Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Bretton Clark, Co-Founder of The Land Canadian Adventures Inc., located in Apsley, ON, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
The Land Canadian Adventures is a multi-award-winning family business in North Kawartha, Ontario, and we help groups create unforgettable experiences for their participants. We specialize in four-season outdoor experiential programs in Ontario and BC's most beautiful locations.
Blended Training and Learning
Since 2019, TLCA has delivered hybrid and fully remote outdoor training and education programs for corporations, community groups, and students around the globe, leveraging a variety of interactive online platforms designed to help our partners achieve their education and training objectives while exploring their own neighbourwoods.
Wilderness Skills Training
The Land organizes training in the necessary requirements for full-time outdoor educators and wilderness guides. Additionally, we provide certifications in traditional and bushcraft skills through our Outdoor & Wilderness Living SkillsTM (OWLS) program.
Experiential Travel
We arrange logistics and lead all-inclusive backcountry trips by canoe and snowshoe in parks all across Ontario and BC, including Algonquin PP and Pacific Rim NP. Our guides are also talented instructors who can upgrade your skills across many disciplines of wilderness travel. Let us handle all the gear, food, and instruction.
Teams with a Mission: Education and Corporate Groups
Whether it's embarking on a backcountry boot camp, challenging your team to a muddy adventure race, or thriving in a wilderness survival simulation, teams build on the Land. Our School of the Wild Arts TM instructors can leverage the inspiration of Ontario's wilds to help you get creative in artistic disciplines from plein air painting to wildlife photography.
Experiential Design and Content Solutions
We are gifted storytellers: our wordsmiths and visual wizards help inspire others to create their own powerful experiences on the land. Also, we build experiential self-reliance into our partners' in-house and external programs and leverage the power of wilderness travel and nature connection to help them understand and communicate their story.
Tell us about yourself
My partner and I were traveling and working in Chile, living in a shared house with a mix of folks from around the world and some local lovelies. Without their guidance and leadership, we wouldn't have had as rich an experience of the culture, language, and landscape as we did. Pablo organized an amazing winter trek around the mountains of his hometown that we would never have known about through the typical experiential tourism channels. We recognized that we could play a similar role to international visitors and even locals back in Canada, helping create unforgettable experiences by connecting with the natural and cultural history of our homeland.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Bootstrapping a startup to a sustainable triple-bottom-line business with steady growth through a suite of services for partners with recurring contracts.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
The temptation to say yes to everything even loosely related to your offering. This can spread you out and make your mission muddy, strangling communications and making growth difficult. Remember your niche with pain and stay faithful to solving their problems.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Have a non-bullshit answer to the question of how your business improves the world.
- You can build a business out of doing what you love but don't forget that your business activities are different from, and more important than, your operations. The entrepreneur's job is not just to bake the most delicious bread, build a slick site or lead unforgettable backcountry expeditions: it is to bring a solid offering to the market and sell the hell out of it.
- When you can afford it, hire to grow: do what you do best and partner for the rest.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://canoecampingtrips.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheLandCanadianAdventures
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelandcanadianadventures/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelandptbo
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/40v3HQV
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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