We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Haleigh Watts. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Haleigh below.

Haleigh, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you tell us about an important lesson you learned in school and why that lesson is important to you?

When I was in college, my university, MSU Denver, provided what seemed like an endless amount of opportunities to meet fellow students, engage with faculty, visit job fairs, listen to guest speakers, and just network in general.

I remember having just switched majors from Social Work to Hospitality (what a change), knowing I wanted to work with people as the basis of my career, but unsure of in what capacity. Being new to Hospitality education meant I didn’t know much about it and was a little behind the rest of my classmates on getting to know each other since I was already in my third year of school and, what felt like, starting from scratch. MSU Denver really pushed us to connect with those around us and take advantage of the networking opportunities provided, but I can remember reading information about these opportunities and simply marking the emails as read without taking any action.

Our professors would always ask who attended what events, who met who, etc., and I distinctly remember keeping in line with my shy tendencies and never being able to be part of these conversations because I didn’t take advantage of what was right in front of me. Week after week, classmates would share business cards they collected, talk about interviews they had set up for jobs or internships, and I remember thinking how behind I was and how I wish I wasn’t quite so shy and afraid to go to these events by myself.

After a while, I was looking for a new job while finishing up school and I remembered a professor talking about using her and the other faculty as resources – something I felt more comfortable doing since I knew them a little bit better. I reached out to the Dean of the Hospitality program asking if she had any leads on student jobs or knew of anyone she might be able to connect me with that I could chat with about potential opportunities. Almost immediately, she emailed back and connected me with the Director of Human Resources for MSU Denver who was hiring for a student event manager to lead campus tours and put on New Employee Orientations. About a week later I had the job.

Although this was simply a student position on campus, this is what unequivocally catapulted my future career. I was able to use the Director or HR as a reference to get my first job out of college and 8 years later, I’m the National Director of Marketing for a Denver-based startup that is now expanding into other markets, all the while using my personal and professional connections to help me along the way. Although my career started in Events and I’m now working in Marketing, I am still in the hospitality industry and have been able to break out of my bubble in order to introduce myself to people, ask for help when I need it, and use the resources around me to learn, network, and grow.

All of this is to say, what seemed like a very small step forward in using a resource, helped give me the confidence and awareness that such a large part of careers is based around who you know. I’m not saying I didn’t work for where I’m at – because I have. Very hard. But there are closed doors all around you that you don’t even know are there until you put yourself out there and simply see who can help you open them up. After my first real experience of using networking to my advantage, I have kept this in mind and been able to network more frequently, more efficiently, and have even learned how to be a resource for other people who were in the same position.

So – use your resources! Ask for help! Take advantage of all the opportunities school provides! It’s a privilege to even be able to go to college, let alone being able to credit your time in school for where you are now.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am the National Marketing Director for The Numbers Holding Company (TNHC) – a Denver-based hospitality and entertainment company. Number 38 in RiNo is our flagship location and we are opening our second location, Number 15, in Louisville, KY this Spring!

As our National Marketing Director, I get the opportunity to travel to new cities, engage with the local food, beverage, and entertainment scenes, and learn how our company can highlight what is historical, unique, and just plain fascinating about each state we open a location in. TNHC’s mission is to highlight what gives each state its character through putting an emphasis on serving only local beverage brands, hiring local musicians, providing live music to the public for free, serving a range of American-style food, and either repurposing or building spaces that honor the history of the state.

For instance, our Denver location is just under 32,000 square feet including Denver’s largest restaurant/bar patio and our Louisville location has no outdoor space, but is 6 stories tall. Both buildings were already existing, and quite historic, so it’s been fun to see the progress we’ve made in being able to honor the past while embracing the future.

Our concept is simple, but bold and I cannot express how proud I am of the team I’ve worked with to get to this point. If you could see our blueprints for the future, you would be amazed – it’s a scrappy, but dedicated, hard-working, lovable, and wicked smart team. If there is one thing you take away from this interview, I want it to be to think about the behind the scenes of the business the next time you visit Number 38. It really adds to the experience when you think about a team of late twenty-somethings and early thirty-somethings, sharing an entrepreneurial spirit and dedicating a big chunk of their lives to creating something so special. I’ve often not talked about how proud I am of the team and myself for creating what we’ve created in fear of sounding arrogant, but there is no shame in the confidence I have in this team. We’ve worked hard, been knocked down (so many times), and we do our best to take it all in stride while doing what we love to do and honoring the cities we break ground in.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Not so much ‘clients’ as customers, but I have to share that word-of-mouth marketing makes up 70% of our customer base. That’s a wild number, I know – but it’s true. Especially in the food and beverage space, your customers will share their experiences, good or bad, with their circle. That circle will then share with theirs and so on. It is so integral to our business to create a positive and memorable experience to our customers and not keep them at an arms length when it comes to improving operations, marketing, events, menus, etc. We wouldn’t be a business if it weren’t for our customers, so ensuring we’ve positioned them as stakeholders has been a game changer.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Oh social media – what an ever-changing landscape! When we started our social media presence in 2020, we of course encouraged our friends and family to like, follow, share – all the things! Ensuring your personal circles are the foundation for your social media presence is huge and a great way to get started.

We started our social presence strictly on Instagram as that is where our demographic lived. If you are just starting out and only have the capacity to be on one platform, this sounds obvious, but don’t just pick the one that is the most popular, pick the one that is the most popular for your clientele. TikTok was in the early stages of blowing up due to the pandemic and in looking at the demographics on TikTok, you’re seeing lots of Gen Z and under 21 users. Although the power of that platform is immeasurable, at the end of the day, our business is a bar and relies on alcohol sales, so targeting TikTok was not the right move for us. While we are a family-friendly establishment, it was important for us to begin our social media journey reaching audiences who were more likely to and legally able to engage with our content.

You will see so many businesses on any social platform these days interacting and engaging with their audiences, leaving funny comments, using memes, etc. Businesses on social media have a whole life of their own and that online presence is integral in gaining awareness, trust, and traction operationally. You want to be relatable, but not too personal as you want respect for your brand as a brand. However, engagement online and the nature of virality is a resource you want to take advantage of. Stay up to date on social media trends, set some time aside each day to like and comment on your followers’ posts, and, what I think is the most important and often underrated tactic – show you are a friendly business to your competition! We love to engage with other businesses in the area, especially in our neighborhood, to show support, make jokes, and show respect. This might be different in other industries, but in ours, it’s easy and effective to engage, especially since there isn’t really another bar in the area doing exactly what we are doing, so it’s not ‘direct’ competition.

Contact Info:

• Website: nmbr38.com
• Instagram: @number38_colorado
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haleighwatts/

Image Credits
Images with people & neon sign/beer: Jay Piper Aerial photo: Four Blades Digital