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This is Entrepreneurship >> Jeanan Yasiri: Welcome back.
It's a course that's offered in Society.
School of Human Ecology. from the University of Wisconsin
As we begin today I'd like to extend thanks to our partners in
supporting this course: the UW
the UW College of Engineering for their technical support, and
financial support that is offered through the Ewing Marion
Kauffman Foundation, which is committed to advancing academic
education and entrepreneurship. Additionally we'd like to thank
our media partners, Wisconsin Public Television and their
University Place crew for taping
I'm very pleased to introduce our special guest today,
Kim Schaefer, CEO of Great Wolf Resorts.
Great Wolf Resorts is North America's largest family
of indoor waterpark resorts.
Great Wolf Resorts, Aheadquartered here in Madison,
back in 1995 as senior vice president of operations.
Later Kim became president and
she focused her attention on chief operating officer where
experience and established delivering a great guest
indoor waterpark resorts. Her work with the organization
has included deep involvement as
ensured that Great Wolf Lodge found organic growth by adding
proprietary amenities like
known family brands like Scooops and MagiQuest and adding
Dunkin' Donuts to the complement Pizza Hut and Starbucks and
This has been a significant part of their other services.
evolution has been into full family entertainment.
Kim earned her bachelor's degree
College in Madison. She told me that she spent the
first three years of her
University of Wisconsin though. undeShe has over 20 years of the
accounting and hotel operating
advisory boards of Edgewood College Business School and
Thrive. She is also active in Tech,
a Madison CEO group.
with us to discuss what entrepreneurial thinking is like
in a mature organization but
developer like Great Wolf also in one Resorts.as unique a
So please join me in welcoming
[APPLAUSE] Kim Schaefer.
Did I turn your mic on? >> Kim >> I think so.k you.
Can you guys hear me? All right.
Good afternoon, how's everybody doing today?
Great.
Well I'm thrilled to be here Exciting.
Thanks for inviting me. How many times in your life do
you get to be part of a company where you're building a brand?
That's something for me that is really the most significant
thing that I look at in my
I stumbled upon the hospitality industry.
I went into accounting, as you
as a CPA and then stumbled on werthe hospitality industry.ars
And it was something that I was very passionate about.
I really enjoyed the variety. I enjoyed all the different
things that there was to do.
I say that a lot, don't I? Eventually we stumbled upon,
And that is sometimes how life We stumble upon a lot of stuff.
that you're not necessarily takes yprepared for.nt roads
But if you've never been to a Great Wolf Lodge, have any of
you seen a Great Wolf Lodge?
Dells. There's one up in Wisconsin
That'd probably be one that Tyou'd be most familiar with..
Let me show you a quick video that shows you just a little bit
about what Great Wolf is, and that will kind of lead to some
of the discussion that we'll
This is an exciting time have this afternoon.
With properties from coast to coast, we're North America's
largest family of indoor
industry leader in drive-to family destination resorts.
Over the last decade, Great Wolf
based on the family experience Resorts has created a new brand
amenities that can include along with a wide range of
entertainment and activity spacious suites, interactive
enormous indoor/outdoor areas,waterparks.rse our
We are a true brand leader in the marketplace, and we continue
to extend or leadership to new
pipeline with domestic and development and a future
So come be a part of something international potential.
Become a part of one of the world's leading brands of
year-round family entertainment.
Gtime like a Great Wolf time.o
[WOLF HOWLING]
Got to have the signature howl in there.
We have been known in our company to do random acts of
howling as good things happen in
I love this slide, because the company.
all across the country now as we said, we're really
We started in the Midwest. over the last 14 years.
got a real close proximity. YWisconsin Dells was the verye
first one, but what I love about
business model was to build thiin close to home, drive-toal
destinations. So families who went
historically to Cedar Point amusement park down in Ohio,
if any of you have been there,
from Cleveland, all around the this is a place that families
getting in their cars and making Midwest every single summer were
some family time together. the drive down there to spend
build a location like we had up in Wisconsin Dells to build them
in other family destinations. If you look on the map you'll
see Grand Mound, Washington,
there's nothing there afor families to do.,
As our brand has grown, we've been able to set our own
destination.
Grand Mound, Washington, The reason people go to
And that's really the evolution is to of our brand.perty.
We couldn't have done that at the very beginning of our life
cycle, but where we are in our
awareness, with our loyal fans, we've been able to take our
model of where we can build a Great Wolf and move it to other
locations in the country. We did not start this concept.
We bought the very first lodge
What I like about that is that up in Wisconsin Dells.
innovative, you don't have to necessarily create the concept.
What you have to do is you have to make it better.
And so we found the first concept up in Wisconsin Dells.
We were a hospitality development company, we were
building Crowne Plazas, Holiday Inns, Hamptons, things
like that around the country, found this concept and
approached the owners about taking this concept national.
And so for us, we bought the
an indoor waterpark resort. What we've done, over the last
14 years, is we've made it a
So we've taken, and every single family entertainment resort.
we got smarter, we got better and we continued to innovate and
grow based on having 80,000 families come, we now have
almost a million families across
single year. our lodges who visit us every
research. We're a lot smarter today than
we were 14 years ago, and we use
we think is relevant to figure every single piece of data that
how to be better than we were out how the day before.grow and
Another thing that kind of
does change some way the way you happened to our company that
public through NASDAQ. think, the end of 2004 we went
spirited company, being public While we are a very innovative
and regulations and SEC codes comethat we need to follow.ules
And sometimes that dictates how you think.
And we've tried to separate as
are really focused on the public much as we can the people who
which is not what I do. cWhen I became the CEO of the
company two years ago, I went from being the innovator,
to being the brand strategist,
most of my time out in New York totalking to Wall Street andg
making sure that as a public
interest of the shareholders. coWhere three years ago, mythe
interests were really aligned with our employees
and the guests that came
So being able to balance that and realizing that it's not just
about what I want to do or what we think the ultimate result is,
being a public company really has added a whole other layer of
sophistication, and in some cases difficulties, to how we do
business and continue to grow.
in 2009-2010 with the recession things changed dramatically in
the financial market. As you saw, you probably got a
flavor. These are very large properties.
100-plus million dollars to build a Great Wolf Lodge.
So the financial markets were not really cooperative for us to
build during 2009-2010. And so we looked at how do we
continue to grow as a public
we said and we'll talk about a company, and one of the things
some really great things in our little bit lodges.s we've done
We've created a lot of
things for families to do. activities and amenities and
and we focused on them In 2010, we took those things
So we opened up a Scooops, outside of the lodge.
at the Mall of America. We took a majority interest in a
small technology gaming company that we use in our resorts
called Creative Kingdoms. So it was fun for us to be able
to say let's look at some brand extensions and how we take the
some of the success that we've
capitalize that outside of our had throughout the years and
So the first thing for us, core competency.
anybody, is to always stay and I think the first thing for
Who are you talking to as far as focused on who your audience is.
Who is your audience? tAnd for us it's always beens?
consistent over the last 14 years.
That's not necessarily the same for all companies.
Sometimes they evolve and have a
But for us it's always the same new core.nce.
We talk to our employees because
also focus on families. tThe good news for us is that
there's new customers born every
age that come to a Great Wolf single year tLodge.ture into an
So we're never going to run out of customers at our business
model.
demographics, you're about to come into another opportunity
for a big boom with families. And so family entertainment,
especially on a regional basis
over the next 10 years. isSo we keep in mind who we'reic
talking to at all times, how
what we're looking for, who are we innovating for, and who are
we trying to become a better
It's for those families that company for?
employees who take care of them. come to our lodges and for the
partnerships because I think I did add in vendors and other
that you're aligning with people that's important to make sure
I'm going to talk a little bit who represent you.
Talk about creating a strong about building the brand.
We've got over 5,000 people who work for us in 10 different
states. It's really important that we
have a very strong foundation of
can all act on our behalf the wway that they would if I weree
there doing it myself.
we deliver the brand message. We That's certainly a very how
important key component to being
What is the message that you're trying to deliver, and can you
get that out to the audience
And then "Wolf Moments." of which you're representing?
Wolf Moments. To us, this is innovation.
For the last 14 years we have been a company that innovates.
Every single year we're trying
different to take a look at how families are spending their time
together, what's important for
Because, again, it's not them.
those families who are coming. necessarily about me, it's about
"Wolf Moments." And we'll talk a little bit more
about that, and even though we're the largest family of
indoor waterpark resorts, we're really the only company in the
world that is focusing on managing assets that are indoor
waterpark resorts.
largest, the best, we still have Even though we're the only, the
higher. So every single year, what can
we do to make ourselves more
better than we were the day relevant, before? ourselves
So this is what I was talking about before by really having a
strong foundation.
1997, and that was a We bought the first lodge in
family was there working family-owned business and the
And as an employee you knew exactly who you were working
for.
comes in, we're not there every Ansingle day, and you have aon
different way of doing business than it is as a family run
business. We opened up our second lodge in
Ohio almost immediately following the purchase of this
first one.
learning the business, working We spent a lot of time hands-on,
and everything was great. sidWe opened our third lodge,es
and we had our fourth lodge under construction in 2003.
So we've been doing this now for
we opened up our third one. thWe now have over a thousand003
employees, and we realized that we just can't do business the
way that we'd always done business.
We had too many employees trying
thought was important to our to get them to represent what we
You get some great employees, you get some employees who
aren't so great, but trying to
be very difficult. manage that process can prove to
I'm taking a lesson out of the So the first thing that we did,
studying this if you're studying play book, some of you may be
studying any of the branding marketing at all, if you're
foundation. Who is it that you are as a
company that every single one of
what's important. So we have our mission, it's the
way that we do business.
It's to take care of the What's our ultimate goal?
Lodge. families that come to Great Wolf
values. OurWhat's important to us? our
The core competencies that are
as human beings, how we treat people, we want to make sure
that everybody understands what is the most important thing for
us. A brand promise and then service
standards.
in our company, and we're a family resort so it's probably
not surprising that fun is one
We have huge indoor waterparks. So no surprise that safety is
one of them.
quality. And then consistency and
to come and have an experience, Pea vacation experience, at aney
Great Wolf Lodge. So those four service standards
have to be rooted in every
it has to be in every single single decision that we make,
who interact with our guests decision that the 5,000 people
fundamental for what they do every day, it has to be the
It took us four years to get to to makthis point.ision.
It took a long time to realize
business, it needed to involve, thatit needed to grow.oing
We were becoming a bigger company, but we didn't want to
lose what was special to our
So the culture of our company become very clear to us, and
it's something that we've spent a lot of time making sure that
every single person in our
If you guys have questions, just company understands this.
I'll leave plenty of time for start jquestions.m down.
You guys are far smarter than I am so I'm sure you're going have
some great questions to ask, and
as we get through all of this. I'll do my best to answer them
to, we need to go out and market Once we know who we're talking
And so we call, for us to them.
because we're not just marketing it's strategic brand marketing
For us, it's our brand a widget.
It is the quality of experience that we want families to come
and have at a Great Wolf Lodge. So we have to make sure brand
equals consistency. We need to make sure that
everything that we do in our
all of our marketing. And so everything is overlaid,
as you see with all those circles.
When we started out 14 years ago
of marketing that we did. tThere was TV, yes there was TV
when I started doing this.
and there was direct mail. There was TV, there was radio,
Those were the only three modes that we used in advertising to
try to get our brand message out
and have a Great Wolf stay. to oNow we have all of theseome
different metrics.
us. It is a fully integrated part of
our marketing, how we talk to our guests.
Facebook and Twitter, they just weren't around 14 years ago
when we started doing this. But our target audience is moms.
That's who we talk to,
to come to a Great Wolf. to make this purchase decision
39 range, they're using social And moms of today, in that 24 to
And so our entire platform has media.
used to market. It's a lot of fun because that
peer-to-peer connection and how people use the Internet versus
how they did 15 years ago, it's changed dramatically.
It used to be information,
an idea of what the product was. they'd look it up to kind of get
booking engine. NThey're making all their
decisions.
say, how was your experience, Thshould I be going, I have a to
four-year-old, is it relevant?
that we give all of those guests So we're trying to make sure
a conversation a platform to have
One of the important things on about Great Wolf Lodge.
here asalliances.artner
If you're going to be bring a third party into your business,
it is no different than having
They are going to represent your an employee.
they are as a company. business by the actions and who
strategic in who we've aligned So we've tried to be very
As we become more of a national brand, we've had the opportunity
to join with some of these
Coca-Cola is brand new, we just signed that one in December.
So they're a brand new partner
about having this opportunity to for us, but we're really excited
have them represented in our do co-marketing with them, to
international company and to be cpart of their sweepstakes andge
their giveaways and some of the different things that they do to
their customers is huge.
be there because if something happens, let me pick a smaller
one, if something happens with
A few years ago Nestle had a Nestle or Edy's.
dough, those things affect the huge recall on their cookie
in their business, and it now becomes our problem as much as
it becomes Nestle's problem.
about not overfilling any one page to have too many
partnerships that we can't truly
aligns with our business. unThe very first one that wenk
aligned with was Starbucks. Starbucks and Pizza Hut were our
first two alliances.
is because our families who were And the reason that we did that
for that quality experience, coming to the lodge were looking
expect to have these types of that qualbrands.away, they
We sell more cheese pizza, you
in our resorts last year, that's figure we had over 600,000 kids
So Pizza Hut likes having us a lot of cheese pizza.
They're a Dallas company and we happen to have a Dallas resort,
and so we do a lot of trial and error.
We were the first hotel to open up a WingStreet to sell wings,
their new concept that they have.
So it's a lot of fun when you align with the right brands to
be able to enhance what you're
The life cycle of a company makes a big difference as well.
And we talked a lot of about how
we've got some examples of some weof the innovation that we'ved
done, but it also matters the life cycle of where your guest
is in the business. So for us, we have a really nice
base of repeat customers. Once you come to a Great Wolf,
you tend to come to a Great Wolf
We have them for about four or quite a few times.
their kids get to an age where five years, and then usually
last four years, time to do something else or they're too
old, and they don't want to go. I used to be the perfect
demographic.
don't want to do anything with My kids are 13 and 16 now, they
So those types of family me anymore.
them doing things with their weekends, they're replaced with
But the great thing is there's a friends.
those kids who are in the 2 to whole lot of guests who now have
do things with mom and dad, they 12 range where they do want to
weekends, and so we can keep appreciate having those getaway
How we talk to them and all of filling the pipeline.
doesn't change the mode of these different things, it
We're still talking to them via TV and via radio and via direct
mail, but their decision point
If you guys have bought a product, you've all been out
there, you buy a product, once
purchase decision is a lot you know the product, your
And so we need to be very thoughtful on where we are in.
the life cycle. People are making a $400 a night
decision to come to one of our
sure that they really understand properties so we need to make
We brought a new director of the value proposition.
ago, and she's brand new to the company, she knew it, she'd been
to a Great Wolf Lodge and she looked at our website and she
said, nowhere on here do you say
included in the room. We all sat around and thought,
of course it's on there somewhere, everybody knows it,
that's just what it is. We've been talking to our repeat
guests for so long and during this recession they've really
taken care of us because they come in full force, they
recognize the value, we never really thought about the fact
that our prospect guests, since times have kind of changed
dramatically since 2007 that
of decision making for them, that became an important point
so much more important than it that this value proposition was
In 2007 it was all about was in 2007.
Families were so busy, they had money but they had no time.
So if you could offer them
drive and they could still have a lot of fun and it only took
two days out of their schedule, they were all for it.
In 2010, it's a much more thoughtful decision on where
they are in this life cycle.
resorts. They don't know the value of our
perspective to realize where our And so just having that fresh
and what's important in today, customers are in the life cycle
it's all about making sure that they're getting a good deal.
Never even dawned, certainly on me, I'm not doing the marketing
but it certainly didn't dawn on me that that's something we
should put on our website.
changed so that we're talking to So our whole platform this year
So in the first three months of the year we're up 37% in new
customers who are booking to
By just changing our thought come to a Great Wolf.
within the life cycle made a process on who we're talking to
business. And heck, we've been doing this
for 14 years. So that fresh perspective always
challenging yourself to think about things a little bit
differently pays off in dividends.
The brand message, we talked
important that any company that you go work for, any company
that you start over the years,
understand what's important for you wantthat company. that you
We try to celebrate it. We have a lot of fun with our
employees so we do things like
We get out and we talk to the employees about hey this is.
what's important from a promise standpoint.
You kind of want to understand
focused on. So we have things, we did Great
Wolf Idol last year and we
whatever they wanted, they just had to record it, it couldn't be
more than three minutes long, and they could put it up on our
YouTube channel that we have
They put it up on YouTube, and for Great Wolf Lodge.
feelings about Great Wolf Lodge. they could express their
so much fun to see the passion A little scary, but it was just
company. that employees have for the
opportunity to own your own company, to start your own
company or to be in a position
it's a very proud moment when of lyou see that you've gotany,
thousands of employees who
that they're doing representing really fyour company.t the job
So we try to have a lot of fun
contests and stuff, but it's all with different things with
So we talk about our values: around living the brand.
accountability, competency and respect, integrity,
Those are our five values. teamwork.
there, represent, you can send We'll have contests around
living our culture through one in an essay about somebody who's
And it's a lot of fun to see of these values.
employees and tell the things that they do on behalf of the
company.
"Undercover Boss" before Have you guys seen
Yeah? on CBS SOkay. nights?
Did you guys know Great Wolf
Actually we've been on there was on there?
88 minutes of me is more than enough that national TV needs.
But we had on opportunity, they approached us last April about
being on the show, and it was a great experience, a little
unnerving at times, but it was a
actually, we tried to use this lot of fun, and for us it was
talk to our employees about the as an opportcompany. go back and
The company showed very well on the show.
I think it was a great episode, but more importantly it really
was a chance to showcase some amazing employees that we have
in the company and then go out
means. and talk to them about what it
to relate it back to the 5,000 So no matter what we do we try
This is one of my favorite people that work for us.
We talked about innovation. For us, as I said before,
we bought an indoor waterpark resort back in 1997.
Where we are today, is we are regional family entertainment.
When people come to us, part of what they do is the waterpark,
I always say that's kind of the marketing sizzle, the reason
they come to us is because we have a great waterpark.
It's a lot of fun.
every single adult, but the reason that they come back is,
all of these things.
we've innovated over the years. ANone of these things reallyt
existed before. Gr8-Space is a teen tech center.
I said kids get to be teenagers they don't necessarily want to
hang out with mom and dad, but
lot of times they can bring a iffriend, they'll come along, a
let's give them a space that
the family they can go and after they've spent time with
These are the things that we see hang out with their friends.
a teen tech center but we realize that these families arer
coming and there is an audience that isn't necessarily served
after 9:00 at night.
for them. SoWe have Scooops kids' spa.ng
This is the spa I was telling you about that we actually now
took outside of Great Wolf
franchise this around the Lodge, andcountry.ooking to
The first one has opened up at Mall of America currently
as a stand alone. This is great.
This is again something that we realized was kids like spas.
And especially during the really
being pampered at a very young good times they were used to
And this inspiration was age.
She loved going to spas, actually from my daughter.
we came into a spa, buyou've got to be quiet.en
That's not what kids should do. Kids should have fun.
So we decided to take the innovation and say let's build a
kids spa, and we did it all around an ice cream theme.
You can get chocolate covered cherry pedicures
and Neapolitan manicures. It's a lot of fun.
And we didn't root this, any of these things here, I think
that's important to mention, are
And you have to balance customer not done on customer research.
We do a ton of customer research.
Where are you spending your time?
How do you make important decisions on a family vacation?
We're asking families a lot of
guarantee that if I'd gone and those types of things, but I
to spend $35 for your daughter asked moms, hey, are you willing
cherry manicure, I think I know what the answer would have been.
It would have been no.
willing to spend money on experience, they're willing to
spend money on things that are
So what we do is we then take that type of research and come
up with innovation that makes sense for us.
MagiQuest is another example. It's a live action video game.
We actually took a majority interest in the parent company
because they were looking for a financial investment.
And we love this product. People love this as much as they
love the waterpark. Live action video game, you buy
a wand and you go throughout the
adventure, and you gain power so hotel on this north woods
save the pixie and it's a lot of that you can battle the dragon,
And parents enjoy it because, you know what, we don't
understand why our kids sit there for three, four hours
playing video games.
see the competitive nature, you see the fun of solving something
and you want to go on that
So those are the types of things adventure with them.
knowing that the core understanding is that families
want a great experience,
for something unique. So they're not asking for these
things, but what they are asking
being innovative, by being for we were able to serve by
our eye on who our audience was cand who we were building these
resorts for.
slide, or clip. It's actually from "Undercover
Boss," and it will kind of speak
which is on leadership, and then to the last point that I have
It takes a certain I'll take questions after that.
Marie has that passion, that magic..
She was great with the kids.
Swimming. >> What's>> Swimming.te thing?
Did you guys like the cooking class?
I ate all of mine.
Was it good? >> You did?
The kids loved the cooking Oh, thank you.
They had a great time doing it. >> Was that fun or did you like
playing with Thor better? >> Thor and the pizza.
Okay, well that's good
( laughs ) to know...
our little kids room. >Who you have in a position isn
very important because I
shift doing that job that she wouldn't hwas doing. an entire
But I was trying to ask the kids
thought was great. what they liked, what they
kids there. And the bottom line is I thought
that cooking program that we had
heard of. I couldn't believe that we had
done that cooking program because it didn't make any sense
to me.
one of the kids had a ball and But you know what, every single
afterwards and they told their they ran out of the room
So I think remembering who your audience is and who you're doing
that for is more important than what I necessarily think that it
is. But the reason I showed you that
clip is you can see the passion from the lady that I worked with
there, her name was Bree. She was so passionate about what
she did.
works for us part-time and you She happens to be a teacher who
She was great with the kids. could see it.
level, and they walked out of there so happy which is goingy
make their parents happy. So one of the things that we did
probably about four or five years ago is we realized that
not everybody in our company
position. We hired good people, their
resumes were great and we liked them, but for some reason they
just didn't have what we thought
So I stumbled on this concept, we needed at Great Wolf Lodge.
branding. Realizing that every brand is
unique, it has to be consistent,
leadership. The people who represent you
have to have, not only the core values and that culture of what
you think are important, but
leadership skills. they have to have the same
the same way, but they have to They don't have deliver on it
What makes Wal-Mart different have the than a Lexus?ip skills.
The type of leader that is there
that all funnels down. has to really understand how
looked and said, listen, you And so we went around and we
company. have to be passionate about the
we're dealing with children, We're dealing with families,
business. Had a really good guy come in,
he had worked at one of our hotels and we brought him down
to Wisconsin Dells to work in the restaurant.
Great guy, I'd known him for
He worked for us, done five years.
do. I came up one Saturday night and
after the shift I talked to him and I said, wow, you're just
not the same high energy, you're just not engaged
the way that you used to be.
20-some years old, and he said, And he "I hate kids."he was
[LAUGHTER]
it never even dawned on us And I thought, you know what,
you know what, when you've got to ask that question, because,
worked in food service? a full reYou get it.ny of you
It's busy, especially on
high stress, it's high energy and it never dawned on me when I
brought him there because he was
good at what he did, that putting him in this environment
where not only do you have all
you now have families with tired the pressure and the stress,
and they're crying and they're children who want to eat
When you've got kids, you get that.
Doesn't mean you have to have kids, but you have to be in that
frame of mind to understand that
platform. And so we talked about it and
said, you know what, we need to change the way we think about
leaders.
You have to like kids if you're going to be in our business.
You have to be passionate about that.
And really if you get the opportunity to be passionate in
your job, whatever your career
probably the most important thing to be happy is being able
to find something that you feel you can make a difference,
whatever level that is, if you
company, good for you. can make a difference in a
The other thing that's important I think that is so exciting.
servant leadership. thaI'm not there, none of the is
people who sit here in Madison, Wisconsin, at our corporate
office, none of us are dealing
day. with the guests every single
for us of where our brand is And that is the connection point
And since we're not there, our defined.
the people who are in the field jobmaking all of that happen.to
And so it's our job to make sure
they need, to make sure that the that the housekeepers have what
need, and it is up to us to frontprovide that service.t they
It is not up to us to boss them around and tell them what needs
to be done. It's up to us to ask them what
they need done and be able to provide the tools, to provide
the resources, to provide the leadership and guidance to get
them to where they need to be.
buys into that philosophy. And I'll tell you not everybody
For us it's important, for other And that's okay.
So I think defining the leadership brand of a company is
really important to the success of it.
And then finally before I take
bit about this, for us we're in the service business so every
single time a guest interacts with one of our employees, that
is the definition of our brand. If they get it wrong, they get
it wrong and now that guest walks away unhappy.
So we need to make sure that we do everything that we can
along the way.
glamorous stuff, but we need to make sure that all along the way
we're doing everything we can,
the connection point for us becathat defines our brand.t is
So with that, why don't I take
Students know that, look at all these hands going up, all
right away. That's marvelous.
I was going say, I told Kim that
students will introduce Ithemselves as they ask theire
questions.
Hi, Alyssa. >> As soon as you mentioned the
social media aspect of your company, I went on Facebook and
I looked at the Great Wolf Lodge
negative comment here and it's page, and there was a pretty
So I was wondering how you deal with negative comments and how
this social media, negatively wise, affects you.
Great question. Like I said, every time somebody
interacts with our guests they
always get it right. define our brand, and we don't
don't always get it right. We've got 5,000 people and they
make it a very personal guest What we trecovery. we try to
And that is to take it off of social media and get the guest
one on one. Typically we either invite the
guest back to the lodge or we try to rectify whatever the
situation was that happened.
it's cabin fever, there's not a lot of do outside so when we get
400 rooms at a lodge, we get
there. 1600-1700 people and they stay
difficult time to run our And it doesbusiness.be our most
But that's usually how we try to
Most of them are positive, and handle it.
try to, as much as possible, the we're grateful for that but we
we've got somebody, we have a social media director that's all
they do is look at TripAdvisor
different outlets that are out and Great Wolf and all the
we see a negative we try to treach out to the guest to seef
what we can do to help them.
transition from accounting to kind of tourism, how did you
make that transition? Were you an accountant for the
company to begin with and then
ranks? you worked your way through the
at a CPA firm, so I was a CPA for four years after college,d
and I made the decision to get
ended up at a hotel over on the east side of town, and it just
happened to be, I will say that it wasn't a real conscious
decision. Lucky for me that I did
what I did, because I did find
But really it was really at that that I really enjoyed it.
accounting, and I just took a controller job at a hotel and
from there we went on to start
I'm going to just dovetail on that question because I think
you made a comment that was kind
you really thought it through of interstrategically.ot like
Can you expand on that a little bit because I think that happens
to many of us through our careers.
Would there be anything you would have done differently or
is there anything else coming to
fell into it, as you say? min>> It is interesting. you
I think there's so many, and you
make these decisions that affect take these little detours or you
Where I am today was all based your whole life.
at a hotel. I think that what you have to do
is some of it is living in the
I was ready to get out of public moment.
I had just gotten married, my husband was in public
accounting, we were looking to
point and time in my life the most important thing was finding
a job that I could be happy at, use my accounting skills but
also balance my family life a little bit better.
So I made the decision at the time that was right for me.
It's really not that different. After that when Great Lakes
started I went with my boss who owned the hotel on the east side
of Madison here, I went with him
company, which was the Great and we were with a startup
Great Wolf Resorts. And we had no money; we had no
infrastructure. That was actually a scary
decision because it was way outside my comfort zone.
I'm accountant by nature, I'm a little conservative by nature,
and going into something that was so unknown was much farther
outside my comfort zone but I believed in my boss.
I knew he was taking the same risk, and so I think the only
advice that I could really give you is it's got to feel right,
because life isn't perfect, there's always going to be ups
and downs, and all you can do is assess the risk that you know
when you're making that decision.
Hi, Kim.
Kevin Green. >> Hi.
alliances that you have, how do Whyou choose what companies toe
team up with and how do they, do
Or how you are teamed up with they pay to rthem?pace from you?
Good question.
We do not rent space to anybody. It does vary a little bit.
business, for us we want to make Because we're in the service
license the name and we actually sure that like Pizza Hut, we
Pizza Hut because we'd rather percontrol that part of it, a
than not having access to it. But I think what it is, is we
look at what's popular, what's
Like I said, Pizza Hut was kind of one of those first ones that
we did that was such a
No matter what we did in our no-brainer.
Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and rthey wanted cheese pizza.ed
So we just decided rather than
what we're serving them, let's trying to keep being fancy on
and let's go out and do a deal go out and do a deal with Kraft
they want. with Pizza Hut and bring in what
We have a sponsorship with So some companies do pay us.
paid dollars, but there's also Coca-Cola that does have some
have. Little Tikes is a good example
of an opportunity for them to reach a million families, that
isn't always easy to reach, they
by being part of our kids club get to reach a million families
So it just depends on that. But yeah we love companies who
are willing to give us money to represent it.
But it still has to be
no money is worth it if they end thoughtful because, like I said,
brand. up doing something to damage our
Hi, Ben. >> Hi, my name is Ben.
In the Wisconsin Dells I know there's a lot of resorts and I
was wondering how do you guys just stay a little bit ahead of
everybody else because I know how competitive it is there.
It's a great question.
especially when families, if at they don't know the area,
all waterparks are a commodity
And we get that. to them.
can do or direct advertising to So reach them is important. we
We try to be real thoughtful on our rates because that
ultimately, especially the last couple of years, has been a big
decision point. We don't have as many rooms as a
lot of people in the dells do.
the four big resorts, the upscale resorts, but we have the
smallest number of rooms. So that allows us to really sell
ourselves on the exclusivity. We're probably the only
waterpark that does not sell
You have to stay at our resort. So we sell our exclusivity, and
we sell all of the amenities
MagiQuest and Scooops. that we were talking about like
So we try to differentiate Nobody else has that.
but it's not always easy. ourselves as>> Hi.as possible,
Hi. >> My name is Tyler Lark.
Your company seems very focused and successful on managing the
economic and social aspects of
what kind of consideration you the business, and I'm wondering
of environmental responsibility, guys are thinking about in terms
sustainability concepts into and if you incorporate any
That's a great question. your resorts?
what I would point to first and Project Grforemost.is probably
When we went in to build a
the state said absolutely not. resort in North Carolina,
precious commodity of water in We are not giving up our
build something even though it order to have you come in and
And what we did is we said, listen, our waterparks, separate
the hotel, our waterparks are state of the art.
They are so energy efficient. Other than what walks off in
your swimsuit or evaporates in
reclaimed and reprocessed thunderneath in this hugee,
filtration system.
is, on an average, about 40,000 gallons a day, which may seem
like a lot but really it's not
that takes a lot more with when you compare it to the hotel
So what we did is we set up what's called Project Green Wolf
for us, and we were the first brand in the country to be
Green Seal certified. And we went through the process
which was a operating hotel standard, so kind of like LEED
certification for those that
industry, it's like that for follow the construction
And we did that and then we helped them write the waterpark
standard so that we could really
really are paying attention to then, holistically, show that we
focused on giving back, and not being something that
a city or a municipality
Good question. should not be proud of.
Hi, my name is Jackie. Thanks.
a public corporation if you Inoticed any kind of a cultureme
shift within the organization?
great question, and going public >> You know, Jackie, it's a
opportunity for our company, but was certainly an exciting
first started the company there as was actually six partners. we
I happened to be one of them and
company. five guys who started the
They loved going out and finding They were very entrepreneurial.
and raising money. people to invest in the company
of every single victory of what And it just,we did. that thrill
When we went public, going
more certainty. puWe were going to hedge ourle
future on building Great Wolf Lodges.
And so for them it became more
I was the only one who stayed. tactical.
left during that time because they really wanted to do things
that were more suited to what they wanted to do, not in this
public setting that, you know, I
but there's certainly another layer that is added on and it's,
not just all entrepreneur and innovation from there.
So yeah, big culture shock. >> I'll ask the last question.
Kim, in regard to the fact, and I know I shared with you,
we have 130 undergrads in this
a lot of different dreams, class and they will be pursuing
over their lives. What recommendations would you
have for them as they're going
this economy, as they think strategically or not about their
next steps? >> I don't know if any of you
guys follow Warren Buffett from investing but I think he always
has one philosophy for investing
different when you're going out to look for your career or what
you want to do in your life and it is know what you're getting
yourself in to. Never buy a stock if you don't
understand the company. And I think that that is really
an opportunity for all of you to
passionate about something. To know that you want to make a
difference, to know that you can
to have an understanding of what grow something, you really have
What are their values? the company is all about.
What do they want to do? What are their aspirations?
yours, it may still be a great Because if they don't align with
ultimately if you get the chance first step, but I think
and even the company that you twant to be in, be thoughtful
about it. Take your time, do your
research, ask the right questions because you're going
to spend a lot of time working
this company. aSo as much as you can alignh
that, as much as you can
all about and know that you get apto contribute to it, I justis
think that that is just such a
Like I said, I've been very fortunate for the last 14 years
to be part of Great Wolf because
doing, how we're doing it and Ihaving a chance to just be a
part of it, is just kind of icing on the cake.
Well I know that in introducing you, Kim,
I mentioned that you graduated
town, Edgewood, but as I from another great campus in
three years before she moved on. mentioned, Kim was a Badger
Oh, thank you! And you're a Badger again today.
Thank you, Kim Schaefer, >> So thank very much.
Thank you. for joining us today.
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