Twin inspiration
Building a family business in the Lake District. (M&T Adventures part I)
Name: Sam and Karen Greenall
Business: M&T Adventures – A family-run business focused on adventures for children
Location: Lake District
Key takeaways:
Follow your instincts
Focus on what matters to you
Develop your offer around what your market needs
Introducing Sam and Karen
Outdoor adventure has always been part of Sam’s life: with a father who worked as an outdoor instructor, it’s in his blood. And it’s now an integral part of his family life too with his PE teacher wife, Karen, working alongside him, and his two daughters, Maya and Tilly, providing the founding inspiration for their parents’ company.
Sam spent the early part of his career working in council-owned outdoor education centres, having got the bug for outdoor work in the Alps as a student, but eventually left the sector as he found the bureaucracy and management responsibility took him away from doing the instructing that he loved. When we first met him three years ago he had recently taken the slightly scary leap into setting up his own business, with the ambition to build something that would enable Karen to leave teaching and provide the income to support the whole family.
Twin inspiration
When we ask Sam to talk us through what really inspired him to take the leap into running his own business, he’s got no hesitation: his twin daughters Maya and Tilly, now aged 15.
“I’d left working in centres and was working freelance for other outdoor guiding businesses, but I could see a gap in the market for better family experiences. I became aware that activities that felt simple to me were out of reach for parents who lacked the skills and confidence. Ultimately, I wanted to recreate the experiences we’d been able to give our girls and share those with other families.”
Listening to Sam, and reading his website, it’s clear that family life in the Greenall household is pretty active! He says the girls “have skied every year since 3 years old, been on 2-day canoe expeditions in Knoydart; Scotland, England and The Ardeche; sea kayaked a 4-day expedition in Croatia, climbed Scafell Pike, Snowden and Ben Nevis. They have also cycled the 50-mile Tour de Furness, caved in Gaping Gill and have slept in caves, wild camped and slept under the stars on mountains.”
This desire to share his family’s love for the outdoors is coupled with a deep understanding of the pressures of family life, gained through Sam and Karen’s experience of the education sector as well as being working parents themselves.
Getting focused in the pandemic
In our first conversations with Sam three years ago, he was thinking quite broadly in terms of all the potential markets for adventure guiding and we had some conversations about the benefits of developing a clear and focused position, and how finding a strong niche can help you become more profitable.
While the pandemic lockdown was tough for adventure guides, the silver lining for Sam was that it gave him time to focus on M&T. “It had been tough to do this while I was still freelancing at the same time as running M&T, but with the lockdown I had the time to really work out what we were all about.”
Sam and Karen also spent time developing their marketing ideas, and building social media profiles, with the result that when lockdown ended their business really took off. “Everything we did seemed to work because there was so much pent-up demand!”
Psychology and passion
Sam and Karen identified that their real opportunity and passion was with children, and that there was a particular niche in developing their offer around that, especially catering for working parents. Sam says, “it was obvious really – it’s where our experience is key and it’s our comfort zone in terms of understanding the market. Plus, well, kids are the future aren’t they? And we love working with them.”
M&T have developed their ‘product range’ to include holiday clubs and activity days timed to cover school INSET days. Ranging from a single day to weeklong residential stays, the courses are primarily aimed at 5 to 11 year olds, and offer everything from ‘camouflage and commando skills’ to bushcraft adventures and making pizza over an open fire.
As well as being thoroughly appealing to children, the proposition is carefully designed to meet parents’ needs and concerns as well.
“We know ourselves that providing childcare that covers the working day is vital, so we structure our courses to wrap around that. We focus on quite a specific geographic area around Barrow and Ulverston, so that we can offer transport to pick up the kids in the morning and drop them off at the end of the day.”
Sam and Karen’s experience in the outdoor education sector, plus their certification by the government’s Adventure Activities Licensing Service, alongside full insurance cover, also tick plenty of boxes for parents, but it’s probably the testimonials from the children and their parents themselves that win over many new customers.
M&T’s Facebook page resounds with comments such as
“Great activities for kids! M&T make the best use of the awesome natural facilities on our doorstep! Definitely recommend”
“My daughter has been on lots of adventures with M&T that she would never have experienced otherwise. She absolutely loves all the team, they are fantastic with the kids and they get them to try new things all the time.”
“I cannot recommend booking an adventure with M&T Adventures Ltd enough! My daughter …can’t wait for the next one to arrive! She has come out of herself so much and Karen, Sam and the team have encouraged her to step out of her comfort zone and try things she would usually have shied away from.”
Extending the offer
As the holiday clubs became well-established, Sam and Karen began to develop related ideas including extremely popular birthday parties, featuring stand-up paddleboarding, ghyll scrambling, raft building and the ever-popular pizza making. “The demand is huge!”, says Sam. “Honestly we could fill the summer weekends ten times over with parties.”
M&T is also extending the age range of its courses as the 11 year olds were disappointed that they could no longer participate! “With this age range the demand has to come from the kids, you can’t force them into it”, says Karen. And that demand is definitely there, especially as M&T are able to tailor their courses to the older kids’ skills and preferences, giving them new challenges.
Schools offer another opportunity for courses or days out, although this is a slow burn: “It’s a very competitive market and it can be hard to get teachers’ attention” Sam comments. At present, they are generating interest largely through word of mouth and their connections in the profession and see this as a good opportunity to fill capacity in term-time during the week.
Another unexpected niche has been children who are home-schooled, and who sometimes have special needs. Sam and Karen’s empathy with children and the consistent personal service that they are able to offer means that can build long-term bonds with their regular clients, and work with their parents to adapt to the children’s needs.
In case adults feel neglected, M&T do also offer activities for adult individuals and groups including stag and hen ‘dos’, or families together of course: something that often follows from children attending a holiday course. Sam is also exploring the corporate market and seeing some good interest which will help the business fill capacity during term-times and weekdays.
“Key success indicators”
When we met Sam three years ago, we talked about how success would feel to him as he started to get M&T off the ground. Two criteria stuck out: at the time Karen was working full-time teaching PE but their vision was for the business to be sufficiently successful for her to leave teaching and work full-time at M&T. The second was for their turnover to be sufficient that they crossed the VAT threshold.
They’ve achieved both these milestones – the first is a definite cause for celebration while the other is a mixed blessing because it erodes their profitability at time when price rises are hard to justify, given the economic climate. However, their high levels of repeat business and loyal client base mean that Sam and Karen feel confident they can weather these challenges.
In part 2 [coming soon - subscribe below and we’ll send you an email when it’s live!], find out more about the key lessons that Sam and Karen have learned, what advice they’d give to other adventure businesses and what their plans are for the future.
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