Dynamic power couple, Jim and Dannii Mee, share how they harnessed their love for travel and transformed their passion into a thriving international events business, propelling Rat Race Adventure Sports to new heights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Starting out by organising obstacle races, they have now expanded their offering and curate exhilarating expeditions in once-in-a-lifetime destinations across all 7 continents, from the Namib Desert to the Panamanian jungle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But being a travel and events company means they got hit hard by the pandemic and had to navigate the challenge of all their events being cancelled practically overnight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luckily, their creative thinking and remarkable ability to adapt saw them hosting virtual events and staying connected with their customers until the world opened back up again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With a mile long to-do-list, they also have to juggle worldwide travel with raising a young family, so join us as we explore how the unbreakable foundation of their marriage and teamwork, fuels their adventure sports empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s their unfiltered advice below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I have to know, Jim, when you started this business, was this just an excuse to visit some of the most exotic and fantastic places, or was there something else going on when you thought, right, this is the business for me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, I have to say, that pretty much was the plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I mean, there wasn\u2019t much of a plan, and when I started out in 2004, the plan very much was that I wanted to climb Everest and I needed some cash to do that because quite an expensive thing to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Therefore, I\u2019ll set up a business. And that was it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it was kind of simple in its naivete. It didn\u2019t quite pan out the way that I ever thought it would, and 20 years later, obviously I\u2019ve been on trips of a lifetime. It\u2019s been amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never did go up Everest, but that\u2019s absolutely fine because in the interim we\u2019ve gone to absolutely amazing places all over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So yeah, there wasn\u2019t much of a business plan, I have to say at the beginning. And I guess in the sort of naivety of youth and bravado, I just kind of forged ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d been working in the events\u2019 industry, I had a background in events, so it was a trade, it was a professional calling that I had experience in and I was into the outdoors, and that\u2019s how it came about really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the first iteration of the business was quite different to how it looks today. It was more obstacle courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tell us about that and why, as you say in your naivety, but that was obviously the route that you chose. So why was it that specific kind of travel that you focused on at the beginning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeah, I mean right back at the beginning I was living in Scotland. I was living in Edinburgh, and I\u2019d been working for a number of years for Red Bull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Red Bull was a fantastic sort of crucible of creativity. I mean the can-do attitude was off the chart. It taught me a lot about what can be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it didn\u2019t teach me a lot about business. It was very much a marketing job, so it was kind of spending money, not the commercial side, but it was a fantastic ground for concepts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when I left Red Bull and I did some mountaineering and went on lots of different trips, I kind of used that background to sort of engineer what I thought would be a really media worthy and interesting concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And at the time, there weren\u2019t many people doing this kind of activity, in terms of participants. I mean, even 10K runs and marathons weren\u2019t hugely popular with the general public. It was still quite a specialist thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So that first event was called the Rat Race Urban Adventure. And the idea was to sort of take people out of the wild places, and actually put them on the streets of the city and have an adventure in the city, abseiling off buildings and kayaking down waterways and navigating through shopping centres with an A-to-Z map and all that kind of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was very exciting, but it was kind of sponsor based. We needed sponsors to fund that original concept. So the model was quite different behind the scenes, the commercial model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yeah, I guess to answer your question, why did I do that? I guess my background from Red Bull was this sort of wacky, let\u2019s do something because it\u2019s audacious. I was into the outdoors. I was living in Scotland, and Edinburgh was a fantastic city, so I thought I\u2019d kind of flip adventure on its head a little bit and have a bit of fun with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were in the city sort of play on words. We called it the Rat Race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then, so Dannii, how did you come into the picture? Because you guys met through the business, is that right? Tell me a bit about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I joined in 2012. It feels a lot longer. And I came into the marketing team. My background was in marketing, but in a very different niche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I came from an engineering background, but I had a keen interest in the outdoors. I was a big rock climber and a really keen hiker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So when this job came up, I was like, that is perfect for me. I applied, got the job, and then obviously met Jim through the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when I entered the business, so that history, those kind of urban adventure city-based events were still very much the portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We had an obstacle series with Men\u2019s Health magazine that we partnered with. We had another 10K woodland race with Runner\u2019s World. So they were all kind of very, what I would call standard events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I came in and that was what I was thrown into marketing, and that\u2019s what we marketed for ages and that\u2019s what the business used to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And at that time, obstacle racing was in its boom, 2012 was when Tough Mudder and Spartan came to the UK from the US. We\u2019d ran the Men\u2019s Health series in 2011 and then obstacle racing just got all of this marketing thrown at it by those really big companies and it was everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then we saw that growth and we rode that wave for a really long time. But all trends, they kind of come and they go. And that\u2019s what happened to obstacle racing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we rode it while it was really high and we did lots of obstacle races. We did the World\u2019s Biggest Obstacle Race, which was down in Stanford. And that\u2019s a much-loved event with our customers and they still ask for it to come back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But once you see the market change, that\u2019s when we started to pivot away from obstacle racing. And that\u2019s a key bit of my job, keeping track of what people want to do with their spare time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So that\u2019s kind of where the obstacle race background is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Can you explain for our listeners who might not know obstacle race kind of terminology, what exactly does that mean if people who are listening haven\u2019t heard of Tough Mudder or haven\u2019t used, haven\u2019t looked at your website, what is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obstacle racing is running with activities in the way, that\u2019s how I always describe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So 5K, 10K, is the run, but then you have a challenge that you come across, and it could be monkey bars, it could be tyre jumps, it can be massive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Dirty Weekend, we had huge water jumps that were 20 foot into a pool, huge, massive structures you can climb. It\u2019s running with obstacles in the way. They\u2019re designed to be fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the thing about it is it kind of means you don\u2019t have to be an amazing runner because you are getting a break every so often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it\u2019s meant to be an accessible activity in that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it\u2019s not like, \u201cOh, I can\u2019t run 10K, but I probably could if there were 20 obstacles in the way and gave me little breathers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it\u2019s fun. That\u2019s what it\u2019s meant to be. It\u2019s a fun thing to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It sounds amazing and terrifying in equal measure. You said monkey bars, and I\u2019ve just picturing myself in the playground trying to beat, my son is 5 and can do it, and I was there hanging off one rung like, \u201cHelp.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No upper body strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what you were saying about all the new entrants into obstacle racing like Tough Mudder, so that must\u2019ve made kind of a lot of noise, but increased competition can be a bad thing as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So did that mean that it was more of a struggle to get people to come to your events?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It kind of worked both ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So our obstacle races started the year before those big US brands came to the UK, but with that, came their enormous marketing spend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I cannot tell you how many times I got asked the question, \u201cIs it like Tough Mudder?\u201d And I was like, \u201cYeah, it\u2019s like Tough Mudder.\u201d And you use that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You use that to your advantage. If they\u2019re pouring hundreds of thousands of pounds into marketing, they\u2019re bringing people to the market who are interested in the next obstacle race, which is how we decided to build the world\u2019s biggest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So when we put Dirty Weekend together, it was like, this is the obstacle race to end all obstacle races. And it was known that anybody who was at that race, had done Tough Mudder, they had done Spartan, they were looking for the big thing, and this was bigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we capitalised on it in that way, but at the same time, it meant a lot of what I call, \u2018let\u2019s have a go\u2019 companies, came to the market and were like, \u201cOh yeah, this looks easy. They\u2019re raking the money in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because you can charge more for an obstacle race than a 10K. There\u2019s obviously more in it, but it meant the market suddenly got flooded and it felt like you could do an obstacle race every day of the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember counting at one time, and I think it must\u2019ve been around 2017, that there were 300 races you could have chosen from in one year and that was just obstacles before you even got into standard racing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And to go from, at the beginning there was 5, there was us, Tough Mudder, Spartan, another event company called Total Warrior, and another called Nuclear Races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were the big players and all of us still exist, but a lot of the others have fallen by the wayside because they\u2019ve come too late into the market and flooded it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s only so many people who want to do that sort of activity and they\u2019ve dispersed into all these different events. And then commercially it\u2019s difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obstacles are expensive to build, especially correctly and safely. Insurance is high to get them insured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So yeah, we had that flood and then actually after that is when we felt the market start to go downhill, which is when we decided we probably need to look at bringing some more events into our portfolio that aren\u2019t obstacle based.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Jim, tell me about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the pivot, you moved away from the sort of sponsorship model. I mean I think people were still buying tickets, whatever, but you were fueling the business with the sponsorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So tell me about how the business model shifted, so how you make money today and also what\u2019s different about the events that you offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeah, I mean, right in the beginning it was sponsor led. That was the way that we commercially made a profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We had small numbers of people, we had TV exposure, et cetera. We then transitioned into the period that Dannii was describing there, which is almost like the big obstacle race period where the numbers of participants grew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The price point was such, and the number of participants was such, that you really didn\u2019t need sponsorship anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that kind of grew in tandem with mass participation sport in general, more people running 5K, people doing park run, people transitioning to 10K to half-marathon, getting on their bikes, doing triathlons. There\u2019s been an explosion in mass participation sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And as Dannii said, that\u2019s led to a certain level of saturation, but it\u2019s also led to opportunity to change the model away from sponsorship and to go to ticket revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So that\u2019s where we were at, let\u2019s say 10 years ago. And as that kind of market got more saturated and wanes, we\u2019ve always kind of had an eye for a new concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve always innovated over our 20 years of existence, we\u2019ve operated over 500 events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in terms of the genres, we\u2019ve always been Adventure Sport, but we\u2019ve kind of always wanted to just keep pushing it a little bit with the concepts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think we saw with the large body of people that have done a Rat Race event and trusted us as a brand, there was an opportunity to say to these guys, \u201cWell look, we\u2019re now going to travel the world. You trust us as an organisation. You trust us for a weekend in the UK to come and do something, swing off some monkey bars and do a massive assault course or something adventurous in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t you come with us to Mongolia? Why don\u2019t you come with us to Panama and trek across the jungle with us? We\u2019re still going to be audacious. We\u2019re still going to keep the concept uniquely Rat Race, but we\u2019re going to go everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that was the pivot really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I guess almost unwittingly we became a travel company. We kind of evolved into doing events on the world stage in a small group expeditionary format, but very much with the Rat Race brand and quirkiness at the centre of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it was a conscious move into becoming a global event product, but less a conscious move to say, \u201cRight, we\u2019re going to be a travel company now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is just an evolution that has happened because of the product that we\u2019ve ended up innovating really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And do you rely on, as you say, your existing customer base coming back again and again thinking, right, this is the next thing, or do you rely on winning new customers for new adventures?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And if so, how do you do that? How do you get people to find out about you and click that they want to come?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I mean, it\u2019s a bit of both. We do have a very loyal customer base. And I think because we\u2019ve been in the market for a long time, because we\u2019ve been through a number of different iterations, there is an inherent level of trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we saw that hugely through COVID, which was a key moment for us as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I don\u2019t know if you want to talk about the repeat customers Dannii, but yeah, there\u2019s definitely people meeting us for the first time. But the base is really, really strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we almost have 2 sides of the business. So we have what we call our UK base events, which are the heritage events. Some of them have ran for like 12, 13, 14 years, and they bring us in the numbers, so concepts like ultra marathons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have an adventure event up in Scotland that\u2019s 16 years old now, I think. And they bring in the thousands. So those events range from 300 to about 1,500 people depending on what the event is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A lot of our new customers come in through that channel. So it\u2019s that we call them the feeder events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So they come in, they spend a weekend with us, they have an amazing time, and then they look for what\u2019s next and that\u2019s when they tend to cross over into the international portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then once we have a customer on an international event, our rebooking rate is 80%. So that\u2019s where you bring the new customers in through the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We do get new customers come in just off the bat through the big international events, but the channel is through the UK, they cross over to international and then they repeat in the international, but that\u2019s just growing the whole time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the UK events this year have actually had amazing growth and we\u2019re seeing that translate into the international events as well as they move over, as they look for something bigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And you mentioned a moment ago, Jim, the pandemic, and obviously that must\u2019ve had a massive impact on the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What did you guys have to do to survive and how did it change, I suppose, fundamentally how you run the business going forward? Were there any lessons that you are taking forward from that time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh yeah, massively. I mean, it was a shocker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m still traumatised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were obviously in mass participation force and at that point we had just become a travel business as well. So 2 of the hardest industries hit really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But absolutely, it was almost a defining time. I mean, I think I would say the first 6 months were absolutely horrific and it was just about surviving and finding our feet and just understanding what we were going to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But of course, everyone was in the same boat. We certainly don\u2019t have the monopoly on hardship as a business in COVID, but what it did do, and I think it was an absolutely classic case of, if your back\u2019s against the wall, you\u2019ve got to box clever, you\u2019ve got to think smart, you\u2019ve got to think your way out of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that\u2019s what we did. Our back was against the wall. We had a lot of events that clearly couldn\u2019t take place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Money had been spent on promoting and on funding events that just would not take place. We were holding a lot of customer money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And frankly had our customers not stayed with us in that period and backed us, we would\u2019ve gone bust. It\u2019s as simple as that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what we decided to do, and I guess the way that we found our feet, I mean we did lots of things, but one of the key things that we did is that we used the time to do the R&D on these new projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I guess we effectively sold, not to be too clich\u00e9, but we sold hope, we sold a dream. We said, \u201cLook,\u201d in the end it wasn\u2019t 2021, \u201922, \u201923, \u201cWe\u2019re going to go to all these places and we\u2019re going to do these amazing events. Come with us.\u201d And people bought into that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They trusted us, didn\u2019t they? And they entered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
COVID for us was the lowest lows and the highest highs for different reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I mean, like Jim said, we\u2019re suddenly being told your business is illegal. You can\u2019t have people gathering in the same place. Knowing that we\u2019d spent huge 6 figure sums on events that weren\u2019t going to be able to take place, like Dirty Weekend which I just mentioned, it\u2019s at the beginning of May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So when lockdown was announced at the end of March, we had hundreds of thousands of pounds in that event. And at the time we were like, \u201cWell, maybe that\u2019ll still happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when it was obvious we were going to have to start cancelling, and we pretty much begged customers, we were like, \u201cPlease just stay with us. We will bring it back in 2021.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And they did. They all did. And we definitely would not have got through that if everyone hadn\u2019t just rallied around us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what we did different I think, is we stayed active, whereas we furloughed our staff. Jim and I kept running the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were at the end of the emails for people asking what was going on. I run the socials with help from my team, and when my team were furloughed, I ran them all and I just engaged with anyone who would talk to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And of course everyone was at home. So online communication boomed didn\u2019t it. You were only on your computer. I mean you could only go outside for an hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What I had done that year, which I still kick myself for, is I normally order the event medals in quarterly chunks, but to be economic on the shipping. I did them all for 2020 at the beginning of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the only year I\u2019ve ever ordered like 25,000 medals in one go was in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And they were all sat in the warehouse, and I was like, \u201cOh my god, I\u2019ve got \u00a330,000 worth of medals here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do they all say 2020 on them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And they all say 2020 on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Totally unusable. And I was like, \u201cWhat can I do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we had that 1 hour of being outdoors a day and we had all these medals, and I was like, \u201cI\u2019m going to turn every event into a virtual event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the date it would have ran, I flipped it into a concept where you could earn the medal by doing it in that time you had outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So over the week that the wall would\u2019ve ran, you had to run or walk 70 miles and you would get the medal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a time when we were sat in our living room with medals everywhere, with people\u2019s addresses, and our son was putting the stamps on the envelopes, but people loved it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I\u2019ve met people, I met someone in Mongolia this year and I always ask, \u201cHow did you hear about us?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And she was like, \u201cOh, I did one of your virtuals in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like we posted her a medal from here to Australia for an event she had done virtually in 2020, but even that had led to her booking the Mongol 100.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what was so important is that we didn\u2019t lose connection with any of our customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And for Dirty Weekend, we made people build the obstacle courses in their garden and they filmed it and sent it in. We just made a really huge social media activity around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And since then, social media is obviously so important for us anyway, but that level engagement with customers is so key to building that trust and making them feel like you genuinely care about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that\u2019s kind of what we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And through COVID, that was a lot more poignant because the support messages that came in were phenomenal from people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then, so when we launched the events Jim\u2019s talking about, the high highs that I\u2019m referring to is we would launch events that were just ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s Jim and Google Maps under line basically. And some of them sold out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a little bit more than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s more technical than that in the end, but that\u2019s how they start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But some of those events sold out in an hour. We would open it and they\u2019d go, the places would go immediately and it was a stock photo, a line on a map, and people were like, \u201cYeah, I\u2019m going to come.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everyone just wanted something to look forward to. So that\u2019s what we gave them. We gave them all of these adventures to look forward to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that\u2019s really where the portfolio came from, is that sort of COVID book of dreams where it was like, \u201cWhere can we go when we\u2019re allowed to go out again?\u201d And that\u2019s what we created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So have you had a massive resurgence then since the pandemic? Because I totally understand what you\u2019re saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do feel like people just were like, \u201cGet me out,\u201d basically when everything reopened, and people wanted to travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it feels like then we were landed with a sort of cost-of-living crisis. Then there was the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there\u2019s also other stuff bubbling around the travel industry like this stuff about responsible travel, like the ecological impacts, what are you doing to the local communities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All this stuff presumably is stuff that you are dealing with day-to-day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So how are you dealing with those pressures now and are you still riding high or do you feel that these challenges are sort of weighing you down a little bit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeah, so I think in terms of responsible travel and in terms of dealing with people on the ground, we have a really, really strong network of people that we deal with worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we just physically couldn\u2019t do this activity without good local operators working with us. It\u2019s almost impossible for us not to engage with the local community in what we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So sort of knocking on the door somewhere in Panama and saying, \u201cLook, I need some maps. I need an operator to work with. I\u2019ve got this idea. Who can help?\u201d That\u2019s genuinely the way that we go about this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the engagement with local communities is absolutely real. It\u2019s rock solid. It has to be for us to deliver these concepts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think there\u2019s a couple of other things to say as well. Flying people to places like, Argentina Patagonia or the Namib Desert, or Northwestern Mongolia and then seeing it and then engaging with national parks and places that are protected that are wilderness areas, I find that very positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It means that these places are more likely to be protected. They\u2019re less likely to be mined, they\u2019re less likely to be planted for palm oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think for us, I take great pride in the fact that we\u2019re showing people almost the fragility of this world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You go to Greenland and you see how glaciers are receding, et cetera. It\u2019s pretty humbling and it\u2019s a big thing for people to see that sort of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think we are providing those opportunities really a little crucible, a kind of snapshot into the world stage and what\u2019s going on around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And do you guys always go on these trips, or do you take turns and what happens? You\u2019ve got children between you, so how do you balance the travel aspect of life with schools and kids and family life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeah, I mean that has changed as the kids have got older. So when they were much younger, they\u2019re 10 and 7 now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So when they were littler, I didn\u2019t travel very much at all. I probably went on 1 or 2 trips a year. I would choose my favourites and go there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jim\u2019s role in the company is to travel. That\u2019s his job is to, he has to put these events on the ground. He has a team, but no one can do it quite like he can, or no one can see things the way he does sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So that\u2019s just his role. So he does travel a lot more than me. He is operations based and I\u2019m marketing and commercials, but since they\u2019ve got older, we actually made the decision to retire my mum and it was actually after COVID, she was a carer and she really struggled with that work as she got a bit older.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we made the decision to retire her and she actually now lives with us and helps us with the kids quite a lot. And I know how lucky we are to have that sort of family help right here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Jim\u2019s parents when we\u2019re both away, which isn\u2019t very often, Jim\u2019s parents will then also come up and they\u2019ll help. And sometimes my sister comes down from Newcastle and she\u2019ll help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we have a lot of family support to help make this work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I probably travel 7 or 8 times a year now, but we don\u2019t actually cross over that much. So normally one of us is at home and on the off chance we\u2019re not, which are big trips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So next year we\u2019re going to Antarctica, we\u2019re both going there, and the family will rally around the kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But yeah, they\u2019ve grown up with Jim travelling quite a lot. They\u2019re quite resilient to it and they\u2019re excited about it and they love telling people what we do for work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s an interesting thing for them to talk about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Are they at an age as well where you could start taking them on certain expeditions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am desperate to put them to work. Let me tell you. Joseph, our oldest, he\u2019s getting there definitely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think in the next couple years, maybe about 12, I\u2019ll stick them on a pit stop and make them cut up oranges. But yeah, they\u2019re desperate too, they keep asking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They do. They love doing their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m like, \u201cYou\u2019re just too little right now.\u201d It\u2019s long days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But yeah, as soon as it\u2019s practical, I will definitely be bringing them along for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s the amazing thing that we have for this company. The whole world\u2019s kind of open to us and our kids hopefully can experience some of that as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And of course, there\u2019s practical challenges in them being with us on an event that we\u2019re operating for paying customers, and we would never jeopardise that, but for them to come and perhaps join us afterwards or to come with us and tag a family holiday onto a trip, et cetera, that\u2019s absolute gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think we\u2019re very lucky to have that opportunity for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Dannii, you also seem very chilled out about the fact that Jim is away for a lot of the time, but that must be quite hard, especially when your children were a bit younger, and you are left to hold the fort with the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I mean, obviously you know that that\u2019s part of the job, part of the deal, but has it been hard to cope sometimes if he\u2019s been away for a week at a time or whatever?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeah, it definitely was. So all of that family help that I\u2019m talking about wasn\u2019t as prevalent back when the kids were 2 and 4 or lockdown was 3 and 5, so everyone was here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when they were little, I definitely, when I was working full-time as well, the kids were in nursery. It was a lot of admin to manage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I did struggle at times, and I think if you talk about working with your partner, that was probably the most contentious issue at times was like, \u201cOh, well you are doing all this really great stuff for the company and I am running the day-to-day, but also managing the kids.\u201d That was difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think that was probably the hardest time actually. But I think life with little kids is the hardest time anyway. That\u2019s the most challenging time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I mean that\u2019s what I think. I mean, people with teenagers tell me different, but I think that those little kids, they take up so much of you and when you are running a business as well and working full time, it was a lot to juggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think the thing when Jim was back, he would always make such a conscious effort to take the children off me in that sort of, he\u2019d come in and he\u2019d have them, and it wasn\u2019t like me just throwing them at him as soon as he walked through the door, but he understood that it was a lot while he was away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So he really overcompensated for that. When he came back, he\u2019d take them out for the whole day and I would just sit in the house. That was such a joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So yeah, that was the most difficult thing I think about having children and running your own business with a partner who travels a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I guess I was, and am, very mindful of that. As Dannii says, we are lucky enough sometimes to be able to go on trips together because her mum lives with us. That\u2019s an unbelievable gift just in terms of the way that our family can operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But yeah, going on a trip, having these kind of amazing experiences, high fiving with customers, just being in these places and being mindful that I\u2019m not there with Dannii, I\u2019m not there with the family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there is a little pang of guilt sometimes with that. And I think that\u2019s why we know that as the kids get older, we want them to be involved in is we have an obligation to show them what we are seeing and have those family experiences together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We had a wonderful holiday this year, actually earlier on this year in Costa Rica together. It was brilliant to show them a little bit of the jungle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We weren\u2019t doing an event, we were there on our own terms, but what we\u2019ve learned of these places and what we can show them together is brilliant. It\u2019s absolutely brilliant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And have you ever had an event that flopped, like something that you thought was going to be really good and then people were like, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then tell me about that and how you recovered, how you got your confidence back after having a flop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh man, Gunpowder Plod.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, that was successful in terms of numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Qualified, quantified success. What were you going to say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I mean, that\u2019s the one that immediately springs to mind, which is an event that isn\u2019t really our kind of event. It was called the Gunpowder Plod, and it was in York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we had this idea that York didn\u2019t really, and York was where we were based at the time, didn\u2019t really have a amazing fireworks night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Jim was like, \u201cWell, why don\u2019t we do a 5K run to fireworks? That would be really cool and different. People would come and do that on the 5th of November.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we were like, \u201cYeah, that sounds great, but if we do normal fireworks on the back of it, we will get more people there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we used the Knavesmire in York, which is where park runners go. So we knew the 5K route would work and everyone was totally on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And in typical British weather, we got apocalyptic rain. So immediately the event village was a swamp, it was muddy. Mums were pulling kids out of bogs. It was just chaos. Everything was muddy. I just remember all this mud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we had this fireworks operator and the Knavesmire obviously open to the public around the back and we had 12,000 people there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was enormous and probably a thousand people were doing the run. The run was meant to be 45 minutes, then do the fireworks after. It was all set to be child-friendly, family friendly time in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the fireworks\u2019 company couldn\u2019t start the run because teenagers had got onto the firing area, and they wouldn\u2019t leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We had to call the police to come and remove the teenagers. Because they were in the firing area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pyrotechnic guys were like, \u201cWe can\u2019t fire anything, you\u2019re going to have to move them.\u201d So we\u2019re like, half of us are running around trying to find them. We\u2019ve called the police, they\u2019ve got to come and the delay is building, so it\u2019s now 45 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So instead of a 6pm, we\u2019re at 6:45pm, which is when the fireworks were supposed to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We eventually got that run to start at 7pm, which meant the fireworks got pushed back to 8pm, which is just a bit late when you\u2019ve got 2-year olds, 3-year olds, 4-year olds and it\u2019s a school night. I remember it was a Sunday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In November. Very cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it was freezing. Everyone\u2019s covered in mud. It was just like chaos. You were literally watching the event disintegrate before your eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fireworks went off. The fireworks were fantastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fireworks were amazing, they were amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were amazing, but it was so frustrating, weather notwithstanding, that event and the fallback and the local press was next level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that event, you could see it falling apart in front of you because of some teenagers on a field. Do you know what I mean? Something that you could never have planned for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Knavesmire is massive. You couldn\u2019t possibly have fenced it in. And it was just so frustrating and there was nothing we could do, nothing we could do to stop it apart from find them and get them off the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think there was nothing wrong with the event itself, it was just so late. And we were dealing with an audience we weren\u2019t used to. They say never work with children or animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But yeah, so it was a learning because public opinion turned. It was like, well, these fireworks were so late, you kept people waiting so long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we got hammered in the local press for that reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Absolutely hammered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I guess it was probably fate from the start, because of course, Guy Fawkes is from York, so we should have known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That your plot would be foiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We never did another firework show after that ever again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And even now, if you suggest fireworks in an event, I\u2019m like, \u201cAbsolutely not. I\u2019m scarred.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, my goodness. I feel for you, I\u2019m based in York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, wow. Were you there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wasn\u2019t there, but I was thinking, \u201cThat sounds like a great idea. I\u2019d book a ticket to that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then the story unravels and you\u2019re like, \u201cActually that sounds pretty bad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So you said you didn\u2019t do it, you basically were like, \u201cNo, never touch fireworks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So in terms of regaining your confidence, did that give you a knock about trying new things? Were you like, \u201cRight, let\u2019s stick to our knitting from now on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It probably didn\u2019t give us a knock in terms of trying new things. I think we knew that it was a little bit outside of our general domain, and I think that was what it really taught us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was sort of stick to what you know, be adventurous with the concept, but our market was very much a kind of challenge-based customer, not members of the public doing something that was bolted on in a massive way to the core endurance challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I think had we just stuck with the run and done that, that was more us. So that was definitely the learning. It didn\u2019t knock us off the horse did it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But we were definitely, we definitely did learn from it. Absolutely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What about the future? What are your big ambitions either for the kinds of events you\u2019d like to put on or new areas of growth? Can you share anything in terms of your strategy or your plans?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeah, I think right now we\u2019re in a really strong position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Dannii mentioned before, these 2 kinds of strands that we have, the core UK event properties, some of which we\u2019ve run forever and some of which are new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They\u2019re doing really well and they\u2019re introducing us to lots of new customers who again are joining those very loyal customers in doing these fantastic global bucket list challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think because of that sort of bang, crash, wallop that we all felt out the back of COVID, it is very much a time of consolidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s like we\u2019ve expanded rapidly in terms of locations, the world literally is our oyster. We are dealing with events in 35 countries on all 7 continents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I don\u2019t think anybody\u2019s doing that really, certainly in terms of our genre. So we\u2019ve kind of reached that point where we could bring on new events and we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re always looking, we are always searching, scratching the surface for new concepts, but right now we are kind of enjoying the fact that things are pretty stable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think any business that can sort of come out COVID, wrestle the storm that happened thereafter and be here 3, 4 years later saying, \u201cActually, things are okay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think we\u2019ll enjoy a bit of that stability while we can and just take a deep breath, think on a bit before we go for the next grand, grand strategic move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Global domination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is this the kind of job that you feel that you could do forever? I mean, can you imagine yourself being big white beard still climbing mountains?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few grey hairs there already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not you there, Dannii.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wasn\u2019t pointing at Dannii when I said that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think from my point of view, yes and no. I mean I think what we do, so a lot of our events, the international events are fairly expeditionary in nature, which is fantastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kind of leading from the front and leading groups into places like the jungle or the desert or the frozen cold places of the world is brilliant, and there is a shelf life on being able to do that physically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now that shelf life is way in the future, I would like to think. And it does make you quite conscious of your health and health and fitness in general, both body and mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though we run an adventure sports company, we\u2019re still busy living life and looking after the kids and all of those pressures of life. So we\u2019ve got to be mindful of our health and fitness in that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So for that reason, probably on a practical and logistical level, there are people that will definitely be able to do what I currently do better than me sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There already is, our team are absolutely fantastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think sitting back and looking at the train set and moving the pieces around the board a little bit more, is probably what I should be doing more of, as managing director and sort of growing the business strategically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that time will come where I am doing more and more of that. And I think in general, this chapter of being able to involve the kids and bringing them on board, that\u2019s coming and we\u2019re excited for that. We\u2019ve got to be here for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My daughter keeps telling me she\u2019s going to run the company one day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t doubt it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She\u2019s waiting in the wing. She\u2019s already the boss of the house, so she might as well be boss of the company as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s funny that there\u2019s always this tension isn\u2019t there, that the more successful you become in a business, the further you get away from doing the thing that you loved doing and the reason why you set up the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s just like the natural evolution. You end up managing more people and you get off the tools and you\u2019re more on the strategic bird\u2019s eye view, managing, moving all the pieces around the board, but that is almost the price of success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeah, you\u2019re absolutely right. And I think I\u2019ve kind of learned that it doesn\u2019t have to be binary like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I first set Rat Race up, I think I went from having done a lot of my own personal adventures. I lived in the alps for a year, I climbed some really big mountains, did some amazing swashbuckling stuff, and then I literally worked nonstop for 10 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I moved to London for a while, didn\u2019t leave the M25 for a long, long time, kind nose to the grindstone and put my head up 10 years later and thought, \u201cWell, actually, hang on. That\u2019s not quite the right balance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So to be in a place where we do have some balance, we can go on trips together, can involve our team, we can do some fun stuff together, we can hopefully involve the family as we go on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For me personally, it\u2019s as important to keep the hands on the tools, as you say, to kind of enjoy almost the fruits of the labour to have these adventures or else why are we doing it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Success is fantastic, but success is measured in many different ways and lifestyle and the ability to enjoy what you\u2019re doing in the here and now. I\u2019ve learned that that is really important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Can you tell us a bit about your social media strategy? So which platforms are the most important? What\u2019s the kind of content?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I mean, I imagine just showing pictures of these amazing is just like, bing, dopamine hit for your followers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But is there a specific sort of tactic that you use to get people excited about these adventures? Can you reveal anything?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeah, so for us, our demographic is a bit older, so older in terms of the spectrum of ages. So it tends to be 35 to 55 is our demographic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And in terms of their social media use, that is primarily actually Facebook still. And that\u2019s where we see big numbers come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And second to that is Instagram. We\u2019re not on TikTok because that\u2019s just below that age range that I\u2019ve just talked about. It\u2019s kind of a younger market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we have a team who run the social media. I actually run the Instagram account myself because I really enjoy that creative outlet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I create all the content that\u2019s on there, I engage with the customers on there. And that is in my world of commercials and budgets and managing the team. That\u2019s almost my little escape on Instagram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it\u2019s actually a way that I stay in touch with trends that are happening or what people are looking for. Ultra runners are actually really booming at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we\u2019ve created ultras, new ultras in the market, and they\u2019re selling so well because running is a trend right now. And you see that on Instagram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facebook, in terms of content, it\u2019s those videos, which I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen if you\u2019ve been on our social media. We invest heavily in photography and videography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We know if you don\u2019t know what something looks like, why would you go? If you\u2019re looking for a holiday, you want those amazing pictures of the hotel, the beach. That\u2019s what sells the place to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it\u2019s the same for events. Where are the people stood? What are they looking at? What\u2019s the vista? What\u2019s the challenge? What\u2019s it like in the nitty-gritty?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we have this balance of the shiny promo videos you see, which I\u2019ll put together based on what the challenge is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we have a couple of freelancers that we use a lot, who are excellent, but then we also have that kind of raw footage that we ourselves capture on our phones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there\u2019s a balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So you\u2019ve got the shininess of this is amazing, this is what it looks like. And then that really personal touch of this is actually what it looks like in the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What it feels like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeah. So in Panama, the bits of when people are knee-deep in mud and they\u2019re struggling or they\u2019re crying. And that\u2019s our hardest event and it\u2019s marketed as such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the people who do that event want to see that. They want to see what it\u2019s really like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or if you\u2019re in Croatia and you\u2019re paddling into Dubrovnik, that POV, point of view footage, is as engaging and sometimes more so than the shiny promo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it\u2019s having that balance of that real touchpoint of real people experiences alongside the big, shiny, expensive video that sells the event online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s really interesting. That makes sense to me when you\u2019re saying it that you want the authentic experience, you want to see the real thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because otherwise you would just have everything be shiny and pretty and then la, la, la, la, la, it\u2019s going to be great, but you want to know that it\u2019ll be a challenge because that is what people are going for, the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the engagement with people on social media, not just in the run-up to the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the way we normally launch an event is we\u2019ll announce it, we\u2019ll build the hype around it, so you get people really excited to tease the information, tell them how amazing it\u2019s going to be, and then open it and people will enter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then at the event, we always have live kind of coverage. So it\u2019s really important we show what the event is as it\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we\u2019ll have live coverage through the day on Instagram stories, then the roundup post. But once people have done it\u2019s so important to then engage with them on their own social media platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So if we\u2019ve been tagged, we\u2019ll always like your posts and comment, we\u2019ll always engage with you because you are essentially then marketing us to other people. And we appreciate that so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When someone takes the time to tag us in something, I\u2019ll always go through and read it. I\u2019ll watch your reel. If you send me a story, I\u2019m going to reply. That kind of thing. I think that\u2019s so important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And even as we grow and we\u2019ve grown quite rapidly on Instagram this year, I will never lose that bit of it, because I understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would never want to get so busy that I wasn\u2019t able to give that engagement back, because I think that\u2019s really important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wherever you\u2019re listening or watching, subscribe to Sound Advice on Apple iTunes<\/a> here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n