We recently connected with Shannon Olson and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Shannon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us about a time where you or your team really helped a customer get an amazing result?

We had a team from a local business that was having internal communication issues. The manager decided to bring them to our site for a team building exercise. Upon working with this team and manager it became clear that a big part of the issue was executive interruption. The manager would ask for ideas then shut the staff down and make sure their input was the only one heard. They would also not let the team come together to solve problems their way, the manager would also make the decision how to solve the problem. This makes for a very unmotivated team and it instills a “it’s all about me attitude.”
During the team building activity, we asked the manager step aside and not give input. We wanted them to see how the team worked out their own problems. The manager watched from the birds eye view and took it in. The result was fun to watch. The team struggled and argued at first but after they realized the manager was not giving input they settled down and discovered each other’s strengths and weaknesses. After this they were able to lean on each other to complete the tasks without feeling inadequate for the task. At the end of the tasks we asked them to give feedback and the manager actually heard what the team was saying and agreed to work on their weaknesses.
This manager was so thrilled at the outcome of this event that they have brought other teams to our site for multiple years.

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 back background and context?

I am the general manager of High Trek Adventures and GameOn NW. I consider myself the General Manager of Fun! I love helping customers have a blast while challenging themselves through team building activities and play.
High Trek Adventures is an outdoor adventure park with a high ropes course and ziplines, laser tag, axe throwing, mini golf and more. Our moto is “Adventure with Us” and customer can choose to spend 1 hour or up to 5 hours at our site taking in all that we have to offer.
GameOn NW is our indoor activities center with laser tag, axe throwing, and Virtual Reality games and escape rooms. Both sites are open for general admission, parties, corporate events, team building and private rentals.
What I am most proud of and what motivates me the most is the work I do with young adults, my employees. Often, this is their first job and I aim to make it their best and set them up for success in their career. I love watching them grow and take on challenges.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

I manage roughly 50 seasonal staff, mostly young adults. In this industry, the year over year return rate is roughly 40%. I am proud to say that for the last 4 years I have had over 75% return rate year over year. I have several families that multiple siblings work at our sites. Currently one family has 4 siblings working full time at our sites.
Because of the positive working environment many of the staff refer family and friends.
I work hard to teach these young people how to work and how to interact with customers. It’s the hardest and most rewarding part of the job. I spend a lot of time investing in our staff, developing great customer service skills.
I believe this helps to instill in them that I believe in them and that they have value to me and our organization in the future. This is the reason why I have so many staff return to work for us when they could go and get an easier job. This also results in thousands of positive customer reviews about their experiences at our sites.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

The things that have built our great reputation is that we offer amazing experiences with outstanding customer service. At our sites, we offer a mix of indoor and outdoor adventures for team bonding, family experiences and fun that brings customers back over and over.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hightrekeverett.com/ / https://gameonnw.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hightrekadventures/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/hightrekeverett