Wi-Fi that they probably didn't even know

existed when they got on the plane.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

Yeah.

I used to at a college, one of

my first jobs was as a corporate meeting

planner for a company that would travel around

and put on seminars around like how to

use Excel or different things like that.

And we used to always put coffee in

the back of the room when we negotiate

meeting space.

Yep.

And that consistently was the thing that always

came up in the customer reviews was like,

coffee was terrible.

Coffee was too bitter.

Right.

So we just stopped putting in the coffee

and automatically the customer service scores went up.

Right.

If they want coffee, then they can be

in charge of it or get Starbucks to

bring it in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Makes sense.

A hundred percent.

Then it's on them.

Exactly.

They can't complain to you for something they

screwed up on.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like that.

What other, any other, anything that stands out

as far as what you were able to

do to start turning around that first property?

Yeah.

My dad told my brother and I growing

up, and I love this.

It's probably the best piece of management advice

chase that I've ever been given.

It's that people don't respect what you expect.

They respect what you inspect.

And really where we saw the biggest change

is because I had done the chief engineer

job in the past myself, I wanted to

make sure that like the person that took

that mantle from me was upholding my standards.

Okay.

And so anytime I'd onboard a new engineer,

we would do this, this training process where

he would go in with some green painter's

tape and he would walk through the room

that he was going to PM that day

and put green painter's tape around everything that

he thought needed to be fixed.

And then I would go in and do

blue painter's tape around the things that I

thought.

And then we'd walk in the room together.

And what happened over the course of time,

when we do this together is like our

visions in a room would match.

And he was seeing the things that I

knew that needed to be fixed.

Nice.

And so I took that same concept with

the executive housekeeper that I hired.

And she and I did the same process.

Because the thing about clean, it's black and

white.

It's either clean or it's not clean.

Yes.

There's no sort of clean.

Yes.

Especially in the hotel.

Like if there's a hair, it is not

clean.

It is not clean.

It doesn't matter.

Yeah.

Right.

And so us just being able to walk

through the rooms together, I spent a lot

of time inspecting rooms.

I was a very active GM.

I was not around behind the desk very

often.

One, because I didn't have an office.

Okay.

And so there was no desk for me.

They actually had to take a guest room

and they converted a guest room into the

sales office and the general manager's office.

Okay.

So when the hotel was at its peak,

we had the director of sales, the sales

coordinator, the AGM, myself, and the chief engineer,

all officing out of the same guest suite

that we converted.

All right.

Out of the same 300 square foot.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Making us cozy together.

100%.

And so I didn't want to be there

very often.

Yeah.

And so I was out inspecting rooms, working

with the housekeepers, making sure that clean was

clean.

Yeah.

Nice.

How often are you, you're obviously, you're walking

the property all the time.

You're inspecting rooms, inspecting everything.

How often are you needing to jump in

and help either behind the desk, checking in

or help clean a room, fixing, you know,

obviously, you know, the maintenance, so fixing stuff

yourself.

My comfortability was always either at the front

desk or with maintenance.

If I had to push a cart and

clean rooms, like I'm doing a quarter of

the board that the usual, the girls are

normally doing just because they're so dang fast

and skilled and good at it.

I think it would probably take me 15

minutes just to put pillowcases on chase.

And so, you know, that just killed our,

our profitability, but I, you know, on days

that you have to, you just have to.

Yeah.

Right.

And that was the expectation for anyone in

the hotel.

You know, I didn't care what role you

were.

You cleaned a board when you first got

started.

Nice.

How much cross training between positions did you

have to do?

Yeah.

In, in those C first environments where you

don't have a lot of like extra facilities

inside of the hotel, it was my opinion

that everyone needed to know how to do

everything because the operations were fairly basic.

Yeah.

And so my front desk staff cross-trained

with breakfast.

So then you had to start breakfast.

So we never had an issue with it

not being out on time.

My maintenance staff and my, my housekeeping staff

cross-trained with each other.

Our, our housekeepers knew how to, you know,

touch up drywall and touch up paint and

just do some of those real basic things

that needed to happen.

Yep.

Yep.

Absolutely.

And you've got a relatively small staff and

stuff happens with the staff stuff happens with

a lot of guests coming in problems happen.

And sometimes you got to jump over cross

lines and just help out, make sure the

team is going in the right direction.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So what this is all at one hotel,

all at one hotel, they sold the property,

right?

You essentially lost your job there, but that

same management took you to the next property.

Yes.

Did they give you the nice, the best,

you know, something that's already at the, you

know, the top 30 of the properties across

the country, or do they send Winston Wolf

back in?

Winston Wolf came back in.

And this hotel wasn't necessarily like the second

hotel, you know, in that first three years

that I was managing that Spring Hill that

we've been talking about, you know, the management

company did a really good job of allowing

me to go to other hotels inside of

the portfolio to help out.

And so I saw operations at bigger hotels

at different tier hotels.

And so I got some exposure with some

really cool things.

And I had an idea of kind of

what I wanted for my next posting.

Okay.

And I ended up going to a Hilton

property and the management company managed it, but

it was owned by a different group, right?

Like we had a bunch of different ownership

contracts.

And so we didn't work for just one

owner.

Right.

And so this ownership group was more corporate.

It was a bigger REIT and they were

less interested about customer service and customer service

scores and more interested in bottom line numbers.

Okay.

And what I didn't know when I took

over that hotel is there were some bills

that they were 36 months behind on.

And