WS1881 Use Storytelling To Elevate Your Brand | Matt Ferguson

Welcome to The Real Estate Syndication Show, I'm your host Deana Berg,  today we journey into the world of transformative storytelling within the realm of real estate with our esteemed guest, Matt Ferguson.

Prepare to be captivated as Matt shares his remarkable journey of reviving a deserted 1948 motor lodge in North Carolina. Discover how his love for mid-century mountain themes breathed new life into what is now the celebrated boutique hotel, Route 19, proving once and for all that strategic storytelling is both a lucrative investment strategy and a form of art.

Matt and I will delve into the nuances of hospitality, the unparalleled effect of nuanced storytelling in real estate, and how this approach can vastly differentiate a property. With his rich background as a creative powerhouse at the Walt Disney Company and a chief innovation officer at Storyland Studios, Matt will illuminate how blending narrative and space can create unforgettable experiences and drive financial success.


Furthermore, we'll uncover the symbiotic relationship between real estate and storytelling in not just transforming spaces but sparking significant social change. Join us as we discuss how Storyland Studios employs immersive experiences to support nonprofits, shining a light on major issues like human trafficking and poverty.


And don't miss our discussion on the visionary Trillith Studios—how a film studio's philosophy of service and community can inspire filmmakers, residents, and beyond.
So, if you're ready to break through the conventional mold and tap into the emotional core of real estate investment, this episode is for you. Let's explore the plot twists, character development, and settings that are reshaping the industry.


If you've been inspired by Matt Ferguson's innovative approach to storytelling, especially in the realm of real estate and experiential design, and would like to discover how Storyland Studios can transform your next project into a compelling narrative experience, don't hesitate to reach out. Connect with Matt directly via email  mattf@storylandstudios.com to explore the possibilities and bring your story-driven visions to life. He's always eager to discuss new ideas and collaborations.

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Transcript

Matt Ferguson [00:00:00]:

From the time they hear about you to when they interact with you online to when they walk into your physical space, there should be a connected story and it should be a compelling story that differentiates you from other experiences.

Deana Berg [00:00:16]:

Welcome to your daily real estate syndication show. This is your host, Deana Berg. Today, my guest is Matt Ferguson, chief innovation officer for Storyland Studios. Matt has a strong belief in the power of places and spaces to transform lives and lift the spirit. He learned this early in his career when he was a creative executive with the Walt Disney Company. He was with Walt Disney during unprecedented times of growth for the park and experiences. He had the opportunity to serve on the opening teams for numerous projects, including ESPN worldwide of sports, Disney's Animal Kingdom park, and multiple resorts. In his consulting career, now at Plain Joe, a storyland studio and beyond, Matt has helped iconic places tell their stories.

Deana Berg [00:01:06]:

Right now, Matt and the Storyland team are also currently working on multiple neo urban developments that have been initiated by churches to bless their communities, returning the church to the center of village life. He's an owner and principal designer at Route 19 Inn in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, named one of the best new boutique hotels by style blueprint. Can't wait for you to hear why Matt thinks Disney is one of the world's greatest mousetraps. It's all about story. Let's listen in. Matt, welcome to the show.

Matt Ferguson [00:01:41]:

Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Deana Berg [00:01:43]:

I'm so excited about this show because it's a little different than the ones that we normally do. Oftentimes we have operators who are rolling in multifamily and things like that. But I know you also dip your toe or foot or probably your whole hand and arm into that, but your pond is much larger. So I'm excited for you to share what you do and then we'll kind of get into some of the questions of what makes you tick and what you're passionate about. So what's your background, Matt?

Matt Ferguson [00:02:11]:

Currently I'm with a company called Storyland Studios, and I'm one of the principals there. And basically we are kind of a merry band of former Disney imagineers and marketeers that really any organization can hire to bring that level of storytelling experience, excellence to your project, whatever it may. You know, we're master planners, architects, interior designers, branding people. And really, that's more of my background. I came up through the ranks at Disney on the branding and marketing side and really trying to figure out how do we explain these vast experiences. In my case, at Walt Disney World, I was in Orlando to the world. And how do we summarize these kind of crazy huge experiences into a story that is crystal clear to everyone? And then I also had a branding and marketing firm for a while that specialized in experiences and real estate developments. We worked on Jack Nicholas and Arnold Palmer real Estate communities.

Matt Ferguson [00:03:15]:

We actually did a rebranding for our local kind of real estate organization and MLS in our area. And then we also have worked on resorts like Grove Park Inn and Pinehurst and Pebble beach to destinations like Asheville Tourism and York. So, you know, kind of specializing in telling the story of places and marketing and branding.

Deana Berg [00:03:42]:

I love this. I have so many questions around this we can explore here, but let's just talk about story. Obviously, it's in the name of the company that you now work with, but as you approach your work, as you are a former Disney Imagineer, which, by the way, it sounds like that's like an industry term, you're not just saying like, oh, this is something. This is like an actual category that people live in is imagineers. Is that.

Matt Ferguson [00:04:09]:

My. I was more of, I guess marketeer worked on the branding and marketing side, but we also have folks from Walt Disney Imagineering, which is their department, that actually has the architects, the spatial designers that create the theme parks and resorts at Disney. And I was on more of the branding and marketing side, but we have both covered within our organization.

Deana Berg [00:04:35]:

These are just fun words outside of know, capex and some of the normal things that we talk about on the show. So would love to hear just conceptually, as you think about story, obviously it's a backdrop for everything that you do. It seems like if you can tell me a little bit about the way you approach story, let's say, how do you approach story with your day to day work life and maybe in the context of family? I'm just trying to think of how you can extract a principle from an application in something like amusement and theme parks and then just communication.

Matt Ferguson [00:05:12]:

Yeah, well, we believe story is really core to the human condition. It's how we're wired as humans. We are inspired by story, we're moved by story. It's just how people are designed. So if you're creating an experience, whether it's a real estate property that you're investing in or whatever it is, we believe we've learned that it should be driven by story. And that's why Disney has been able to create these most popular places in the world, these human mousetraps that draw more people than any other experiences. So we're just kind of taking that logic and that methodology and applying it to whatever spaces and places we work on. So we work on multifamily, we work on rv parks, we work on retail locations and shopping centers and stuff like that.

Matt Ferguson [00:06:05]:

But we figure out what is the core story of this place. And we like to say we tell stories in three dimensions. We consider the three dimensions to be strategic, interactive, and spatial storytelling. So if you can connect a story across those three dimensions, you're doing well. So strategic storytelling is the story that walks away with you. It's the emotional feeling you get when you think about a place or your favorite brand, like Disney or Apple or what have you. Interactive story is the story that you engage with. So before they ever walk into a space that you might create, they're probably looking at you online, either in your social media or in your website, et cetera.

Matt Ferguson [00:06:49]:

And then spatial storytelling is the story you walk into. So from the time they hear about you to when they interact with you online to when they walk into your physical space, there should be a connected story, and it should be a compelling story that differentiates you from other experiences.

Deana Berg [00:07:06]:

How do you apply that to. Do you have kids?

Matt Ferguson [00:07:08]:

I do, yes. Five, as a matter of fact.

Deana Berg [00:07:11]:

Hey, five, how old are your kids?

Matt Ferguson [00:07:13]:

They are adults. Our youngest is 20 now. And so we're experiencing the empty nest for the first time, which is exciting.

Deana Berg [00:07:25]:

How did you implement the strategic, interactive, and spatial components of storytelling as you interacted with your kids? I'm trying to get this into like a. I can envision this in building a storyland, and I'm just trying to transfer this to something that we can use daily.

Matt Ferguson [00:07:43]:

Sure. I guess I did apply it in parenting. I mean, we had a definite sense of story for our family. Like, this is what we're about. We're generous people. In our case, we're people of faith, and we had the idea of serving God first and then serving others and then ourselves in that order. And so that was a big part of our story, and it's kind of how we raised our kids, and it's the story that they're continuing to carry with them when they get older. So, yeah, I guess that's a practical application of storytelling.

Deana Berg [00:08:23]:

I love that. I think about all of the opportunities that folks have for public speaking, and I think it's easier as the listener than as the speaker to decide how folks are at telling stories as they're engaging you in their story unfolding. But what you do oftentimes is it's like an experiential story, unfolding as you walk across a threshold of a place. Can you give us an example of a project that either in the past that you've worked on or currently working on and how you implemented these three dimensions?

Matt Ferguson [00:08:55]:

Sure. Yeah. I'm a real estate investor myself, and so I invested in this 1948 motor lodge in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. It's a property that was abandoned for, like, ten years. I mean, frankly, it was a little scary. It was a little Bates motelish when you looked at it.

Deana Berg [00:09:17]:

Was it vacant?

Matt Ferguson [00:09:19]:

It was vacant for, like, ten years.

Deana Berg [00:09:21]:

Yes, it is scary.

Matt Ferguson [00:09:23]:

So we bought this thing and we're like, what do we turn this into? Do we turn it into an apartment or do we turn it into. We go back to the use of a hotel. And the more we thought about this place, it is at the convergence of two rivers right outside of the great Smokies National park. And we're like, this thing has to be a hotel. And so then we started thinking about, well, what is the storyline that would make this hotel unique? Because it's on kind of a main strip with a lot of other different hotels and things. It was called Rocky Waters Motel, and there are, like, a half a dozen hotels in the area with some derivative of stone and water. And so we thought, okay, what's the story of this place? It was built in 1948 at the height of the post war, kind of everybody getting in their cars and taking road trips across America and going to the national parks. And it's right outside the great Smokies National park, the most popular one in America.

Matt Ferguson [00:10:25]:

And it's right ten minutes from the Blue Ridge Parkway, the most popular scenic drive in America. So we came up with this core story idea of this is about a retro road trip. What would that retro road trip feel like in the mid century period in the mountains? And so we kind of invented this little vernacular of architecture we called mid century Mountain, and we sort of updated it. Yeah, updated it with that in mind. And so if you go to our website, Route 19 n.com, you can see that the rooms are really cool. The whole place takes you back in time. We brought local artists in to create, like, totem poles and murals and made it very instagrammable. We've got an old 1951 car that sits outside permanently and right next to an old gas pump and just have so many cool little vignettes to hang out in.

Matt Ferguson [00:11:25]:

And, yeah, it's become really popular in the area. We've won an award for best new on the list of best new boutique hotels. And we have regular guests. Now, we've been open about three years. We had a guy that came to the property a couple of months ago and showed us. He tattooed the logo of route 19 in.

Deana Berg [00:11:50]:

My gosh.

Matt Ferguson [00:11:51]:

So we have some real super fans. I don't know any brand other than Disney that I've worked on where people tattoo things on their arms. So that was a real win. But it all started with storytelling, and it really transformed this property.

Deana Berg [00:12:09]:

Okay, so a couple of questions about you. Number one, who's we? Did you have a business partner? Is this your wife? Who are you going in on this deal with?

Matt Ferguson [00:12:18]:

Yeah, my wife and I. Actually, the initial purchaser was my father in law, who is a hotel operator. He's got a resort down in the Orlando area. And initially, I was just doing the rebranding and redesign as kind of a labor of love for pop. And then he got into the remodel, and he had another partner as well. And they got into the remodel. And those buildings are built like tanks. I mean, they're made of concrete construction, but they discovered little electrical issues and plumbing, and it just kind of ballooned to more than they thought.

Matt Ferguson [00:12:56]:

So they approached my wife, Lori and me, and said, hey, would you guys like to invest? And we were really kind of invested emotionally in it, and so we decided to throw some cash in, as well as minority partners. So that's how it all came about.

Deana Berg [00:13:09]:

Okay, so when you come to the table, and this can be for this project or for another one, and I'm imagining a boardroom or a table, and this is your initial meeting, and you're like, we're going to find out the story. Do you create the story? Do you ask questions that find out what story already exists? How does the story come to life in a project like this?

Matt Ferguson [00:13:31]:

Yeah, we have our ways. So when we meet with a client, we have story discovery meeting, a blue sky meeting, and it's loosely based on the process that Walt Disney went through when he created Disneyland. And we really start with the words first. We have a phrase we like to say. Words create worlds. So we sit around the table with the client, whoever is the owner of the property, and we look at, really, the three aspects of story are character, setting, and plot. So character could be people that were involved in bringing this thing to life. It definitely should be the audience you're trying to reach.

Matt Ferguson [00:14:16]:

What kind of people do you think would be interested in this experience? And then the setting. We really believe in what we call soil specific design, so we want to look at the context of where we are, where this property is. In this case, it was in the Smoky Mountains. And that had a distinct influence on the know. My partner, Mel McGowan, who helped found the company with his brother Peter, has a phrase. He calls it the United States of generica, where you drive down any commercial road in America and it's like, yeah, there's that big box store and I could be in Nebraska, I could be in southern California. It doesn't matter. We hate that.

Matt Ferguson [00:14:58]:

We think that whatever we create should look like it belongs in the area and should be distinctive. And so that's setting. So character, setting, plot. There is some storyline of what led to this time that we might be refreshing something, we might be building something. There's some sort of story we want to tell, whether it's a fictional story we make up or it's historic or what have you. It could be about the people that came together to create something. In this case, there was a definite story about this era of America where it was the glory days of road trips and we want to take people back to that time. So that became our.

Matt Ferguson [00:15:41]:

So at the intersection of character, setting and plot is always a big idea. And so we basically have an exercise where we pull those story elements out of our clients and then we come out at the end of the day with like a very clear storyline that then informs 1000 design decisions. And whatever your budget is, if everything is being driven by story, it's going to be better. It's going to be more effective at moving people to the behavior you want to drive them to, whether it's renting your apartment or whether it's getting in your office space or whether it's staying overnight in a hotel.

Deana Berg [00:16:21]:

Yeah. That leads to my next question. Is creating a story driven investment profitable? I mean, I'm imagining the answer is yes, but I'm also imagining that you are willing to incur more expenses for the sake of the story. So talk to us about how you balance profit and returns with what you're investing to kind of make the story compelling.

Matt Ferguson [00:16:48]:

Yeah, it really does not have to be more expensive. It's just you're going to be purchasing fixtures and paint and roofing materials and furnishings and stuff like that. But it might as well be informed by a crystal clear story and then it's going to be more effective. It absolutely does not have to be more expensive. Generally, somebody's going to, unless they diy something, they're going to hire some sort of design firm with architects, interior designers, et cetera. But we add a little bit of extra to it and thinking of that sort of story psychology behind everything before we design anything. And we also have, as part of our strategic storytelling capability, we have a team that does all kinds of strategic things, including feasibility studies. And we'll look at the highest and best use for a property.

Matt Ferguson [00:17:50]:

We'll look at how a property is projected to perform, and we'll create that pro forma. And when you add a little bit of story, you're making a property more distinctive. You're giving people a reason to select this property versus another one. And we find that it does yield a pretty good delta in terms of additional financial performance.

Deana Berg [00:18:13]:

It's not a mousetrap for nothing.

Matt Ferguson [00:18:17]:

There's a reason why it works. So we do speak the language of real estate. We do use terms like capex that are built into our pro formas and our strategic feasibility studies that we put together.

Deana Berg [00:18:34]:

Matt, when you think about the work you're doing right now, what gets you most excited? I'm imagining there may be things you can tell us, maybe things you can't tell us. But what gets you really know, really.

Matt Ferguson [00:18:45]:

What gets us most excited is there's a whole cause related side to our studio, where we love to work with nonprofits. So recently, for example, we took on a pro bono client called aim. Aim. And they are one of the top organizations in the world that fights human trafficking. And so they're based in Cambodia, which has been a hotbed for human trafficking. And they literally partner, they bring paramilitary and law enforcement over from the US that partner with local law enforcement, and they raid these places and arrest these guys that are keeping people enslaved, a lot of times children. And they rescue them. We are helping them not only with their brand story, but also thinking about some of their spaces.

Matt Ferguson [00:19:39]:

They have these really neat homes where they bring these people that have been rescued and give them counseling and job skills and all kinds of stuff. So we're helping them with kind of the spatial design for that as well. To us, that kind of thing is the most rewarding. Or we're working with an organization called Johnny and friends. They work with disabled people around the world and bring wheelchairs and all kinds of things. And they're creating an international disabilities center where it's a visitor experience where you can come and understand the plight of disabled people over the years. And Johnny Erickson Tata, the founder of this organization, is a powerhouse of a lady who is amazing, who was actually very much involved in the Americans for Disabilities act. And so there's kind of a little bit of a history of disability.

Matt Ferguson [00:20:37]:

And there's even, like, an experience you can walk in an immersive art experience like those immersive van Gogh's, where you can experience artwork from disabled people. We've got these immersive pods you can go into where you can walk into a disabled veteran's garage, or you can walk into a hut in a village in Central America where a mom is caring for her disabled daughter. And then there's an opportunity at the end to actually put wheelchairs together to send around the world. And it's going to be a real powerhouse for creating donations and driving volunteers for that organization. So that's really what gets us charged up. Is that kind of cause based stuff that we do?

Deana Berg [00:21:25]:

Yeah, that's fascinating. And I'm sure it's a huge blessing to the organizations that you're working with because I think it's such a huge, I don't know, barrier, because if you're not telling the story in a compelling way, regardless of how compelling the story is, I think you're missing a whole nother dimension of how others can be moved to involvement catalyzed into action, whatever it.

Matt Ferguson [00:21:50]:

Yeah, yeah. We created this thing called the poverty encounter for the Children's Hunger Fund.

Deana Berg [00:21:55]:

I saw that on your website. I was going to ask you about that. I'm glad you brought it up.

Matt Ferguson [00:21:59]:

Yes. So basically, you walk into this thing and it's like you're in an airport, and then you actually board a plane. Board a plane in quotes. And we have a simulator of this air flight, and then you land, and then you're at this hub where you can go into, like, four different regions of the world and experience Haiti after the earthquake, or the brickyards of Nepal, where they have children in child labor, or the dumps of Guatemala where people actually live in garbage dumps. And you get to walk through these places. And then at the end, we give people an opportunity to volunteer and pack meals to send around the world. And it's just been an amazing engine for getting volunteers from, like, school groups and then also driving donations because they used to fly donors around the world to these impoverished places to help them understand what's going on. But you can imagine the multiplier effect of just having one in southern California that people can visit, and it's really created increases in their donations and volunteering.

Deana Berg [00:23:13]:

That's amazing. I know. I was on your website, and it's really impressive. Names. You've got Legoland, you've got great America, sea life, Sega, all these things. And then you see poverty encounter, and you're like, what is this? And that was actually the thing that caught my attention. For the listeners, I definitely recommend that you check out storylandstudios.com and see the work that Matt and his team are doing. Something that you and I connected.

Deana Berg [00:23:43]:

You and I ran into each other at a redemptive real estate conference in Santa Barbara and found out we had a common contact and that I had recently visited a place that you have worked on. And I feel like this is a story also that needs to be told because anybody who I've mentioned Trillith Studios to doesn't know what I'm talking about. And when you distill it down to the mean just by way of amount that's been produced there in dollars, it's like, mind blowing. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about Trillith studios.

Matt Ferguson [00:24:17]:

Yeah, Trilleth is really two places. The town of Trillith and Trilleth Studios. Trilleth Studios is one of the biggest, busiest movie studios in the world, and it's where most of the Marvel movies have been made since. So, you know, these are the highest grossing movies of all time. And they're also doing other movies for Disney and other studios, but they just have state of the art facilities. It's owned by Dan Cathy, the former CEO and chairman of Chick fil A. His son is now the CEO of the business at Chick fil A. And so this is his new focus.

Matt Ferguson [00:24:59]:

But he's basically taking the same kind of service philosophies that chick fil A has become famous for. And he's now using that to serve the creative community. And so they just really do a great job of providing not only facilities, but service for these movie productions. And then across the street, they built a town that is designed for the creative community. And so if you think about the storyline that we've helped them work on for this place, Trillith, it's the big idea of a gateway to inspiration. So whether you live at Trillith or whether you are producing your movie at Trilleth or you work at Trilleth, it is a gateway to being inspired. And they're really all about this big idea of human flourishing. And they believe if we take good care of people that live there at Trilla, they're going to make better, more uplifting content across the street at the movie studio.

Matt Ferguson [00:26:04]:

So it's a pretty cool philosophy that they had.

Deana Berg [00:26:08]:

There it is. And trilleth, how many acres is it? It's huge.

Matt Ferguson [00:26:12]:

Oh, gosh, I should know this, but it is gigantic, for sure.

Deana Berg [00:26:16]:

Like 10,000 acres. Does that sound right?

Matt Ferguson [00:26:19]:

Sounds like in the ballpark.

Deana Berg [00:26:21]:

Something like that, yeah. So I actually was at Trilleth with Dan Cathy for the day. I was with John Maxwell, and we hung out. And a couple of things that impressed me. He gave us a walking tour. I mean, here's this man who has grown this business into a $40 billion business, second generation, and has now raised up his son, who's third generation, which we all know is incredibly rare for that to happen past the second generation. And he's walking around just, like, sipping us bendrift, telling us about what he was thinking when he was dreaming up Trilla studios. And he said something that I'll never forget and that we actually talked about for a moment that day was, he said, sometimes you have to jump the know.

Deana Berg [00:27:05]:

Sometimes you're in your little area, you're in your place. For him, I'm imagining that was chick fil a, right? And he says, sometimes you just have to jump the fence, and you have to see what's on the other side. And you have to take a risk to see what's out there. And to me, in hindsight, maybe he jumped the fence to kind of take a risk. Or maybe bet the farm on Trilleth studios. But I love his concept, and his attention to detail absolutely blew me away. We were sitting there on the street corner, and he's telling us about why they chose specific pavers on the ground that they chose. But maybe you were involved in that.

Deana Berg [00:27:40]:

I don't know. And then he's like, can you guys hold on for a minute? And he walks over and he begins to talk with the landscapers, the guys who are putting the dirt on. And he's like, sorry, I just had to tell him to hold on. We need some more loam on that. Just thinking, my gosh, this guy. I mean, his attention to detail unto, like you said, the end of the story of kind of being a birthing place for massive creativity and inspiration that will be purveyors of beauty to make the world a better place. I loved the way that he presented all of that. So it was fun that you and I connected on that.

Deana Berg [00:28:18]:

And that's what you're working.

Matt Ferguson [00:28:20]:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, every time I'm around Dan and his team, it's just like a clinic in servant know. I remember the first meeting that I had with him. We're kind of working on their master plan for the property. And of course, we had chick fil a brought in, catered in.

Deana Berg [00:28:39]:

We expected nothing less.

Matt Ferguson [00:28:41]:

Oh, yeah. And anyway, I look up, and I notice that Dan is, like, busting our know. And here Dan is in charge of this multi billion dollar operation, and he just cares enough about people that he's willing to do all the little things, and hospitality is important, and he makes you feel welcome, and you learn so much. Being around somebody like Dan, it's pretty awesome.