Welcome to the Vanderblomen Leadership Podcast, where our team talks with top leaders about how to better serve and lead your team. Our goal is for you to gain tangible tips on topics such as culture, leadership, succession, and navigating people problems. We hope you enjoyed today's show.
SPEAKER_01Hey everyone, welcome to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. My name's Carrie. I serve here on the client relations team with Vanderblumen. And today we are very excited to welcome Matt Neff. He is the CEO of Site and Sound. Matt has been with Site and Sound for over 20 years. And along with his brother-in-law Josh, they are the sons-in-law to Glenn Eshelman, who is the founder of Site and Sound. And they actually took over second generation leaders. And so we're going to get into a little bit of that today. But Matt, welcome to the podcast. Excited to have you here today.
SPEAKER_03Thanks so much, Kerry. Honored to get to talk with you today, looking forward to the conversation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So first off, would love for the listeners to get to know you a little bit more. So maybe just unpack uh briefly kind of your ministry journey, business journey, those things meshing together, kind of getting into the entertainment ministry that you guys are thriving in today.
SPEAKER_03All right. Happy to. So yeah, my backstory real quick. I grew up about five minutes from where our hub location here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania is. As a dairy farmer initially, I would have been, my father would have been the fifth generation to farm our family farm until I was nine and he was called by the Lord to move into pasturing. And so at that point, or from that point on, I'd always known of sight and sound. My grandma brought us here, all of us grandkids, like once a year. It was a big deal to hear, you know, Bible stories on stage. And I so always knew of it, but I was never what you would consider, you know, theater-focused person or the theater kid, if you will. But loved the storytelling nature of it and the way God works in his mysterious ways. Steered me here actually through my girlfriend in my senior year in high school. She was a cast member. I was like, wow, it'd be really fun to work with her. So I applied and got it. Yeah, exactly. Got hired backstage. That was as big as the dream was at that point. And I'm telling you, I got hooked. I got hooked on what we got to do, the unique nature of it, and just to see the way that God worked through it. Yeah, it was fun, it was different, but just stories open people up to the truth. We know this because this is how Jesus taught constantly his disciples, to the point where his disciples are like, What's up with all the stories? And his response was, well, seeing they don't see, hearing they don't understand. And that's actually where the name Sight and Sound was influenced by back then was like, wait a second, storytelling has a way to connect to the heart. So for me, that's something I became then passionate about when I got to experience. And so I've been here ever since, other than a short stint away for Bible school, married who was then my girlfriend, Amy. And so it's been a bless to be a part of this wild adventure ever since. And adventure is the word. That's great.
SPEAKER_01That's great. We're gonna get into a little bit of that adventure. Uh, I loved just getting to know you guys a little bit more and really from the founding and from Glenn's kind of original vision of just the old school projector and a microphone and some behind it to where you guys are now. I mean, I think you guys have over 700 employees uh two different locations in different parts of the country. So so there has certainly been an evolution of what God's been doing in in your midst. So let's maybe start it there and just talk about kind of what you're doing is kingdom focused, but it's also a business. And so our listeners oftentimes are leaders within their churches or church leaders, but they kind of have interest in both of those worlds. So maybe talk about how what you guys have done at sight and sound, how it's grown from this little kingdom initiative of a couple of slides and some music and a microphone to what it is now with with such an amazing presentation of the gospel.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's just humbling to see the way the Lord works, right? The whole principle from scripture, faith with little, faith with much. We like to say from the parable of the talents, the reward God gives for faithfulness is more responsibility. And I think that is a reward because there's a gift in it helps keep us focused on him as our source. And so, you know, when when it starts small, it's still to us big, yeah, like anything, right? Like when Glenn and Shirley had that vision to tell story in this unique way of multimedia, was like, how do we do that? And so they're going to the Lord, like, Lord, show us how to do that. And boom, it takes off. Before you know it, they have, you know, four teams traveling the country doing these ever larger slit slideshows. This is in the 60s into the early 70s. So then, you know, the Lord giving them a building for the first theater, which was all about slideshows, and then slowly adding cast members, adding animal actors, and then full-blown biblical theater. Each step of the way was a leap of faith. You know, it was like, Lord, you sure about it? Okay, here we go. And that's it's the same thing today, right? So the scale is different, whatever, but it's other than that, it's not changed. We're telling the stories he puts on our hearts to tell, seeking him for the ability to do it. And it's just humbling to see the way he works, particularly through challenge, right? Because life is got its challenges and we've walked through some significant adversity over the years. And each time, God wasn't just faithful, but he used it to take us from where we were to want it where he wanted us to be next. And so we've been able to experience his redemptive nature very directly, very firsthand. And also just something we're passionate about. You you alluded to this, Carrie, just the intersection of faith and business, you could call it that. But I guess the way we look at it is like God's kingdom is a kingdom, right? And a kingdom has many different facets, it manifests in a lot of different ways. So often as believers, we can put things in nice clean boxes, like, oh, well, then if I'm involved in ministry, that means I have to stand behind a pulpit or you know, or teach at a Bible school or something like that. And those are great things. That is certainly part of ministry. But I think the way we would experience it is we are all made ministers of the new covenant. When we come to Christ, we are then to be about our Father's work in whatever sphere we're called. It's sort of like Paul said, hey, if you were called in this state, okay, serve Christ right there. And he uses all kinds of analogies, even the analogy of slavery. If you're called as a slave, okay, seek your freedom if you can, but man, serve Christ where you're at. So for us, it just happened to be through this really strange medium of storytelling on stage and now on screen. And we just we see that as just a manifestation of calling, and no different than, you know, if we were called to sell tractors, you know, have a dealership, going back to my farm roots, you know, or farm a family farm or whatever. It's like, okay, Lord, how do you want kingdom to be revealed through this work, through how we do this work? We care about the end product, but we are big believers that the process comes before the product is much more important how, because it determines the what at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know, you talked a little bit about some of the trial, and sometimes, you know, where you sit now, you can look back and you it seems like, oh, the trial, it was it happened, it was small. I wish it didn't happen again, but I learned so much from it. Maybe just a little bit how kind of in the moments of some of those trials you guys were able to rely on the Lord because in the moment of trial, it feels like the end point of that where you're gonna be able to look back on it, is like years and years and years away, and we're never gonna get through that. And the circumstances of life are gonna keep coming and they're never gonna end. How have you and how have you guys as an organization really been able to keep that focus on the Lord and that long-term perspective?
SPEAKER_03Wow. I mean, that's a great question. I I think for us in that kind of second generation standpoint, we get to draw on and look back at our founders and what was seemingly impossible. Like, I mean, going back to the very first theater that they went to build, they had some seed money from the the touring slideshows, but still needed a bank loan and went to the bank, and the bank initially turned it down. They're like, you want to build a theater for slideshows? What? Oh, understandably, you know, this doesn't make sense. And it looked like the dream was gonna stop before it really took off. And three gentlemen who happened to sit on the board of that local bank went to the to the, I guess, the loan committee or whatever, and said, We think you should reconsider, because they believed in the vision. And so they reconsidered and gave the loan. So that was, you know, probably a hundred thousand dollar dream back in the 70s, you know. But that was a big deal. At the time, that was a huge deal. And so each step of faithfulness, they set that, I guess you could say, anchor for us that we could look back to see, okay, well, the only way this works, this whole thing is a faith proposition. That's easier to keep in mind, at least for me now, because every day I drive up the drive, I'm like, this makes no sense in the natural. We're in a former cornfield in Lancaster in a former meadow and pasture in Branson, Missouri. And people are coming from all over the world to hear Bible stories on stage. Like, what?
SPEAKER_01Uh, so that that helps keep us in that posture of this is clearly that's such a great principle, I would say, for when listening to the podcast, you know, you may find yourself right now, you're listening right now, and you're in that season of torment, of storm, of trial. Who do you have that you can look back on to that you're not relying on for circumstances of right now? Maybe it was the people who planted the church, maybe it was the generation before that made a prescient purchase of a property or a hire or something like that, that really allows us to borrow from what's come before. I love that principle, man.
SPEAKER_03That's a great word.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Hey, who came before? And in the moment, how do I borrow from their faith to the moment of right now? That's great.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because that faith doesn't die with that generation, right? Like those prayers aren't dead. It's like, okay, Lord, how do we join up with what you already doing, have been doing in his eternal nature? And the other cool thing is like then the ones we got to, we had the privilege of living through as well. The first biggie for me would have been a fire we had in 1997. I would have been working in the scene shop at the time, building sets, and we lost our entire theater. We only had one then, the Lancaster location, lost the main theater there, lost half of our production facility, lost our corporate offices. And again, in the natural, look like, well, you're there's no way you're gonna recover from this. Yeah, yeah. And then watching Glenn and Shirley sit in that moment and they were approaching their 60s, and like, Lord, okay, we've worked hard our whole lives at this. Like, is this it? But not having peace that it was the end of the line, just saying, you know what, we don't believe we could live with ourselves if we didn't come back or at least try to come back. Sure. And just miracle after miracle, how the Lord provided to then get the resourcing, get the loans together to rebuild what is now the theater that I'm sitting in here. 19 months later, you know, we open our doors after that fire. So we have to live through.
SPEAKER_01And I couldn't believe nine months later.
SPEAKER_03It makes no sense. We're open and going again. Wow. No, especially the scope and the unique design of this place. Just, but again, God's never surprised, right? So, like he had a vision of what this building would be before the fire even started. Sure. And he was able to reveal that to Glenn and the team here, say, because they weren't about to redesign a theater from scratch. You know, who does who does that? Gave them what they needed. And I remember, you know, Glenn is just an incredible creative. So he scaled, built a scale model of the theater, and then they took it to the architecture firm, and they're like, Where did you go to school? How did you do this? And he's like, Oh, I don't go to high school a long time ago. Like, what do you mean? And so they built the prints off of that basically, and just yeah, so that so we got to experience that, and that it builds your faith so that when you face storms down the road, like for us, then going to Branson, opening in 08, right at the watch of the great time, right? Yeah, I think yeah, it was like, oh, great time to do a fully debt financed project with five banks. That's this is great. Um learn learned a lot about that, everything, you know, and not seeing the attendance that we built the model on for years after that, and just like, Lord, how in the world do we survive this? Yeah. But again, you go back to his faithfulness before you feed on that, and you're like, okay, you you've caught us here, we believe that. So show us moment by moment what we need today. It's all about mana, right? Like, what's the mana for today? Yeah. I don't need to worry about tomorrow. What's what are you saying today?
SPEAKER_01Yep. That's great. That's great.
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SPEAKER_01Keeping that focus. Well, it's something you kind of ventured into a little bit there. You are second generation within this endeavor with sight and sound. And it's actually your father-in-law in the succession of him and his wife, your mother-in-law. So maybe let's venture in there a little bit. Talk us through how that succession went. That's something we do with companies and churches, and and you know, the the goal is that it all goes perfect and smooth and seamless. The reality, I think, with any of them that we've done is they all have their their peaks and their valleys, and the goal is to get to the peak at the end. So ministry continues to go forward. So, how did that happen for you guys? And what are maybe some things you learned through that process?
SPEAKER_03Sure. Well, you said that well. I mean, it's and it's because we're people, right? Like, and anytime you have more than one person, you've got different, slightly different values, different vision for how something should go. And then to try and figure out something as significant as succession, when identities tend to get tied to roles sometimes and all that is not an easy thing to walk through. And then I think in some ways it's almost more challenging when we are believers in a sense, in that you layer ministry in that there can be a heightened pressure of we can't screw this up because then we're going to, you know, fail the Lord or fail the ministry, whatever, which doesn't add helpful pressure. Yeah. And that's not something God puts on us, but it's something we tend to do in our humanists, I think. Sure. But yeah, I I think what we found, I mean, there were a couple of gifts we found. The most significant gift was wise outside counsel was huge in helping us see what we didn't see, know what we didn't know, know what we needed to talk about that we didn't necessarily know we needed to talk about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03They had been there and done that, meaning they had walked alongside other families, other organizations who had transitioned. So, you know, as we were running into things that were new to us, start explaining it and they'd finish our sentence, like, oh, and then he probably responded with da-da-da-da. I was like, Yeah, how did you know that? You know, people are people. There's some common things here. So that was huge to have somebody to help shepherd the process for us. The other thing we found to be extremely helpful was having advisors who were not in the day-to-day, who were at a peer level with the first generation, and high trust and healthy relationship with second generation leadership. So we had three three individuals that would have fit that category, but there was a high respect level, a high trust level between them, Glenn and Shirley, and between us as second gen. So it was a safe place that you know Glenn could could vent to if you had concerns around how things were going. And keep in mind we decided to embark on the succession journey as we opened in Branson, as we hit the recessions. You know, it was yeah. I remember the the first time we met with our advisor consultant who walked us through this. He's like, so the two hardest things any organization does is success succeed from first to second generation. The second hardest thing to ever do is go from one geographic location to a second. He's like, You're doing them both at the same time. Like, hey, why not? Let's let's just make it fun. But that was huge because in those rockiest, hardest moments, there there was that safe space that either of us could go to. Sure. And they could affirm the other rights that didn't throw each other under the bus, but they could say, Hey, hold your powder. They've got this, it's gonna look different than how you would do it. But we're not gonna let them screw this up too badly. You know, we're coming along somewhere else in the middle. So that was huge. That that really helped bridge a couple of key critical hard moments. And then, of course, the other thing that's crucial is just honor between generations, honor between the outgoing leaders, the incoming leaders, and tons of grace. I mean, grace for the outgoing leader to say, man, you founded this in our case. They were the founders, yeah, you've lived this your entire lives. How could your identity not be somewhat connected to this?
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_03And, you know, just recognize they're gonna be unknown bumps. You know, you're seeing what you dreamed happen. Like Glenn and Shirley always dreamed this would go beyond them. So they loved what they were seeing. But at the same time, the real question for them of now what? What does this mean for us? That's hard stuff. So to have grace as the younger generation for that, to recognize there are going to be emotions that we don't see coming that are going to be at play, but we're committed to loving each other through it, honoring each other. And then vice versa, first gen being willing to offer us trust and going, we know they're gonna do it differently than us and so. But I mean, I would say the most important thing, though, in that regard, going into the transition was their belief in our commitment to the call of Christ, to the mission and to the vision that God had put in front of us. That was not in question. So even though how we would go about it was gonna look a little different or unique, the core why we exist and what we're called to do, not in question. Well, that was huge.
SPEAKER_01Is I is I hear you talk about that, it it could be very easy for this to become about the legacies of Glenn and Shirley, or what is your legacy going to be coming in? But the willingness and ability to keep it about the legacy of Christ and the gospel going forward is pivotal in those transitions from succession. And you know, you guys had another layer there, not just succession, but you were family. And so the the inherent difficulties that come with that as well. Maybe talk a little bit to that family dynamic. Yeah, how you guys navigated that with you know you got this going on, but then Christmas happened, and Thanksgiving happened, and all of those, those times to come together.
SPEAKER_03Oh my, yeah. It's on one hand, you know, family can make it easier because there's that like deep love for each other, and it can make it more complicated because there's no escape from each other either. And in our case, the Langster Theater is located, you know, where it's located, and then we live just through the fields in an old farmette, and then the farm right after that is my my wife's parents. So we we were in the middle of it, and then since that time, we actually built in the meadow of the farm, and my brother-in-law Josh and his wife moved into the farmhouse. So we're all in our own. So there was a season where that was not easy. There, you know, there were the flybys. It was like observing from a distance and flyby. I'm like, hey, you know, are you guys sure about whatever? You know, that was that was not the easiest. I mean, there was respect for each other as far as boundaries go. And when you're walking through survival, which we were in 2009 through 11, really was a very challenging season. Sure. Yeah, that was yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, then did you guys have a perspective? So, so there's what you guys are dealing with from the leadership standpoint, right? At the top of the organization. But that inevitably and ultimately, with all of those challenges, plays down into the organization. As well. You've got people who, you know, their livelihood is tied into the ministry and into the business that's happening, and they're seeing the transitions go on, and the obviously the succession planning happening in a difficult season of recession and opening second location. How did you guys navigate taking care of your people through all of that transition?
SPEAKER_03That's a great question. Yeah, I think one of the key things that helped in that regard when we went into the the start of the process for succession, neither Josh and I were seeking what's next. Like we weren't knocking on the door, like, hey, you know, we've been here for a little while. It's time for what's up. No, we had we and the board and our our wives and their sisters. Yeah, because Glenn and Shirley have four daughters. So they saw some things in Josh and they were like, this is interesting. Josh profiles a lot like dad. Matt profiles a lot like mom. This is very interesting. How this is they're kind of coming up together. They're completely opposite wirings and skill sets. So they saw that. They believed in us in that regard. And so that's what kind of set us on that course. But neither here I were seeking it. We weren't banging down the door. We were willing. We were really like, Lord, whatever you want, wherever you want us, that's what we're, that's why we're here. We're passionate about this. So the that helped on the front end. It's not like we went in with an expectation of, hey, great, three years. We we had better be in the top spots. Like there was none of that. It was like, hey, day at a time, year at a time. And we really worked with our consultant, was very good at honestly assessing and saying, like, hey, here's where you guys are today. Here's where you need to continue to grow. So that included coaching. So we were walking through with ever-increasing responsibility while our outside advisors' responsibility decreased. And what was cool, it allowed for, I would call an extremely seamless transition to the point where it was a seven-year journey from when we started to work with our outside consult. And so I would have transitioned into this seat, the seat of CEO at the beginning of 2015. And at that time, Josh would have shifted into our president and then chief creative officer. We've since renamed that chief story officer. But at that point, it was so seamless. And we sent out a communication to the company to just confirm, like, hey, this has happened now. And but it just like I wasn't doing my day any different. Yeah. And so I ran into one of our longtime managers who I had worked for way back. He was our facilities manager when I worked grounds one summer. And I ran into him. He's like, hey, congratulations. And I was like, congratulations.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03He's like, well, I saw the email, like you're officially a CEO. And I was like, all right, thanks. Thanks. And I love that because it was our goal from day one was we want this to be a smooth fade, like sort of think a nice spotlight cue, right? It the fade up, the fade out is so smooth you don't think about it when you're in the audience. That was the goal. We didn't want our teams to feel it as oh, wait, this is a shift. Oh, now Matt and Josh are leaving. You know, we wanted it to be almost a non-event. And thank the Lord, that's really how it played out, which was awesome.
SPEAKER_01Which is which is great. And that's one of the things sometimes that we see is you guys took a long-term approach to that, seven years, right? Which is a big deal, especially in the time you were going through, but also thinking about founders for tiring. And you know, I think about it in the terms of we're coming up on a large wave in the church world of founders, founding pastors who are going to be passing that mantle. And you guys took an approach that said, hey, one year might not be enough to make this transition happen. And so maybe how would you speak to some of those pastors now that you've gone through it and done it, some of those pastors that they know the Lord's kind of putting that last into the fourth quarter, at least on a season of ministry, to be able to begin the process of passing that tone.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, boy, it's the challenge is, of course, no two situations are exactly the same. So there's some general principles that we talked about that are certainly valuable. But as far as time frame, there's no perfect time frame, right? In our case, it just happened to be longer, a lot of what we were facing at that time. And even where we were in our leadership, we're pretty young in our journeys yet. But one thing I forgot to mention that was key in our case that could be helpful in other situations. I think it was important that while Glenn stepped out of day-to-day leadership really completely in 2011, he handed a lot of the reins off in 09, but then fully stepped out in 11. And we actually had our outside consultant serve as an interim leader. So he led our leadership team, which is not a typical approach, but one that we felt was right at that point. We were not certainly ready to step in and take over. But that also helped too, because that interim leader, it helped us re-format, rethink some things that we knew we needed to to transition from first to second. And it gave Josh the opportunity to serve under a leader in a different way, in a different space, and get grown in ways that we would not if we had not had that experience. And it sort of even provided a buffer where you have an interim between first and second for a season there. Yeah. It bought us some space. So I'll offer that as not a mandate that everyone should do. I don't mean that, but the the point is God's creative. Just like how we should be living all life in the kingdom is like, hey, King, what should what should today look like? But that that really, that really was essential. In our case, that allowed for that smooth transition that that I outlined. Not that it was easy, not that it was perfect. There is no such thing. Really teed that up well. But yeah, it's it's it's a challenging thing. I mean, it's something I'm thinking about today, right? I have no idea how long at this point I'm called to serve in this seat.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if it's the next two years or the next 25. I love it. I'm passionate around what we do, but I'm grateful that I can hold it loosely, right? Because it's it's his anyway. Hold it. So I'm starting, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm starting to think about that. Like, okay, Laura, what do you have in mind for succession? How do you want us to start thinking about that now beyond us in our generation? Sure, we're in our 40s, but that doesn't, there's no magic number, right?
SPEAKER_01So there's always a next. And that's one of the things I used to say to my staff members all the time, as we're all future former employees of whatever church or organization that wants, the the the Lord's need for us is small, but but his basking in our obedience to the stewardship is great. And so to hold loosely to what it is that he's given, knowing that whatever he gives is exactly where we're best positioned to be. And so that's great. Well, Matt, we really have loved getting to talk with you just a little bit here on the leadership podcast. Would love to be able to point our listeners to where they can hear from you more, where they can find sight and sound. So maybe share with them a little bit about how they can find you guys and what you guys are doing.
SPEAKER_03Sure thing. Yeah. Yep. Easiest way is through through the internet, obviously. It's sight-sound.com. We're also, of course, on all the major social platforms and YouTube and Instagram and all of those. Either as Sight and Sound or Sight and Sound Theaters, you'll find us either way, or most recently, Site and Sound Films, as we've started to also tell stories on the big screen, right?
SPEAKER_01Wow. Wow. Awesome. Well, Matt, thank you so much. We appreciate you sharing just a little bit of your journey and kind of what the Lord's been doing in y'all's life and through sight and sound and praying for you guys that he just keeps blowing on it and that you guys remain faithful to what it is he's called you to. Thanks for being with us.
SPEAKER_03Thank you so much, Carrie. It's a blessing. Thanks.
SPEAKER_02Grace and peace to you.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. At Vanderblumen, we help organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, culture, compensation, and diversity solutions. Visit our website, Vanderblumen.com to learn more and subscribe to our Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to keep up with our latest episodes. Thanks for listening.