We were lucky to catch up with Trevor Elder recently and have shared our conversation below.
Trevor, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.
Through and through, Champ Camp is a family business. If I’m being honest, arranging it in any other way proved to be quite challenging over the years [although necessary, which I’ll get to later :) ].
When we started in 2012, I headed up beach camp operations with the help of my two brothers (Bryce & Hayden), along with many of their friends. My then girlfriend (and now wife, Ali!) also had a big hand in helping Champ Camp find its footing during those first few seasons. In our early days, my parents’ house functioned as the makeshift Champ Camp Headquarters, where we would receive packages, print rosters, charge walkie-talkies, wash company vans, host work parties, and organize merch for the coming week, among a myriad of other to-do’s. Moreover, some of my closest buddies in the world who might as well be family have had humongous roles in Champ Camp operations over the years, namely Tim Irons and Josh Zuniga.
In the wake of the pandemic and ever since, we’ve leaned even harder into the family business model. My brother Hayden has taken on the tasks of maintaining our vans and refilling supplies behind the scenes, while my parents have helped out in a huge way caring for our toddler so that Ali and I can focus on the business. Additionally, Ali left her career in Physical Therapy to share the Champ Camp reins with me as we continue to grow. Needless to say, Champ Camp has evolved into what it is today largely because we’ve run it as a family business since day one.
As the person tasked with steering the Champ Camp ship, the family business aspect of our company has been a crucial aspect to our success. Because we’ve all grown up together, there’s never been any hiding our strengths, weaknesses, or personality idiosyncrasies from one another. This makes ensuring the “right butts are in the right seats” relatively seamless, enabling us to operate efficiently and adjust quickly whenever needed. The tight circle that a family business creates also brings to light a sense of camaraderie that’s tangible in all that we do. While we may disagree from time to time on how to proceed at a particular juncture, we’re collectively working together towards the same goal: to always make Champ Camp better than yesterday.
Along with all of the benefits of Champ Camp being a family business, there are inevitable challenges that we’ve had to navigate through. Above all, scaling the business up while keeping everything in the family isn’t very feasible. So, when we arrived at the point where it was time to expand our locations and offerings, we first had to embark on the journey of extending trust beyond the family circle and giving other amazingly capable people the opportunity to lead. This process was personally quite challenging for me, but looking back from today’s perch I couldn’t be prouder of all that so many of our legendary coaches have done to help grow Champ Camp into the machine that it is today. Specifically, I’d like to shout out all of our Directors, both past and present: Tim Irons, Mary Crowley, Catherine Stewart, Joanie Howe, Josh Zuniga, Lily Sheahan, Taylor Kay, Jojo Hoffman, Elliott Wright, Dylan Harkenrider, and Brian Wilson – we wouldn’t be here without you!
All in all, family businesses are tricky. Champ Camp wouldn’t exist in the form that it is today if not for the fact that it’s a family business. Especially in the early stages of getting off the ground, the benefit of family support cannot be overstated. After over a decade in operation, I can truly say that with a clear vision and open communication, the sky’s the limit for this family business!
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?
Hi – my name is Trevor Elder and I founded Champ Camp in 2012! Over the past decade, our play-based kids programs have grown into leading family favorites in Southern California. Namely through beach camps, skateboard camps, and pop-up events, we employ our time-tested High Fives & Good Vibes strategy to create safe and encouraging experiences that empower kids to play!
After six years in the Recreation industry prior to starting Champ Camp, it was undeniable to me that the value on the table worth providing wasn’t any specific activity that a company offered, but rather how a program made the customer feel. Moreover, in my line of work, it turns out that we serve two customers in every transaction – the child and the parent. So for us, step one involves instilling the confidence in parents that we’re a professional, competent, and fun organization that will keep their child safe. Step two then consists of delivering on that promise to our kiddos by connecting with them right where they’re at, ensuring that they know we’re on their team, and giving them the freedom to be kids and just play [See: ‘High Fives & Good Vibes’]. Equipped with this strategy, we operate in a zero-competition space, since we focus on the how and not the what. Anyone can start a program that offers “X” activity, but no one consistently delivers on the feeling side like Champ Camp does. All told, this process has enabled us to consistently deliver epic experiences in a wide range of environments, like beach camps, boogie board camps, skateboard camps, pop-up events, parties, after school classes, and even online programs, and is what brings me the most pride about our company.
Our secret sauce?.. It’s not what we do it’s how we do it ;)
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Given the seemingly risky nature of our programs in the eyes of parents (i.e. kids playing in the dynamic environments of the beach & ocean, learning to ride a skateboard for the first time, etc.), a significant prerequisite for our winning over a new client involves gaining their trust. Although I wish I was such a captivating communicator that I could accomplish this every time over a phone call with a prospective parent, that’s not always the case.
Instead, for us the best source of winning over new clients is good old fashioned word of mouth. When a trusted neighbor, friend, or relative sings Champ Camp’s praises, it holds incomparable weight as compared to any other source of our attempted lead acquisition. Sure, it doesn’t hurt when a prospective family has seen one of our programs in action or clicked through our very fun website, but the real life account of another family has significant sway in instilling the confidence that Champ Camp is the place to be. Then, it’s up to us to deliver on that family’s word, and so goes the process!..
Any advice for managing a team?
Without an engaged, contented, and positive-minded team, Champ Camp goes to zero, full stop. In our line of work, our people are everything, as they either make or break our promise to families of delivering epic experiences to their kids. When this goes well, families become “lifers” and spread the good word of their Champ Camp experience to the world! On the other hand, when it doesn’t, we’ll let you fill in the blanks. The truth is, while things thankfully most often follow the path of the former, whichever way things shake out can almost always be connected back to our relationship with the team at large and how well we’re fostering morale.
Once one of our big programs is underway, the single most important aspect for us is doing what’s needed to keep morale high and adjusting whenever it becomes necessary to do so. As important as this facet may be, it also happens to be one of the most difficult (at least for me), but is something I’m constantly thinking about and working on. Similar to how self-care can ironically fall to the wayside when life gets extra stressful and crazy, the valiant intention of keeping a temperature on and meeting the needs of our sixty-five person staff during busy season doesn’t always happen to the degree that it ideally should. But, I digress…
With all of this in mind, the main piece of advice that I have to give on the subject is to try one’s best to encourage an open flow of communication between oneself as the owner and/ or manager and every other person in the organization. Obviously this isn’t workable at a certain level of scale, but for small-ish businesses like Champ Camp this approach aims to create an environment where people feel comfortable voicing feedback, gripes, etc. before those things become bigger problems that negatively affect morale. Beyond that, frequently and genuinely sharing one’s appreciation with the team goes a long way.
At bottom, uniting a team of good people around a common goal and encouraging a positive culture of mutual respect has been the bread and butter of Champ Camp. That, and providing free lunch once in a while definitely helps :)
Contact Info:
- Website: ChampCampKids.com
- Instagram: @ChampCampKids
- Facebook: @ChampCampKids
- Twitter: @ChampCampKids
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7gJP0ZkEFcIVE1hH1tAATQ
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/champ-camp-beach-manhattan-beach
Image Credits
Taylor Gelbrich [via Salty Boy Productions]