Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jason Bass. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jason, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I built a newly formed relationship with the incoming general manager of a boutique hotel in midtown Baltimore, MD. As he was transitioning into his new role, I obtained his email address from the exiting GM in hopes that I could introduce myself and continue to foster my connection to the property. At the time, I designed and manufactured the aprons for their rooftop restaurant called Topside through my company called Treason Toting Company and I was hosting events called The Night Brunch, which is a nomadic pop-up culinary experience meant to breakdown social silos.

So I email Donte Johnson, the new GM, and ask if we could meet and so that I could have the chance to win him over. After we met, he put me through a vetting process, and the outcome was positive. He saw value in what I was doing and thought I also had the potential to consult on ways to program the hotel and create community relationships. I loved the idea because I started a new entity called Kiss Tomorrow Hello that would formalize and provide programming services to my personal relationships with brands and organizations. This was perfect timing.

Kiss Tomorrow Hello was so new, that I did not have client agreements or contracts in place so I had to request that he have the legal team at Hyatt create the agreement. Unfortunately, it would take weeks before the agreement would be ready and it would delay my start date. So, on a handshake promise, Donte proposed that I start working immediately and he would pay my invoices. That was risk number one. Was I certain that I could trust him? How could I hold him to his word without a contract or a legally binding agreement? I went out on a limb and trusted him as well as captured the promise in email, not certain that an email would make me whole if things went wrong.

Then, on our first team outing in DC, we are going over the year-end plan and introducing my role to the hotel stakeholders. At the end of the meeting, we decide to throw our work bags in the back of Donte’s truck and go have drinks to celebrate. We left the truck for just about an hour. One of the people from our group needed to go home early, so we walked back to the truck and discovered that our bags had been stolen. The truck never locked. Someone saw us drop the bags off with our laptops in them and stole everything. Mine was the only personal laptop that I purchased to start my new journey in consulting. Everyone else affected by the tragedy could have their companies replace their work laptops, but not me. Donte then made another promise. He knew Hyatt wouldn’t replace my laptop and neither would his insurance. So, on his word again, he promised to make things right over time.

Long story short, he kept his word. Also, during the pandemic, Hyatt ended up offering me the opportunity to be their first-ever Director of Culture and Impact. They created the position for me and I’ve been working for them ever since. I am currently the Director of Culture and Programming at the lifestyle luxury hotel called the Thompson Atalanta-Buckhead. Because I took the risk of trusting someone, I’ve won industry awards and built something meaningful while continuing to trust as I’ve uprooted my family and moved to another state to continue the journey.

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 have a very colorful background that has led me to the hotel and hospitality industries. I worked in IT as a project manager, as a multicultural marketing sales rep for spirit brands, promoted clubs, created events series, did philanthropic work, and founded a company that manufactured travel bags with the support of Under Armour. One would think there would be a home or role for someone who possessed all of these experiences. A jack of all trades is an understatement because it doesn’t always consider how someone can cross utilize experiences in IT, textile manufacturing, and hosting parties in a way that makes them all valuable. I never thought about working in hotels, but I loved hotels. Baltimore, my hometown, is also known as Small-timore because it’s a small, big town where everyone has 1 degree of separation. So I would spend time in hotel lobbies because I could meet new people and the lobby was masterfully designed to be comfortable and aesthetically pleasing.

My first hotel client was Revival. A 107-room boutique hotel in the culture and arts district of Baltimore City. When I took the role, I was just excited to have a beautiful home for all of my event and community engagement ideas. But I started the work in Jan 2020 with Jan being a planning month, Feb being our first full month of programming, and Mar projected to be the next phase of my work. Of course, we know COVID disrupted the world and my plans. Even though the handshake agreement was for only 10 hours a week, I never left the hotel during the pandemic. We quickly turned it into a community center and provided resources to anyone and everyone that needed it. It received a lot of earned media coverage, including interviews on CNN and CBS Saturday morning. Its now started me on a path to positively disrupt traditional hospitality and offer programming as a service to others.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn a few things that seem to be baked into most humans. The first, is we have to divorce ourselves from what we create. We can not be so committed to something we create that we cannot detach ourselves from it. Sometimes it may serve us to longer do a thing, to sell what we’ve created, or scrap it to do something new.

The second is not viewing the lack of success for a project as a failure. The lessons and the journey teach us so much, create new pathways in our brains, develop new relationships, and show that you’re willing to step up and risk it for what you believe to be true.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Before I started Kiss Tomorrow Hello. Programming by Kiss Tomorrow Hello is the art of crafting bespoke, impactful events designed to elevate your brand, engage your community, and boost your revenue. Leveraging our deep industry expertise, we deliver customized experiences that resonate with your audience and align perfectly with your business goals. It’s not just an event; it’s your brand coming to life. I hosting events and onboarding a few clients, asking for a 50% deposit on the work. Both activities gave me the ability to buy the hardware and software I needed to do the work.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jasoncbass.com
• Instagram: @jasoncbass
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealjasoncbass
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncbass/