The Adventure Entrepreneur

The Adventure Entrepreneur: Why Our Businesses Need it to Rain

By: Lisa Slagle

photo courtesy of Green Kat Photography

It's raining hard today, or at least enough to get me to stay inside and finally sit down and work on the Wheelie Creative Portfolio. It's months overdue. It's Saturday, so normally I'd be snowboarding, skinning, or mountain biking, but the rain talked me into actually focusing on my own business stuff. The work week is spent creating client work, and I've had a lot to catch up on with my own branding, so it feels good to dig into that. 

I sifted through thousands of files today, and was shocked by the volume of work I've produced over the last two years. It made me feel kind of good, actually, and those little, silent moments of victory are welcome surprises when they happen.  All it took was some rain.

While I was blasting music at my empty office building on an overcast Saturday and my dog was running wild in the hallway, I realized something funny, something worth sharing. I work with entrepreneurs every day, and I am one myself. Most of my clients own businesses with an outdoor adventure focus of some capacity.  Bike shops, guide shops, outerwear companies, and a ski resort to name a few. 
We all have one thing in common: It takes rain.

My clients and I run successful businesses--don't get me wrong--by no means are we a bunch of slackers, but I can say that on powder days, I snowboard with my clients, often in the middle of the work week. I frequently run into them at the Lion Mountain Parking lot, bikes in tow. I even met one of my clients and had a casual, initial consultation conversation on the spot while we were literally floating in the water at Les Mason. Last week, I interviewed someone while hiking a mountain. Just because we are professional does not mean we have to be contained by office walls from nine to five.

But the beauty of this lifestyle also leads to the main frustrations sometimes, albeit lovable ones. It can be nearly impossible to wrangle in a few of my most adventurous clients. You know who you are, and you know what I'm talking about. It can be hard to get clients to sit down and write website content or to read through our marketing plan together and focus on our action plan long enough to start taking action. Or to schedule a time when I can schedule a photographer to get head shots for your site.  It's sunny. It's snowing. It's the last week of something or the first week of something else. Montana is a perfect place to be an adventurous entrepreneur, and I am proud of my clients and the businesses they run. I'm just as solar powered, and I'm not complaining about our outdoorsy spirits. We thrive in nature. 

I am saying though, that I am grateful for the occasional rainy Saturday where I can sit down and work on my business, the stuff I can't even touch Monday through Friday. 

I like to think that a few of my clients took today to work on their design homework, too. 

But they're probably out playing in the rain. 

Love you guys anyway.