Jeremy: Alright, Dustin, we’re back. We’re back. It’s been a long hiatus, about a little over a year and a half. We’ve been busy though, right?

Dustin: Just a little bit.

Jeremy: Yeah, it’s been a whirlwind over the last, at this point, close to two years as many of, if you’re a listener, if you were a listener. Our last podcast was in January of 2023. So since then, Dustin and I have been still running longitude, longitude’s, still going strong, still doing some great work with some great clients, but if you didn’t know already, we also have become hotel owners ourself. So it’s been quite the journey. A lot of lessons learned, a lot of fun times, a lot of hard times through that. But today we’re going to kind of reboot the podcast, future Hospitality, tell the story of the last couple years and kind of the journey of ours becoming hoteliers. So we’re excited to have that conversation. It’s a little different format today. It’ll just be me and Dustin kind talking through this. So forgive us if it’s a little awkward at some points, but we’re doing our best here. But yeah. So Dustin, do you want to tell everyone about the last year and a half, two years with the hotels we’ve been involved in and what’s going on there?

Dustin: Yeah, yeah. Again, this is kind of an interesting episode where we’re sort of interviewing each other, but I think it’ll be fun to go through the journey and share that with you guys and you can see what’s on the horizon for us. But yeah, it was about out two and a half years ago or so. We had been kind of playing with the idea of becoming owners in some type of hospitality concept for quite a while, and just as we were trying to become the best hospitality branding agency that we could be, we knew that having hands-on experience on the other side of it would be very informative and just kind of help build our expertise in the industry. So that had been a thought swirling around for quite a while.

It began to take shape when Jeremy sent me a slack message of a hotel in Branson, Missouri that had just been listed for sale, and it’s a really cool little roadside motel alongside a creek. And I had actually stayed there with my son a couple years earlier, so I was familiar with it. And so when he sent me that, I was intrigued and it didn’t take too much convincing to at least take the next step and see what it would look like to reimagine re-envision that place. So yeah. Jeremy, what was some of your inspiration that led up to that moment?

Jeremy: Yeah, I think just as you mentioned you and I over the last six years since I joined as a partner at Longitude, the first, I would say probably two years of that time was really dialing in who we are as a team, who we want to be and what type of projects we want to be involved in, and who we want to know and kind of swim in the same pond with, so to speak. So in that timeframe, we started realizing that hospitality industry and the hotel industry had a lot of great opportunities for brand development, for the type of work that we did. It was really creative, very engaging. There was a lot of ways to infuse what we do into the guest experience, into programming and to design and of the space in a lot of different ways. So like you said, we grew an affinity for this category of hospitality, and through that we were consulting, we were providing service for all sorts of clients, all these great hoteliers all over the world, and you and I just were having discussions of we should do something like this in our own backyard, and especially in the Midwest where we live, we live in southern Missouri and the Ozarks, and there’s not a lot of really great boutique independent kind of cool brands happening in this space.

So in that same time period, once we came to that realization and were solidified in that thinking, I decided to get my real estate license just because I wanted to learn more about the real estate side of investments and just the ins and outs of that. Specifically, I was kind of more interested in commercial real estate, so I read a lot of books, I studied a lot, and then I ended up actually getting my real estate license. And right around that time period, I was really just scouring MLS system and looking for opportunities. I was looking on correct c on LoopNet, on all these different front websites. And this opportunity came across, and like Dustin said, it felt like it had really good bones. It was 101 room roadside motel called Fall Creek Inn in Branson. Dustin and I were both very familiar with Branson already.

I think we saw the opportunity, there was a lot of baggage as well with Branson, just that market and kind of what Branson, its history and kind of what it had become. But we saw a light, I think, in that we saw also what Branson could be and more, I guess bright future for Branson and younger and youthful and modern future of what Branson could be and should be in our mind. So long story short, we saw this property and we’re like, man, this has all the great bones and elements of, and at that time we admired some brands like Anil Hotel and Jackson. We got to visit that and see that in person. There were several brands. What were some of the other brands that kind of inspired us? You visited some, yeah,

Dustin: Coachmen and Lake Tahoe and Base Camp in Boulder. Some of those, the bunkhouse stuff. Really, the podcast provided a lot of the inspiration that we needed to be able to take this leap.

Dustin: Getting through our clients that we get to work with and seeing these really cool concepts along the coasts and these mountain towns, and then coming back home and seeing such a large tourist demand and yet really untapped potential for cooler concepts. But yeah, I mean the podcast guests that we’ve talked to over these years really inspired me that, okay, this is something that you can actually do. Hearing those stories,

Jeremy: And it was surprising to me, several of the guests I remember, we would always ask them about their background and hospitality, how they gotten there to where they are, and many of them they had, I would say maybe a more traditional route to it. Maybe they went to Cornell and got a degree in it. They started maybe in finance or investments or asset management or things like that, and that was kind of their pathway. But there were several actually that had a little different route to it where they had no background in hospitality growing up and even going through college or they didn’t have a degree or anything like that. But it was just more of an endeavor of passion, I would say. And maybe just some finding yourself a little bit, I don’t know how to word it, but just like you learn to love hospitality, and we’ve written about this too on our blog and we’ve talked about it on our podcasts, but it’s like this hospitality, we don’t view it really as an, don’t view it as an industry.

I view it as more as a mindset and a way of living in a way of engaging with people. And so I think that’s part of the love that we have for it, and we’ve grown for it, and it’s just affords you a lot of ways to be creative, to make an impact on not only your guests and the experience they have, but also in the community you’re in. And especially with the property, the Ozark or Lodge, the property that we developed in Branson that’s had a really positive influence on the community. I think it’s sparked a lot of creativity in that area too. And there’s other brands in the market too that are doing this, but more youthful energy, a little bit more modern view of Branson and the Ozarks, and so that’s just really exciting. I think that’s one of the things that have been really awesome to see since we got there. But it was definitely a long journey getting to that point. And I remember even after going back to that, you mentioned I found the property and sent you the link, but there was a lot that even went into getting the deal together and making it work. So I don’t know if you want to talk through some of the challenges we had there and what that was like. This would’ve been, lemme think, November, 2022, I think when I first found it, and then sent you the link and then we kind of 21, was it 21?

Dustin: It have been. Oh yeah,

Jeremy: Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it would’ve been.

Dustin: And then we closed the next June or July,

Jeremy: And in that time period, that was a six or eight month time period. So what was that like?

Dustin: Yeah, well, being branding guys, we pretty much jumped straight into the concept development and the property just lended itself to this kind of outdoorsy, nostalgic lodge. I mean, it’s situated on Fall Creek, just this beautiful bluff in the background. And so we started thinking immediately of what’s, what’s the concept? What’s the narrative? One of the things that was obvious to us from the beginning is that in our travels, a lot of times when people find out we’re from Missouri, they’re just like, oh, just we kind of get the idea that there’s a perception of nothing cool is going on in Missouri.

Jeremy: They’re like, is that Minnesota? They don’t even know where it’s at. Usually it’s like misery and all they know is the show me state. They’re like, oh yeah, the Show me state.

Dustin: Or they’re like, oh yeah, Ozarks was a cool show, terrible place to live next. And so I wouldn’t say we had a chip on our shoulder, but we did have a desire to showcase. The Ozarks is a beautiful place, and there’s a lot of really talented people doing high quality stuff, even so much that we named the development company, flyover Developments, just to take ownership and take pride in where we are and what makes the Ozarks unique. So the concept for the Ozark or Lodge was let’s show off the best of the Ozarks. And we did that in a lot of different ways through the people we partnered with, and we can get into that a little bit later. But all that to say, we started with the concept first, and that made it so much easier for people to catch the vision, and it really helped the conversations upfront, although I would say they weren’t completely easy still.

Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah. Those early conversations, I think it was November, 2021, you and I, we visited the property and kind of got a tour with the broker and the owner, the current owner, and I remember just walking through, I didn’t honestly even know what I was really looking for. I was probably just in the mindset of like, okay, I’ve bought a home before and I’ve walked through a home, so I’m just going to kind of look for drywall cracks here and there. I, I had no clue what I was. I just like, it looks cool. It seems like it’s in good shape. I think the previous owner had some pride of ownership in the property, so the bones of it were good, and we toured it with another friend of ours who, he was a developer too, and so he was giving us some tips and kind of just helping us in addition to putting together the concept and the brand and some preliminary thinking on that.

He was helping us think through the proforma what a budget could look like, asking some of the right questions, because again, Dustin and I, we know branding, we know hospitality, hotel branding and design, but didn’t know the first thing about development or investment or hotels or anything, the ins and outs of that. So that was super helpful to have our friend with us. And he was actually, originally, he was planning to be a partner in the Ozark, and so he had helped us put together an LOI, and we were getting ready to get an LOI signed and actually have the purchase agreement signed. I think this would’ve been January or February of 2022. And so we had all the paperwork done. We had already kind of come to a verbal agreement with the broker and seller and getting ready to send it over, and this was probably a day or two before we’re going to send it over. My friend reached out to me and he was like, Hey, I just got too much on my plate. This is a cool project. I think it’s going to be successful, but just I can’t be a part of it. And Dustin and I were kind of devastated and kind lost.

Dustin: I mean, we’d spent months working on this deal, and it felt like we were married to it. This thing had to happen, and he was the guy that was going to make all the numbers work and actually bring it to fruition. So when he had to bail, we just looked at each other and we’re like, dude, I mean, can we still do this? Is there any,

Jeremy: I remember, yeah, I think we went out to coffee or something and we were just sitting there looking at each other, what do we do?

Dustin: Yeah, because as soon as we signed that contract, then we were under the due diligence period and we had to start shelling out money for just the different surveys and all of that stuff to keep the deal moving forward.

Jeremy: We had to put in earnest money down too,

Dustin: And we were basically tapped out with the earnest money deposit. So I looked at Jeremy, I’m like, what’s your plan for, how are we going to pay for all of this stuff and actually keep it going? And Jeremy’s just like, I have no plan. I was like, okay, well, let’s do it then. Let’s do it.

Jeremy: Yeah. We trucked forward without really a plan. We ended up sending over the PSA, the purchase agreement to the broker. Everyone signed it. We put up the earnest money down for it, and we were under contract. I think the price was, if I recall, about 2.8 million. And so as a part of the contract, we had basically 90 days to figure it out. If we can get the deal to work, if we can get it funded, if we can get investors on board, if we can really do this thing. And at this point, it’s just me and Dustin because like I said, our other friend had kind of needed to bail a little bit on the project. And so basically right after that was signed, we hit the ground running. And like Dustin said earlier, we had built a lot of great relationships through the podcast and just through the work we were doing in longitude with all these incredible clients.

And so we called and emailed several of our people that we had good relationships with, and we had a lot of different discussions with a lot of people, a lot of ideas swirling around about how we might approach this. Some people were trying to push us towards doing a brand, like a soft brand, like a Choice Hotels soft brand or something, and some other, there was just a lot of ideas and we were just like, we don’t know what we’re doing. Thankfully, one of the conversations we had was actually from a past guest on our podcast, Stephen Chan, and he’s with Eagle Point Hotel Partners, him and Erik Warner, our partners there, and Stephen, I think after we had that preliminary conversation with him, and he actually offered to fly out a week later and actually tour the property with us and tour the Ozarks. He had never been to the Ozarks, but thankfully we had a relationship with him through the podcast, through ILC independent LO in Congress, and he trusted us enough to fly out to the middle of nowhere, so to speak, and let us pick him up and drive him around. That tour was pretty fun though. Do you remember that?

Dustin: Yeah. We were trying to be strategic about what do we let him see and try to ease him into the Branson culture because there’s a lot of cool things happening in Branson, but there’s still a lot of residual baggage from decades past that some might refer to as hillbilly hell. So we’re like, oh man, Stephen’s from San Francisco. He’s going to think this is just terrible or something. So we were kind of strategic about how we eased him into the culture, but he immediately saw the opportunity and had a lot of faith that there was something here and there was something cool that could be done. So it was really cool to get him on board. And

Jeremy: The cool thing about Stephen, I mean, he’s just an awesome guy in general and really thankful to have him as partner now. But at the time, it was even more exciting because Stephen with Eagle Point Hotel Partners, and we mentioned this earlier, Annville Hotel, that’s one of their properties, and that was one of the properties that probably one of the bigger inspirations for the Ozark are,

Dustin: As well as Base Camp was also. And Base Campo was also a big inspiration.

Jeremy: And so just the fact that he had already had properties in his portfolio that were very similar type of product to what we were wanting to build. I think that, so basically he came out and visited, did the site tour, spent a couple days with us, and then he flew back to San Francisco. He is like, give me a few days to think about it, kind talk with the team, and mulled over. And I think it was about a week later, we had another phone call and he was like, yeah, I’m excited about it. I think there’s potential. Let’s move forward. And so that kind of spurred us and gave us, I think, some new energy into it, because we were, at some point, I remember at least I was kind of feeling hopeless. I’m like, there’s no way this is going to

Dustin: Happen. Yeah, we’ve had several conversations that just didn’t go well and felt like we were striking out

With some people, and it’s hard to find the right person at the right time. A lot of people were like, man, this is a cool opportunity, but the timing isn’t right for us, so we can’t be a part of it. And so after several of those, it started to feel like, man, we’re just going to have to bow out and try to get our earnest money deposit back and let this dream die. But yeah, once Eagle Point was excited about it and committed, it was a really good feeling. It felt like, man, if this thing has a chance, then it’s going to make it with their help.

Jeremy: So if anyone’s going to do it, it’s going to be Stephen and Erik helping us.

Dustin: Yeah.

Jeremy: And it was great too, and it’s been a wonderful partnership with them. And I think one of the strengths of this partnership in our mind and kind of thinking, especially in hindsight, looking back, Dustin and I, again, very inexperienced, had no clue what we were doing, but we could excel in developing a brand and a story and the programming and design of a space thinking through the experience. And Stephen and Erik do that well too, even without us. But I think the strengths that we bring to the table on that front paired really well with Stephen and Erik’s background and just they have a ton of experience they brought to the table. So it worked out really, really well. And kind of the division, the divide and conquer of how we split our duties and focuses, I think that was one of the key elements of this, the success of the Ozark and how it actually came to fruition.

But basically, again, after that week, after he toured it, the week after that, he said, let’s go. And we just hit the ground running. At that point, I think if I recall it was we needed to fine tune the numbers again, get some more dialed in numbers. We had already kind of had a preliminary budget and our best take at a proforma some numbers. But once Stephen got involved, we started to really refine that and the clock was ticking. So I think at that point, we might’ve only had 60 days to figure it out. It took us several weeks to finally get a partner on board,

So we had to get the deck into a strong position. You and I were working really hard on the content of that deck, the telling the right story, doing demographic research, market research, star reports, digging into those, making it all presentable, getting all these numbers into the, it was like a 30 page presentation with, I don’t even know how many rounds of revisions we went through, but we had to get it to a point where we could present it to lenders, we could present it to investors and start to have those conversations, get people excited about it.

So I don’t even know how many people you and I talked to. Again, we just went back to our network and friends and colleagues and just people we had worked with, people on our podcast, people that we met at ILC or just other places, just anybody and everybody we thought might be interested to be involved with this. And Stephen was doing the same with his network. And I think the investors, I don’t want to say it came easy, but I do think there was a lot of people, generally everybody we talked to is super excited about it. But like you said, I think it was more of a timing issue for a lot of the investors. It just wasn’t good timing for them to get involved with it. I think the more challenging part that we were aware of is how are we going to get the financing for this and how’s that going to play out? And so I don’t know. The lending part was a little bit more challenging, I would say. I dunno what your thoughts were on that, but

Dustin: Yeah, a lot of the investors that we talked to were interested, excited. It was hard to get them to put their name down for real until we had some yeses from other people. Then it’s kind of like a snowball, but it was hard to get that started. So we did start to get some yeses, and then we got an anchor investor that took a nice sized chunk, and that gave other people a lot more confidence. And then he also had a relationship with a bank that helped a lot, just kind of smooth out that process because of his track record with them. So yeah, it was kind of a slow start, but once it started rolling, then we ended up having more people that wanted to invest than we had room for, which was

Jeremy: Cool. And I remember getting close to closing. There was, I’m trying to remember exactly what happened, but there was something that happened the week of closing, and I feel like this is something that always happens, like a security breach at one of the banks, wasn’t it? No, that was on the Parker. This was on the Ozarker. It was something with the owner. It wasn’t like there was some signature he needed from a family member and all this. And I don’t remember the details, but it was like we were ready to hit the ground running and get everything going and close on it. And our investors had already come in and the loan was already, it was just like all of a sudden this wrench got thrown into the plan and it was like, is this going to close now? There was basically something with the seller, wasn’t the only seller. There was actually another family member who we didn’t even know about through this whole process, and it was just kind of

Dustin: Our management company was on site ready to do the transition. There’s a lot of wheels in motion for all of that to go. And then we’re like, all right, well, we’ll just have to take over and then lease it back from the owner until we can get this straightened out.

Jeremy: But thankfully, I don’t even remember how it all transpired, but basically long and short, I think it ended up being fine. I think we were one day delayed and it ended up being, but

Dustin: There was a bank holiday that week too, I remember. That was an issue.

Jeremy: So we finally closed on it. This would’ve been June of, I guess, 2022, right?

And then, yeah, alongside our third party management company that we put in place, springboard Hospitality, they took over at that point, and we ran it as Fall Creek in from that point forward until through third and fourth quarter of 2022, and just tried to optimize everything and get as much cash as we could before we had to shut down and go full on renovation mode. But during that time, from June through November, December of that same year, we were working a lot with the architect. We started engaging the design team, the gc, getting everybody prepped and onboard, getting all the drawings, getting all the plans, permits and orders, permits, all this stuff that needed to be in place. And we basically had, the clock was ticking at that point because now it transitioned from, okay, we’ve acquired the property, we closed on the property, now it’s ticking until next season, next busy season of Branson, which is basically begins Memorial Day of the following season. So we were like, we had to really hurry if we’re going to do this big renovation. We had a lot of plans, but we were aiming to hit Memorial Day of 2023 as reopening as the Ozark or Lodge. But there was a lot that happened over that. It was about a year process.

Dustin: We were very aggressive with the construction timeline. I mean, we were basically trying to start in November and have it done in by April, may, and we were completely overhauling 102 rooms. We ended up getting an extra room with the renovation building on a lobby with basically a functioning restaurant and kitchen in there, completely overhauling the back part of the property with a landscape designer putting in a new pool and a pavilion for live music. And we built a natural playground too. So it was just basically every piece of that property was getting a major overhaul, and we were trying to do it in just a few months. So that was stressful. Every second counted. I remember we were watching our emails just refreshing every few minutes because if something came through and needed to be addressed, we didn’t even have a day to spare.

Jeremy: And Dustin and I, at this point in the partnership between Dustin and I and Stephen and Erik with Eagle Point, we were the boots on the ground in Branson and the Ozarks. We live in Springfield, so it was about a 40 minute drive for us to get down to Branson and be there. And so we were kind of wearing the hat. We were wearing the hat of project manager for this project at this point. And so in addition to, obviously the GC had their subcontractors and had their scope of work, but we were basically on every call related to construction, design, management, anything operations related, food and beverage,

Dustin: All the shipping. We had custom furniture built for every room,

Jeremy: And we were just trying to keep things moving along. And if someone was waiting for something from someone else, we had to as constantly just badgering people, basically like being the squeaky wheel and just trying to keep things moving along, keep everyone getting what they needed on time. There was a lot of different delays and things, and like Dustin said, our original timeline was reopening April May, but it ended up getting pushed back. We didn’t actually open until, I think the official opening was July 1st, 2023. And that was due to a lot of different reasons. I think some of the reasons, I know that there was some delays with the furniture. There was several case goods and furniture items that were delayed, not only through the design and actual manufacturing of the case goods, but also wasn’t there.

Dustin: It was like a strike at the port,

Jeremy: A strike, I think some union strike at the

Dustin: Port somewhere. So all of our furniture was built, shipped, and just sitting in a container somewhere on the coast of sitting California while we’re stressed out trying to get everything figured out,

Jeremy: And our poor procurement guy, Dave, I’m just literally texting him every single day. Any update? Any update, what’s going on? Have you heard any update?

Dustin: Yeah, we were watching the news, trying to figure out if they can settle this strike.

Jeremy: Yeah. Oh man. So that was one delay. There was several kind of unforeseen things too, whether it be structural issues. I remember there was some structural things with the lobby, the new lobby and kind of restaurant space we were building and just getting the engineers out there and getting their drawings. What we had hoped was only going to take a week or so, ended up taking three or four weeks to get the drawings and everything we needed for that. And there was several other things. I think delays are to be expected in construction, so I don’t think we were too shocked by that, but we were definitely eager to reopen as the Ozark, because again, June and July are peak season in Branson. So every single day that you miss being open and not being able to book rooms, you’re just losing money basically. And I remember actually, we had a tentative date opening.

I think we were planning mid-June or something. And so we had preemptively, this would’ve been I think back in May or something, we opened up our books for people to start booking mid-June and because we were confident at that time, but then another delay with some case goods, I think it was, or a permit, I don’t remember what it was, but basically delayed us another two weeks and we couldn’t open. And so we had to actually walk several guests that we had booked with us. We either had to cancel the reservation and we were walking some people to other hotels because we couldn’t legally have them in our, we didn’t have the certificate of occupancy basically. That was so

Dustin: Frustrating. It was pretty painful. Poor Molly had to make those calls and Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, Molly Folsom, she’s awesome. One person was like, this is our honeymoon. You’ve ruined our wedding day. You ruined my life. Quite sad that that had to happen.

Jeremy: But Molly Folsom, she is consulted and helped us on our marketing and influencer program, social media, stuff like that, pretty much since Springboard got engaged with us. But she’s awesome, and she had to make all these just terrible phone calls for us. She’s just volunteered to do it, I guess she’s just, she’s like, yeah, I remember her saying something like, she loves crisis mode or something. I was like, you’re a better person than me, because I’d be feeling so bad. And she handled it. I

Dustin: Think she needed a personal day after all the abuse she went through.

Jeremy: But we finally got open finally in July, 1st of July. I remember the last, it was probably two or three weeks, maybe more. I don’t know. But before that, you and I were out there like hanging signs, letter, these big letter signs out in the pool side. We were painting walls were, I mean, there was a lot of making rooms, building furniture, putting furniture together.

Jeremy: Oh, yeah. I remember frantically putting beds together in rooms, and we had an inspection with a health inspector, and it was like, they’re coming tomorrow and we need every single room ready. And we didn’t have the staff to do it. And Dustin, myself, my wife, my kids, his kids, everybody was out there just making beds, folding sheets, whatever we had to do.

Dustin: There were still fixtures that needed to be installed before the health inspector would pass us. And so she’s walking through the building and we’re like two rooms ahead of her screwing in these bathroom fixtures and trying to make it ready for her.

Jeremy: We’re telling our team exciting, our general manager, we’re like, distract her until we can get this one done. Stuff like that. Yeah, it was a whirlwind those last few weeks especially. It was just chaos, just trying to get everything done. But yeah, we did it. There was a lot of, in hindsight, that whole construction and process after we acquired the property and until we reopened as the Ozark, I think there was several fun parts of it where we got to do some fun things. I think one of the things I thought was fun was the found objects and art and that type of decor you and I got to source. That was probably one of the more fun.

Dustin: Spent a lot of time in antique shops, so we had to source original art and found objects for all the rooms. So that ended up being five, 600 items. And so we did our best. And then the interior design team got into town and they cleaned up

Jeremy: I think they only shopped for maybe a day and a half, but they had a hall, man. I remember the whole lobby was just spread out with just art everywhere and all these random objects, and they had chosen all of cool stuff,

Dustin: But it made for a really cool end product. Every room is unique.

Jeremy: And actually this group also we’re talking about as Parini based out of Detroit Interior Design group, but I remember Amy and Christine, they were just, even, they not only went and found all the art with her team, but they also came back and were trying to organize it a way and place it in a way where it looked good visually on the wall and pairing objects together where that made sense and kind of balanced out each other and all that. But yeah, I mean, they did a killer job on the design of all the spaces. And then, yeah, they definitely went above and beyond in that final stretch to bring it all home. We were way far, weren’t as far ahead as we thought we were on the art, because you and I were like, we went probably a handful of times, half a dozen times maybe to some antique stores and bought some stuff, but they were just like, yeah,

Dustin: Well, it felt like a ton of things that we had found. We were so excited, and we actually counted it up and it was a fourth of what we needed could

Jeremy: Show up five rooms or something. It was like, oh, yeah. So it ended up being awesome, and there’s a lot of really cool, the decor and art and everything is really just fun to look at the Ozark. So that was a highlight for sure.

Dustin: But yeah, what was it like having the owner hat and the creative agency hat on the same project?

Jeremy: Yeah, I think about that, and I talk about that a lot with people. I think it’s a few different things happened. I think through that process, I think I realized I had already, just through Longitude and some other businesses we’ve been involved in, I understood what it takes to be an owner and an entrepreneur. But the translation of what we do at Longitude for our clients and the strategies and approach that we preach through longitude, so to speak, it gave us an opportunity to really practice that through this journey and also see what works and see what doesn’t and see do these things that we do and we talk about does it matter really or does it not? And I think some things that come to mind we talk a lot about with our clients at Longitude is just as early as possible in a hotel development or a repositioning, if someone’s buying a property and they’re planning to reposition it, or if they’re getting ready to build a property and build a new brand as early as possible, start the brand discussion if nothing else, just for, again, getting your thoughts that might be swirling around all these different ideas, getting them on paper, thinking through some of those preliminary questions about what’s this property meant to be?

What’s the opportunity? Who’s the market? How do we want to be positioned in this market? Are the other players in this market? All these types of questions. And then you get into the fun stuff eventually where it’s like, what’s the identity? What’s the name? What kind of design do we want to have? What’s the mood board? All these different pieces. But the earlier you start those discussions, I think I finally got, I was able to solidify like, okay, this is actually really important. We saw that for the Ozark, you and I dialed that in very, very early on, and probably within first after we found the property the first time, and probably within the first 60 days of that, after we found it, we probably had 90% of the Ozark dialed-in by that point, the brand and the story and the product and what it’s going to be. And so what happened after that was once we began onboarding other partners, once we began conversations with investors, with lenders, with management partners, interior design, team architect, general contract, all these different people we were bringing on to the team, we had this deck that was just explained it perfectly to them. And they got up to speed very quick, and they’re like, oh, yeah, I totally get it. And there wasn’t any ambiguity with it. There wasn’t any confusion. It was very, very clear. And so that was probably one of the more super helpful things, I think as an owner is necessary. I know some owners believe that. I think some people devalue the importance of that.

And another thing I think too is just realizing what goes into a hotel. You and I, before we became hotel owners ourself, I think I didn’t really appreciate or know everything that has to go into a development, all the different hurdles, all the different points in a project where it can stall, where things might not work out or it might get delayed or whatever. And so just seeing behind the scenes of that, now when we get a client who reaches out to us and they’re like, Hey, we really want to work with you guys, and then we don’t hear from ’em for six months. Their project might get delayed. Maybe that used to frustrate me or just discourage me, but now I’m like, I totally get it. I have empathy for you. It gives me a better appreciation for the clients we work with and where they’re at and their concerns. So those are some of the things I kind of learned, but I don’t know. What do you think? As far as wearing the owner hat?

Dustin: Yeah, I would definitely echo just like there was a lot of stuff that we knew we thought we knew, but without actually implementing it for ourselves, you can’t fully know. And so getting to practice what we’ve been preaching from a brand standpoint was really cool just to see the impact. And we get questions a lot of times from customers or clients and asking, when should I start? Here’s kind of where we’re at in the process. When should I start thinking about branding? And with all the confidence in the world now we can say last month, it’s never too early to start thinking about what the brand is and the story that you’re trying to convey because it does affect every decision that you make, the people that you’re bringing in to help, they need that clear vision. And so I think that was a really cool thing that came out of this was just kind of learning that lesson firsthand.

It was also cool. There’s a lot of times when we’re working with a client and we’re like, oh man, it’d be cool if they did this. And then we pitch it and it’s like they don’t really see the vision for it, or there’s a budgetary constraint or something. And so one of the things that I was hoping that we could do with this project is just like, if there’s a cool idea that any of us come up with, let’s make it happen and let’s figure out how to make the money work. Because we were definitely tight on budget. Everything came in more expensive than we had anticipated. So we did not have unlimited funds, but we had unlimited creativity to pull off things. And I think about the wagoner that early in the discussion we’re like, man, what’s the brand vehicle for the Ozark or Lodge? What embodies the spirit? And we settled on a 1980s Jeep Grand Wagoner. We were like, oh man, it’d be cool to have a branded version sitting in front of the property where people could take their pictures and it just sets the tone. So we were pretty excited about that. But once the construction budget came back, it’s like we do not have money for a wagoner,

Jeremy: Because at that time to get a nicely redone wagoner of that timeframe, I mean, you’re going to spend easily 20 to $30,000. We’re like, yeah, we still need beds. And

Dustin: So as cool as we thought that idea was, it just didn’t seem possible. But Jeremy is a make it happen guy. And so he found one and he’s like, Hey, it’s in really rough shape, but I think I could whip it into something cool. And we were all just not sure. And then next thing we know, he’s got it on a trailer bringing it home, and he is like, I’m just going to buy it and we’ll figure it out later. So he bought it and started refinishing it in his garage, and it turned out amazing and just don’t look too closely. It all worked out.

Jeremy: But yeah, I remember when we had decided what the brand vehicle was, again, early on we were kind of having these brand decisions and discussions. And so pretty much immediately after that, I just started looking around for wagoneers on Facebook marketplace and just other places. It was Slim Pickens. Like I said, unless you wanted to spend $30,000 for one that’s already been completely redone, there was nothing really available. Then all of a sudden this one popped up. Like Dustin said, it was in very rough condition, at least on the outside, but it ran and the interior was okay, but it was such a good deal. I was like, I can’t pass this up. So I was like, I’m just going to buy it, figure it out later. We’ll figure out the details later. But yeah, I painted it myself in my garage. I did my best to restore some, I fixed some lights on it, more like aesthetic kind of exterior stuff. And we finally got the vinyl on it. We got the wood paneling, the classic wood paneling on it and the logo, and now it sits outside the Ozark, and it’s one of our Instagramable moments. I think that’s probably one of the places at the property that gets the most photos in front of it, I would say. Yeah, for sure. So definitely that was definitely something like wearing an owner hat, being able to just make that decision

Of, I’m just going to do it, even though it doesn’t make financial sense probably right now. It just needs to happen. So we made it happen. That was fun though.

Dustin: Yeah, I think another thing that I came to value was just when you select a partner for a project like this, it makes such a difference if they take ownership. And we worked with a lot of people bringing this thing to pass, and there were some that were just treating it another project. It’s just their job and they’ll do what they can and there’s a cap on what they can do. And then there were some partners who you really felt like they were invested. And with being under such a tight time constraint, literally every hour mattered. And the partners that we had that were going above and beyond to make the project successful and to hit the deadlines, that was just so refreshing and so endearing. And so I think as a branding agency owner, I’ll never forget that feeling of being an owner, relying on somebody to do something and just seeing them go above and beyond to make it happen is like, it’s priceless.

Jeremy: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it gave us, I think a renewed responsibility, I guess I would say, to our existing and future clients. And we already had this approach to begin with, but I think it just codified it even more in our minds is like, how can we truly be partnership mindset to our clients and provide immense value to them, hopefully leave them with feeling like we over-delivered and did everything we can to make their business successful. And so like Dustin said, there was a lot of people that did that on our project team for the Ozark and those people, I’ll refer them all day long, I’ll give any sort of recommendation or review they want. They’re just great people, and I’m sure they know who they are if they’re listening to this, but I think the project team is so important and really surrounding yourself with people that get it, that want to be there, that aren’t afraid to not have the answers, but figure it out and get creative with it and crafty with it. I think those are the types of people for something like what we did, at least that you want on your team. So it was a whirlwind from all the way up until July 1st, and it’s still kind of been a little bit of a whirlwind since we opened.

Dustin: Yeah, so we’re about a little over a year into this. How’s it been going?

Jeremy: It’s been going pretty well. I would say it was a little bit of a rocky start. I think we got a late start in the booking window for the busy season. So we didn’t really get to capture as much of July busy season as we’d like August, September. And Branson is historically a fairly low occupancy season, so we didn’t see a lot of traction there. But once we hit October, November, December, I think we were all pretty surprised in 2023 with the last quarter of the year and just how well we did for being a brand new property with zero presence hardly. And we’re still trying to ramp up, but we ended 2023 on a really high note. October, november, December, were awesome. Holidays, fall, winter, all the different stuff you have through all that and the decorations and all that. It was a highlight.

But this year is our first calendar year, actual full January through December, I think January and February was kind of to be expected because it’s like the slowest season in Branson is January and February. So we weren’t surprised. I mean, we always wish it’d be a little bit better, but we weren’t surprised with it being very low. But basically at this point, we’re tracking on, I think we’re actually over tracking over what we were on budget, on revenue, and we’ve just had a lot of great, we’ve tried a lot of things we’ve tested, we’ve learned what works, learned what, there was things that we’ve tried such as different loyalty programs, different technology, different campaigns with marketing and sales and influencers, even things on property, testing out different types of breakfast options, doing more higher end breakfasts, but also trying more of a traditional kind of continental breakfast, but still kind of elevated trying lots of, we were doing all sorts of ideas with programming, events, activities on the property.

And a lot of it is just learning at this point and trying to see what resonates with the guests, what resonates with the market, and even still what you and I think have our little pet projects like we did through the construction phase. We had our own little pet projects through that that we just wanted to do. But even in the operations side, we still have things where it’s like my wife and I and my mom, actually, we did a couple events last year called Mini Makers, and it was basically a little quarterly event where we do a craft, we do a little dessert, and all the kids and families go in there and they make it with us, and they learn how to make a cupcake and do a craft or something like that. So it was a thing that I wanted to do just because I thought that it would resonate with our guests and families and it went really well.

So we’re always trying and testing new things. So that’s been really just a fun and rewarding and learning experience for us too. And I think wearing the owner hat, again as a branding guy and a design guy, and I think we always have a lot of ideas. And for clients sometimes, like you said, we can do those ideas, sometimes not. But when you’re the owner, especially if you can get creative with not making it a large expense, I think you have a lot more freedom and leeway to just try it, see what works, and if it works well, keep doing it. If it doesn’t, don’t do it anymore. But yeah, I think this year has been an outstanding year for an actual, our first calendar year as a property, and it’s exceeded, I think everyone’s expectations.

Dustin: Yeah, it’s been really cool just to see the response from guests and you have an idea, you think it’s a good idea, but you don’t really know until you get that feedback. And people try things and try it out for themselves. And just reading reviews and overhearing conversations in the lobby and seeing people playing the games and sitting around the fire making it is just really neat to see it resonate with folks and just become one of the cool places in the area.

Jeremy: And part of the learning too, part of the learning that we’ve had as well, just even on the ops side, just really dialing that in, getting our team in the right place. Now we have a rockstar general manager. I think Chris, he’s doing a great job there. We got Jordan there doing sales. We got Ted doing the food and beverage, Sophia doing barista front desk and kind of overseeing that. And it’s just Jeff on the maintenance side. And I think we have a really great team that’s just really knocking out of the park at the property. And there’s been a lot of improvements, especially since about June or so. And through that, June and July are kind of a testing of a property, so to speak. Literally every single weekend is sold out. It’s madness

And it’s like, yeah, even throughout the week, you’re like 80, 90% occupancy through those weeks. So it’s really trial by fire and you have to just make stuff happen. And our team went through that season very, very well. So I think we’ve hit our stride. I’m very, very hopeful and that we’re going to keep exceeding expectations, hopefully. And I’ve definitely been grateful to be a part of this project and learn what we’ve learned. And I think looking ahead, we’ve kind of briefly mentioned it a couple times, but since opening the Ozark actually with Stephen and Erik again, we are partners with them on another property out in Denver. We don’t have to talk about that too much, but it’s just another, we’ve become two time hotel, so to speak. And Dustin and I are definitely still very much invested in longitude, and we still operate that and serve our guests or serve our clients as best we can. But on the other side of it too, we’re always looking for another property. We’re always looking for another opportunity. I think I could probably speak for both of us. I remember you and I saying a few times throughout that process, we’re either going to, after going through this, we’re either going to love it and want to do it again, or we’re going to hate it and never want to do it again. And

I think speaking for both of us, I think there are obviously difficult parts, but overall I think we loved it. I think we see the potential, especially you’ve mentioned early on in the Ozarks, in the Midwest, fly over country, that’s where our heart is and where we want to really invest. And so yeah, I think that’s kind of next topic. I guess. What’s the future of the Ozark or of Longitude? What are you excited about, I guess in the upcoming future?

Dustin: Yeah, we try to end every episode with the question is, as you look to the future, what excites you? So for me, I would say continuing to partner with hotel operators, management companies, and using the experience that we’ve gained through this process to be able to add just an immense amount of value. So yeah, I mean, just the cool concepts that are, they’re coming forward now. Just being involved in those and in whatever capacity we can is really exciting to me. And just the industry as a whole, as it kind of continues on this path of uniqueness and just finding little niche, whether it’s glamping, outdoors, focused hospitality, or more themes just as people continue to search out and reward unique products, it’s a very fun space to be in. So I’m excited about that, and I’m excited about whatever other opportunities we can come across that are like this. I’m personally very excited about properties and hospitality experiences that kind of embrace nature through agritourism and just the ability to fish, hunt, get outside, do all that type of stuff. So that’s kind of where my mind is at and what I’m excited about.

Jeremy: Yeah, I would agree. As far as things I’m excited about too, on all fronts, I think there’s still a lot of things and improvements on the longitude side that we would like to make. You and I are in discussions about what the next season of longitude looks like and improvements we’re going to be making through all of that. And also just like I have a particular passion and joy about these more outdoor adventure, get people outside, get them active, enjoy nature type of properties. So kind of a dream project for me that I’m still, one day I hope to do a project. This is just a fishing lodge somewhere. And so that’s something that I think, one, I think it would live in the family brand of brands of the Ozark as long as it was in the Ozarks. But I think it’s something that would be really fun.

And I enjoy fishing, so I’m always looking for the next deal, always looking for the next opportunity. Every week there’s a new opportunity that comes across my desk and it’s just looking at it, going to visit the property, do some underwriting, and a lot of deals just might not pencil out or might not be a good fit for us, and maybe we just don’t feel comfortable with it. But I think one will happen and we’ll be looking for that next one. And I think it is just going to add to, I don’t know what the saying is, but just add our knowledge basically of how can we better serve our clients through longitude? How can we better be better hotel earners? How can we be better partners? How can we add value and do better things for the world that we live in? And that’s my goal, is just to make the place that I live better, add value to communities, to hopefully give back in some capacity to help others.

And hospitality in this category and the mindset of hospitality is a great way to do that. And for a lot of people in the hospitality industry. It comes kind of naturally. And I think that’s one way that I think hospitality can change the world, really. I mean, just the way that we treat people, the value that we give, the things that we do to make our world better. I think this industry almost better than any other industry has, is well suited to do that. So I’m eager to have more people on our podcast that do that. We’ve had a lot of great guests in the past, and this is kind of a reboot to that, to our, so if you guys know anybody that should be on this podcast, definitely email us and reach out to us. We’d love to have ’em on. But yeah, anything else we need to cover before we

Dustin: No, I think that sums it up nicely. Thank you all for listening to our story and hope that that was enjoyable.

Jeremy: And if you’d like to read more about the Ozark and the project we went through and kind of the endeavors and behind the scenes, there’s a few ways you can stay in touch and reach out to us. Obviously you can visit theozarklodge.com, follow us on Instagram, Facebook. We’re getting ready to set up a new TikTok page hopefully soon, so you can follow us on that if you’d like. Longitude, longitudebranding.com, you can stay in touch with us, join our email list. And yeah, we’d love to just have you guys stay in touch with us. Reach out if you’d like. My email is jeremy@longitudebranding.com. You can shoot me an email directly if you have a new project or just need help or some thoughts on something, we’d love to talk with you. But yeah, this is again, kind of a new season for Future Hospitality. We’ve entered several new seasons over the last couple of years, so we’re excited to share some of our new knowledge with you guys and have knowledge on from other guests and just get some more exciting people on here that you can learn from. So appreciate you guys joining us, and until next time, we’ll see you around.

Dustin: Thanks.

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