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

Dave, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

Our passion is to connect people with incredible outdoor adventures and make new friends along the way. Everyone says that, but we back it up with small group trips that feel like you are traveling with old friends. We offer one of the lowest guide to client ratios in the industry. This allows us to make personal connections with everyone on our trips. We leave every trip with new friendships that we cherish and maintain.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

Top Out Adventures is a passion project in the truest sense of the word. My journey in the outdoor industry started when I finally got burnt out on the corporate treadmill after 20 years. During my career I managed manufacturing and distribution operations, I met some incredible people and was a part of teams that accomplished projects that created value and enriched lives. However, I always felt like I was a cog in a big machine. I created Top Out Adventures because I wanted to directly impact people’s lives.

Top Out Adventures trips are all about connecting with people in the beauty of the outdoors while taking on a challenge. While many small group adventure travel trips provide good logistics support and friendly guides, we are in the business to make friends. After climbing a mountain together, there is no way you can come back without a connection with those who shared the experience. After our trips, we have text groups that continue where people tell about their latest adventures. Often new friends come back for another Top Out Adventures trip together. Making new friendships is what we love to do.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

For us it has taken a while (probably too long) to figure out the right pricing for our adventure trips. After our first full year, we had a good set of financials for the business. Like many businesses we lost money in the first year. What was surprising was that when we forecasted our second year of business, we were going to grow by 60% and lose even more money!

As we dug into the financials, we identified what costs would go up with more volume (e.g. lodging, gas, meals, etc.) and which would stay fixed (e.g. vehicle insurance, marketing, etc.). We found that a majority of our costs are variable and will go up with more volume. So the more we sold the more we lost. Since our business model is built on high touch with our clients, we don’t want to cut costs and damage our service. We had to raise prices. After a lot of market research we found that there were several trips that had plenty of room to raise the trip price and still be very competitive. To help with sticker shot, we started offering several premium services like single occupancy, gear rental and customer transportation to the trip start location. We also began discounts for early bird sign ups. At the same time we reduced our deposit requirement from 50% to 25% to help with trip financing.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

For Top Out Adventures, our reputation is built on personal interactions with our awesome team at promotional events and word-of-mouth from our clients. While we do promote on social media and with a monthly newsletter, we have found that over 90% of our trips are filled with people who know us personally or know someone who does.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.TopOutAdventures.com
• Instagram: @topoutadventures
• Facebook: @topoutadventures
• Linkedin: @topoutadventures
• Youtube: @topoutadventures

Image Credits
Please credit @topoutadventures for all pictures.