Outlier TV Full Interview with Quentin Nolan Liquid Snow Tours

Outlier TV Full Interview with Quentin Nolan Liquid Snow Tours

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Hi there. I’m Andrew McCombe and welcome to Outlier. In this week’s episode, I’m in the beautiful Hakuba, Japan, where I’m going to be speaking to Quentin Nolan. He’s the owner of ‘Liquid snow tours’, and he’s the co-owner of the ‘Hakuba hotel group.’ Okay, guys, I’m excited as always. Let’s go and meet Quentin. Quentin Nolan. Welcome to Outlier. (Thank you. Nice to be here). Talking of here, mate, where are we? What a spectacular backdrop.

Quentin Nolan:

We’re in Hakuba, Japan, at the site where they had the 1998 Olympics. So they had the ski jumping here. They had a few downhill events. And then they had other events in the Olympics; they were kind of scattered around different ski resorts through Nagano. (And how did you come to be here?) the first time I came over here, it was actually sort of just out of interest in Japan. I hadn’t been here before.

I put together a tour group and ended up bringing over 40 people. I was 21 at the time. I was the tour guide and used that as a way to go ski myself. (Where were you based before that? Sydney, right?) We’d been in Sydney, and I’d just recently started my business organizing snowboard trips with a mate out of Sydney.

So we’d get a bus on a Friday night and drive down to Jindabyne, stay in the snow for two days. Each day we’d go up and down the mountains, take them out for a drink on Saturday night, then come back the Sunday night. So, everyone could go back to uni or backpackers or whatever it was.

Andrew McCombe:

So after you’d done that for how long you then migrated over here?

Quentin Nolan:

So after our first season. We brought our first trip over here in 2006, and that was the group of 40. And then the next year we actually booked out a lodge for the whole season, and I’d base myself over here, and I’d go in, pick up a group from Tokyo every Saturday night, come back to Hakuba, stay in Hakuba for a week, and take them down to Tokyo again for a couple of nights, discovering the city and then pick up another group.

It was a pretty good time.

Andrew McCombe:

So is it true that you came over here sight unseen and you were the tour guide?

Quentin Nolan:

Yeah, it’s a bit daunting to think now that that’s the way I did it. But as a 21-year-old, I guess you just don’t have any fear, and there’s not really much to lose. I mean, everything was booked. I just hadn’t been here before. So when I picked up the group, I was pretty open about it all, like, “Hey guys, this is my first time in Japan too, but let’s have a bit of fun together!” And I’ve actually got some of those guys that came on the very first trip, back here, and like still to this year; I was having a drink with two of the boys last night.

Andrew McCombe:

So seven hotels not just in Japan. Like you also do New Zealand, South America, Canada, Europe.

Quentin Nolan:

Japan’s our main business. And Japan is where we’re very focused. But we do take a number of people over to New Zealand, Canada, the US, and a few to South America. I’m actually just in the stages of opening an office in Queenstown so that we can get some more Kiwis coming over to Japan as well.

Andrew McCombe:

Fantastic. So just tell me, obviously, that’s going to take a lot of manpower. So you’re going to take a lot of trust in other people helping you in the process.

Quentin Nolan:

The success of my business is almost solely reliant on the quality of my staff. I’m lucky in a way, but it’s also taken a lot of work to get a strong team of people that I’ve got a huge amount of trust in and are the reason for a lot of the success.

Andrew McCombe:

Yeah. So when you started out the process in the early days, it was just you, or did you have other support?

Quentin Nolan:

Initially, it was just myself. And then I brought on my first employee, Moira, a Scottish girl, a legend of a chick and she helped me start things up, and she came over here that first season. We had the lodge in Hakuba that we’d booked, and she was based over here for that winter.

And then following that winter, that’s when we started kind of growing a fair bit more. And now, I’d say, in liquid snow tours, full time; we’ve got 12 people. And then over here in the winter season, we talk about the hotel group and some of my other businesses here, there are about 150 or so people here working for the season.

Andrew McCombe:

So let’s go back to the start. Right? You come over; you bring a group of 40 people, you hired a lodge. Did you? The first time around?

Quentin Nolan:

The first time around, we booked a lodge. We booked that out for the week, had the whole property, chartered a bus. This is all doing it by myself, with no Japanese. And there wasn’t too much English over here at the time. I intended to come over a week before, so I could just kind of suss out the area and get to know everything. But as it turned out, I was only over here a few days before. So I came straight up to Hakuba, met a few of the guys here, went snowboarding for a day, then went back to Tokyo and picked them up.

And luckily, when we came up, the snow was amazing. I think there were about 15 meters of snow that year. And so everyone was just kind of blown away. And at that time, there weren’t many Westerners here at all. So slopes were super quiet and pretty much had the whole thing to ourselves. So it was just amazing.

Andrew McCombe:

So as a business, that must be an amazing opportunity. I mean, it’s obviously a very grown area now, but 10, 15 years ago it was a real outlier. Wasn’t it?

Quentin Nolan:

A hundred percent. The reason I actually chose Hakuba was that at the time, there were few much bigger ski companies, taking people up to Niseko. There was a bit of property development and different things going on up there. And when I was doing my research in Japan and the different ski areas, I kind of came across Hakuba, and it’s like, well, this is the site that had the 1998 Olympics.

The mountains here are much bigger.

There are nine resorts in the Valley, and you’re closer to Tokyo. So we saved an extra flight and a whole bunch of travel.

We were able to make the trip over here for a better price than we could to Niseko, to start off with. And I wanted to give people a more Japanese experience.

Not go somewhere that’s already got a whole bunch of Aussies coming over. And Hakuba has definitely got more and more popular, not just with Australians, but internationally. I still think like when people come to the Valley here, there’s a huge amount of charm, and it’s still the local Japanese businesses and all the local operators that are really getting a lot of benefit from that. And it’s still kind of a traditional part of Japan. It’s not something that’s been overrun by any means.

Andrew McCombe:

No, you can definitely see that. It’s very quaint, probably a good way to put it. It’s very much within the environment. It’s not like a say, Queenstown, that I feel is being built out. They’re doing it tastefully, aren’t they?

Quentin Nolan:

Yeah, they are. And I think the local town office or the government here has kind of seen what’s happened in Niseko, where, back in the day, they didn’t have too many building restrictions. So people were coming in and just putting up whatever they wanted without any kind of code for coloring or size or anything like that. Hakuba has definitely taken a more conservative approach to building. The properties here, the new builds aren’t to the same height as what you’d find in some other areas of Japan. And I think that’s what kind of maintains that the village vibe and the authenticity in a way.

Andrew McCombe:

I think that’s the keyword there, authenticity, it feels like you’re actually becoming part of Japanese culture at the same time. Aren’t you? You’re not feeling like in the Western world; it’s still very much Japanese culture?

Quentin Nolan:

A hundred percent. And the villages here in Hakuba, there are a few main areas where people stay. So there’s echo land, which is just a beautiful, quaint little street that has a number of bars, restaurants, cafes, and shops on it. And then there’s the Happo village here, which is I guess the original sort of township and village. And then up in the Wadano, there’s a forest area which is a beautiful part of town. And it’s where a lot more of the kind of high-end properties are. So with Hakuba being quite spread out, that development hasn’t been concentrated in one small zone. This last year, there were probably 150 or 200 new chalets built.

You don’t really notice it as much because it’s blended in amongst the woods and amongst the trees. And it doesn’t have that same impact that it does in some other ways.

Andrew McCombe:

So obviously it’s grown over the years. It’s now world-famous as a ski region and rightfully so. I mean, look at the amazing backdrop behind us. The snow quality is profound compared to what I’m used to in New Zealand. And I know New Zealand’s a famous ski region for sure, but this snow wise just takes it to a new level. Doesn’t it?

Quentin Nolan:

Yeah, it does. Japan, I think, has the best snow in the world. And it’s just the amount of snow each year. This is actually a low snow year this year, but all our guests that have been coming over have been absolutely stoked with the snow that they’ve got.

So, when we go back to a normal season, that’s five to 10 meters here over the course of the season, and people were just blown away by the snow’s quality.

Andrew McCombe:

Mindblowing. And obviously, around the streets and that too, you got like a real fairytale fell around the town and the villages, and it just adds to the experience.

Quentin Nolan:

For sure, it does. And we’re actually now seeing a lot more people coming over here from other parts of the world. So the big kind of growth at the moment, I think, is coming from North America, and also Europe. A lot of Europeans are used to going to the Alps, and they are now choosing to come to Hakuba for that ski trips. I guess that says something in itself. Europe was this sort of birthplace of skiing and snowboarding, and now they’re coming to Japan.

Andrew McCombe:

Well, I just think back ten years ago, when you’re 21 years old, or a bit further back than ten years, but what an opportunity, it’s like a crest of a wave, right? It’s just beginning. You come over, but then that started to grow quite quickly for you. Didn’t it over here?

Quentin Nolan:

Yeah, it did. I guess when I came over here, before that I was doing the bus tours in Australia and we did a couple of trips. But when I came here, and I saw how special the Valley was, I really decided to focus on Japan. So I kind of stopped doing a lot of the other things and really concentrated on Japan.

And, I guess, it was a good opportunity because it was an area that hadn’t been kind of taken over. There was definitely an opportunity here that you wouldn’t get in a place like Whistler, for example, or even at the time in Niseko. I was 21, didn’t have much money. It was kind of winging it and doing what I could. I guess I was taking advantage of that opportunity. And as we sort of developed after that first season, and Jet Star actually started doing direct flights to Japan, I called them up as like a naive 22-year-old, and I’d say, “okay, why don’t you guys package your flights with my ski holidays, we’ll put it all together. And then I’ll give you a commission on the holiday component.”

“We’ll fill up your flights, it’s a win, win.” And they were like, “that idea sounds great. We’re not quite ready for it yet.” they didn’t have the infrastructure in place yet. They just started flying to Japan. But we stayed in contact, and a year later, we started doing these ski trips for Jet star. They’d discount their flights by 40%. We’d put together a ski package at all different levels and then go out to the market, book four or 500 people over the course of a week, and then service that through the winter. That was a pretty cool opportunity. And then that grew into making some ski trips for Qantas as well. And that also kind of grew into the property side.

One of the challenges I had at that time was, a lot of the local hotels would block off their Saturday nights, just for Japanese guests, and I wanted to put together a seven-night package. It was our biggest challenge, I guess. And there was a hotel here owned by another Australian guy, a more sort of five-star property that we’d been booking lots of clients into. And he asked his manager at the time, “who’s this young fellow that’s sending us all our business? I want to go and have dinner with him.” And I went and had dinner with him in Melbourne. We met up for a beer, then went and had some Japanese food, quite appropriately. It was then at dinner that we got talking and I was telling Adrian that my biggest issue with that is like bringing clients over here.

He was like, “well, one of the local real estate has been offering me quite a big hotel in the middle of Happo. It’s got 37 rooms. So do you want to go partnership in that one?” And I was like, “yep. A hundred percent mate.” And we’ve been business partners ever since. That business is called the ‘Hakuba hotel group,’ and we’ve got about seven hotels in Hakuba. We’ve also got a few in Myoko and now look at some more development over here.

Andrew McCombe:

And I guess the other part of that is you’ve got to have places for your staff too, don’t you?

Quentin Nolan:

Yeah, I do. I mean, staffing is probably one of the biggest challenges. With it being so seasonal and Australians can only get, the maximum is kind of two seasons over here with their working holiday visa.

One of our biggest challenges is getting new staff each year. And with that, we’ll start in December and then go straight into some of the busiest times of the season. So there isn’t a huge amount of time for training and whatnot. We try and hire as many bilingual Japanese staff as possible. Also to give that experience to our customers coming over of really being in Japan. If we can hire local people, it also helps us with the accommodation side, because at the moment we’ve got five or six different staff lodges, that are a challenge in themselves.

Andrew McCombe:

That’s almost the same business trying to run that, is it?

Quentin Nolan:

Yeah, it’s definitely a big part of it. I think it’s an issue for everyone that’s got businesses here, and it’s something that is getting harder and harder. Especially as the property here, like probably the good locations, are being utilized for customers. Luckily we’ve got most of our staff accommodation in really good locations, which is walking distance to the ski hill or right on the ski hill. But a lot of other operators have had to move their staff out and start busing people in. And that created a whole bunch of challenges.

Andrew McCombe:

So if we go back to, again, I just love the story. You were 21, 22; you’ve come to Japan. The first year, you’re engaging a resort to help you out. But it wasn’t long before you had your own, your first resort, wasn’t it? Or your first lodge.

Quentin Nolan:

Yeah, for sure. I guess the first season I brought over 40 people, the next season I based myself here, did the trips each week back and forth from Tokyo. We brought about 400. So it’s at the end of that season that one of my friends, my local friends, a really nice Japanese lady, had helped me out through that season with a lot of the local things over here. She made me aware of a lodge, which was coming up for sale. And it was actually used to be owned by the biggest milk and cheese company in Japan. It’s called ‘Snow brand’, quite appropriately. They sponsored the ski jumpers for the Nagano Olympics. So the lodge that we bought, we had to change the name of it. It’s called ‘The lab’. And it was where the actual ski jump has stayed for the 98 Olympics. When I took over, there was a lot of memorabilia in there, a lot of posters and different cool things from the Olympics.

So that’s a bit of a charmer that lodge, people come in there and that’s up on the walls and whatnot.

Andrew McCombe:

But if you look at this, right, is it a hundred-meter jump or a 60 or something?

Quentin Nolan:

I think that’s about, right. So if you hit the big one and land down here, I think you’d get up to about 120 meters in the air. They still have competitions here. They also use these ski jumps in the summer. So they’re kind of skiing down on the plastic bristles and then fly through the air. It’s pretty gnarly. You wouldn’t want to fall.

Andrew McCombe:

Well, that’s what I’m getting at. So you had this unique lodge, it takes a different mindset to do something like this, doesn’t it? So the energy of the place was vibing before you even took it over.

Quentin Nolan:

And these guys, actually, the story of that place is that they went over to Austria and they stayed in this beautiful lodge over there. And back at that time, it was when the economy in Japan was booming; everyone had lots of money. And so they brought over the architect from Austria that built that lodge, and he imported all the materials from Austria. The lodge is about 45 years old. I literally haven’t had to do a thing to it. It’s in mint condition. I might be a bit biased, but I think it’s one of the best buildings in town.

Andrew McCombe:

Fantastic. And then, so from there it progresses to what, you’ve bought another lodge, or you just got more people first, or how did you do it?

Quentin Nolan:

That’s when I met Adrian, and we got into a partnership, and then we bought the Hakuba Springs Hotel, which is kind of 37 rooms, middle of town, close to the ski field. It’s a great property, and we’ve got a restaurant in there, a Japanese restaurant. And then next to that a sports bar called ‘Jack’s Sports Bar.’ so that was the next one. And then from that, more and more opportunities came up, and the business was growing. We’ve got another property, which is a ski-in, ski-out on the Happo slopes, called the Maryland Hotel. It’s got a really nice kind of Austrian vibe. It’s where they do the night skiing. Kids can go out playing on toboggans out the front, sliding down the hill, while mom and dad are drinking a bit of wine by the fireplace. And we’ve just kind of grown from there.

Andrew McCombe:

Fantastic. You’ve got such a great story. So you’ve got the two sides of the story. You’ve got the hotel side. I know you’ve got other things we’ll talk about in a sec, but yeah, so business was growing. So obviously in a growing business, you’ve got challenges, you’ve got growth challenges, but also you’ve got more revenue, and you’ve got decisions to make. So was it a natural progression to continue to buy property to service the tours? Or did you have to, you know, at the same time build more tours or?

Quentin Nolan:

I’ve always been quite business orientated, and in my mind, I was like, “well, if we’re booking the customers over here, we can put them in our own property.” You know, people are drinking in our bar, eat in our restaurant. It’s a pretty well-integrated business. That was kind of the thinking behind it. It was also just being in control of that product, so then we could make sure that the quality levels were there and people were getting the best experience. Cause often, if you’re relying on someone else to do that, they might not do it the way you want them to.

Andrew McCombe:

So Quentin, that must bring up other challenges for you. You know, obviously, staffing, marketing, you’ve always got to keep an eye on whether the properties are filling and it’s meeting the numbers. How do you go through that process every day?

Quentin Nolan:

The property side of things is completely independent from Liquid Snow Tours. We also work with all the other main travel agents in Australia and worldwide. And then we get some bookings from OTA. So companies like booking.com or Expedia, and we also try and push out as many direct bookings as we can through our own different sort of marketing channels. We’ve done that so the hotel side’s not just reliant on one business. I feel like if it’s working independently of say Liquid Snow Tours, then you don’t have any sort of conflicts there or anything. We have the same arrangement with all the different travel companies that we work with, and the ‘Liquid’ has to sort of survive on its own. And has to compete like anybody else does. Which keeps us on our toes as well.

Andrew McCombe:

It also gives you two saleable assets, doesn’t it? In the end, if you choose to go that way, where they’re all together, it’s kind of one big.

Yeah, it does. That’s been a good way for us to do it. As ‘Liquid’ has grown, that’s contributed to more bookings in our properties, but also all the other properties. So we work with probably 150 hotels and properties in Hakuba. The properties that I’ve got some ownership in are only a small part of that. And that’s important to me because the main thing we focus on is giving the customers the best hotel or apartment or whatever it is for their needs. So if I bring somebody over here, we put them in a property that’s like a Japanese hotel somewhere that meets their needs perfectly. Then they’ll want to come back with us, or they might go to a different resort next year, but they had a good time. We put them somewhere good for them.

Quentin Nolan:

And so they’ll come back to us. If we start making those decisions based on, “well, I’ll put you here because this is something we own,” then you can lose some of that kind of goodwill. And that’s the most important thing for me, just organizing the best ski trips for our customers. And also my staff all come over here. So they all spend one or two months here in the winter.

Not just in Hakuba, they go around to all the other resorts in Japan as well that we work with. When somebody is talking to one of them, they can give them really good, firsthand, honest feedback. It’s not like, you know, going into a flight center or going into somewhere elsewhere, they’re just trying to earn their commission. (And they got no knowledge.) Yeah, exactly. I think that’s where we’ve been quite successful. We also try and offer another level of service. So when somebody comes over with us, we have complimentary mountain guiding four days of the week.

So when somebody is here, we’ll show them around the mountain and do it in different areas. So they know where to ski, and then they’ll go off and do their own thing after that. We also have like Meet & Greet night in one of the local bars. And just try and build that one-on-one relationship, because, you know, if you’re talking to someone through the booking process, over email or over the phone at the end of the day, we could be sitting in an office anywhere in the world, and it’s not the same as coming over and actually meeting the person that booked your trip and going for a ski with them. It’s just that level of personal service that, I think, sets us apart a little bit from our competitors.

Andrew McCombe:

It definitely strengthens the connection. Doesn’t it? For repeat business? (It does.) It’s like, I mean, I used to run golf tours with golf getaway, and it was a ‘must’ that I was there with the clients. But when you get to scale it at, you know, 8,000 people, you can’t be there with everyone. But you still want to give them a semi experience like that, don’t you?

Quentin Nolan:

Oh, we do. And we also, by having a base over here, whilst we won’t go around and meet absolutely everybody, and not everybody that comes takes up that mountain guiding that we offer. Because we’ve got a base here and we’ve got an office here if somebody is over here and they do want to book a day or two to the snow monkeys or extend their trip or do something different. It’s very easy for them just to pop in and get that done, rather than dealing with another country in a different time zone.

Andrew McCombe:

And so you mentioned earlier 150 staff, you started as yourself. That’s a massive progression in its own. Do you have a good team of managers around you now that helps you manage those people?

Quentin Nolan:

Yes, we do, and that’s like a hundred percent critical to that success. Our properties here and our different businesses here mainly have managers that have been here for the last five or six years. They come back every year because they love it. And we also put a lot of work into maintaining that relationship and making sure that they’re happy in their roles. And it’s working for everyone because if those guys are happy, they’re going to do a good job. that’s going to reflect on the staff that they’re hiring and the staff that they’re training, because it’s impossible for me to do all of that. (And how do you do that? How do you keep them happy?) I mean, relationships. I think it’s just generally treating people the right way and looking at their circumstances as well and trying to facilitate what they want to do.

For example, one of my key staff, at Liquid Snow Tours, she was coming up kind of five or six years in the job. She wanted to go over to London. So we offered her the opportunity to work remotely from London. She did that for a year, and now she’s back as one of the managers at the ‘Liquid.’ And if I hadn’t have done that, we would have lost her, and it would have been a big loss, but by being a bit flexible and just facilitating what people want to do for themselves as well and their own journey.

Andrew McCombe:

I guess letting them go skiing keeps them loyal, too.

Quentin Nolan:

That’s for sure. A hundred percent. And I mean, that’s one of the big perks or advantages in this job that in all our staff’s contracts, we include a trip over to Japan each year and we get them over here, take them around the different resorts and, you know, that’s the kind of staff that we want to hire as well. People that are passionate about the snow and people that love coming over here. And so what better way to get a job where you can combine it with your nine-to-five?

Andrew McCombe:

That’s perfect. It’s starting to become quite a behemoth with what you’ve got here? Do you have a fear of losing control?

Quentin Nolan:

I’m not really. I’m pretty good at delegating tasks and trusting other people to do their jobs. It doesn’t always work out, and there have definitely been some staffing issues over the years, but generally, it’s been really good, and we do have a really good team. I think that’s also because of the way we manage that team and facilitate their jobs.

Andrew McCombe:

And so if we look at, obviously there’s the touring businesses, just on constant growth, the hotel business is on constant growth, other developments. Is there anything else you’re doing? Because you’ve got your bars and restaurants as well, which are beautifully vertically integrated.

Quentin Nolan:

Well, yeah, so we’re actually new for this year. We’ve got a music and snow festival. It’s on next week. It’s called ‘Snowmachine’. I partnered with another guy who does a lot of music festivals in Australia and manages a bunch of artists.

He does some tours through wineries in Australia. So we brought him over here last year and had a few events on, as a bit of a test to see whether it would work. Then they put together this great lineup and went out to the market. We sold about two and a half thousand packages in the first hour. And we’ll have close to 4,000 people coming over next week. So we’re just in the middle of all that setup and all the fun that that involves and then next week should be great. There’s some more snow on the way. I had to look at the weather this morning; they’ll be a couple of sunny days. And so people will be able to come over and go skiing through the day.

We’ve got some music events on the snow, and then we’ve got a main up-road stage out the front of one of our hotels. And then the main stage where we’ve got a pretty good setup with the lights. That will go through till about 10 o’clock at night and then have different events in bars after that and have a good week really.

Andrew McCombe:

Sounds exciting. I guess what you’re doing is just creating a reason to be here, right?

Quentin Nolan:

For sure. And what we’ve noticed over the years, come March business tends to drop off. And it’s not really justified. Cause March can be the best month to be over here. The sun’s out, there’s heaps of snow, and it’s an awesome time to be here. Still, for whatever reasons, Christmas, New Year’s holiday, then January and February are the peak seasons. Then the numbers do drop off in March.

This was another way to introduce Hakuba to people that otherwise wouldn’t be coming here. I think there’s a lot of people that are not super passionate about it, but if they could combine a ski trip with seeing their favorite bands or DJs play with a group of friends, what better holidays?

Andrew McCombe:

You also do the cultural stuff too, don’t you? It’s not all about skiing and snowboarding.

Quentin Nolan:

For sure. We do a number of day tours out to the snow monkeys; we go to the castle. In our Japanese restaurant here, we have live Tyco drumming performances three times a week. And we really try and include that into the whole experience because that’s part of being here. If someone can come over here, they can ski the best snow they’ve had and have this amazing Japanese cultural experience.

It’s essentially the same time zone as Australia one or two hours difference, depending on the time of the year, go to Tokyo, see one of the most one of the craziest cities in the world, and then go back to Australia. That’s such an amazing holiday. That’s really unique, and you can’t get that in other ski areas around the world, whether it’s the US, Canada, or Europe.

Andrew McCombe:

One thing that I found is, you don’t feel out of place here. It’s not like you’re in a foreign land, even though you are, it’s totally safe. Probably one of the safest countries in the world. I’ve been to Russia before, Ukraine, for some sport. And I felt lost there. Here I feel at home.

Quentin Nolan:

It’s gotta be one of the safest countries in the world, and there’s so much respect here. I think for people bringing their kids here is amazing as well. I’ve got an 18-month-old son, and we’re moving over to Hakuba full time now. And I want to show him how the local culture is here. To give you an example, mate. Like I was driving down the road the other day, and a kid was at a pedestrian crossing, pressed the bottom, and waited for the green man. He walked over to the side of the road to the car, turned and bowed, and then kept walking. I mean, you’d be lucky to say that in Australia. (You’d probably get the finger.)

Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, just that level of respect and I think especially showing kids that different culture and that level of respect and how you can do the same job in a different way, really opens them on. That’s one thing that I’m looking forward to is, sharing that culture with my son and my family.

Andrew McCombe:

So what you mentioned before, 4,000 people coming for snow machine, the town must love you. You must have some great relationships because of what you’re doing.

Quentin Nolan:

No, we do. We’ve had some great support for the first snow machine. We’ve been working with the local resorts, for the local resorts and then a local town office and the tourism commission. And everyone’s been super supportive. So this is a time when traditional business would drop off quite a bit, but we’ve essentially filled up every bed in Hakuba.

And then the ski schools are going to be cranking. All the bus transfers are cranking, ski resorts selling lots of whiff tickets. The restaurants are going to be busy. So it’s a great opportunity for the area. We need to manage it the right way. So we don’t have 4,000 people here running a mark. And we’ve been quite strict in our communication with the people coming over. We’ve got quite a lot of security. We’ll be trying to manage that process as well as we can, while also giving as much benefit to the town as we can.

Andrew McCombe:

So like what I’m hearing, Quentin, is, you got so many tentacles going out there, what’d you say that your biggest flow is relationship building in the business from you personally?

Quentin Nolan:

I think it is. I mean, for snow machine, for example, I couldn’t have done that if I didn’t have a good relationship with the CEO of the results or a good relationship with the tourism director for Hakuba. And those relationships are something that have been built over the last 14 years. They don’t happen overnight. And that also comes back to our property side. I think of all the property we’ve bought over here. There’s probably only one transaction, like a hotel that was listed on a real estate website. Everything else has come from local connections and word of mouth. And that’s how a lot of business is done here. It’s not as out in the open, and it takes those relationships.

People won’t sell you something if they don’t like you. Relationships have definitely been key to our success for the Hakuba Hotel Group and for Liquid Snow Tours. And as we move forward with a snow machine and I’m sure with other opportunities over the years.

Andrew McCombe:

I think what’s also important with the relationships is seeing the value you’re generating on an annual basis. Right. And that it’s growing. So it’s not like you’re saying you’re doing something and then not delivering. If your flow is to be the deal maker or the relationships guy, how important is that back end for you to make sure the details are taken care of?

Quentin Nolan:

Oh, it’s super important. I’ve kind of structured my business, taking care of that. I’m not a details guy, so I’m not the best person to be booking your ski trip. I’ll miss a few details here and there, but I’ve got a team that are. So I can recognize my strengths and my weaknesses. I’ve tried to put in place people that counteract that. So, my general manager, she’s got a huge amount of experience in the Japanese ski industry and a lot of amazing relationships with all the different resorts and all the different people here. Basically, the team we’ve put together is, you know, we’re trying to put someone in a role that makes their skillset as well.

Andrew McCombe:

Like for the young outliers and entrepreneurs that are out there, how do you do that? Is there an assessment process? Is it a gut instinct? What’s your process?

Quentin Nolan:

I think, initially, you have to do everything yourself, and that’s the only way you can really learn about it. So by doing it myself and making some mistakes, I could recognize that those sets of roles that I wasn’t the best one to do. And it’s putting the right people in place. And so that comes back to relationships as well—same thing with my staff. The majority of them haven’t been hired from advertisements online or in the newspaper. The majority of them have been people that have come over here on ski trips or people that I’ve known from other businesses that have been ready to move on. And we’ve been able to offer them a good opportunity.

Andrew McCombe:

So when do you delegate, like, when do you know when to do that?

Quentin Nolan:

I guess now I delegate a lot. So the majority of what we’re doing here, especially with all the kind of day-to-day things, is putting the right people in place. I’ve got a general manager who’s really good at organizing that process. Trying to find the right roles for the right people.

Andrew McCombe:

So the relationships are obviously a massive strength of yours. You’ve built some incredible ones with Jetstar, with a snow machine, with your hotel group, with all the resorts, and obviously the town in general. What do you say to that 21-year-old who’s out there, who may or may not be considering doing a business, about the importance of looking after people?

Quentin Nolan:

I think it’s massively important. I think people can get a bit caught up in the short term focus. And if you’re looking at doing business for the next 10 years or 20 years, you need those relationships. If you cut a corner here and there, or do something that you said you wouldn’t do, you won’t be able to maintain those relationships and your business will go downhill very quickly. I think a lot of it is common sense. Like if you treat people well, they’ll be good to you back, and that’s where opportunities will come from. So that’s been my experience.

And it’s certainly something that I think has been very important for us.

Andrew McCombe:

What about the courage it takes at a young age to have those conversations with potential partners. Obviously, you’ve got to, before you have the conversation, you’ve got to know they’re probably a good fit, but then you’ve got to have the conversation. Did it bother you at the time or?

Quentin Nolan:

I look back on it, and I probably wouldn’t do things the same way now. But the beauty of being 21 is that I had nothing to lose. So when I started, I was working full time on ‘Liquid,’ and then I’d work at night time in a bar just to kind of cover my living expenses. And I didn’t take a dollar out of business for the first sort of two years, potentially three years.

Because it had to go back into it.

Andrew McCombe:

That’s a big concept for a young person these days. Isn’t it? Um, long term gratification.

Quentin Nolan:

Yeah, it is. But I mean the upside is, you know, a lot bigger than working in an office for somebody else for the next 30 years of your life. I think people can be too worried some of the time about making mistakes or stuffing something up. That’s the only way you learn. I’ve made heaps of mistakes, but dealing with that and moving on and just sticking with it. Like hard work, really.

Andrew McCombe:

I guess, how you look too is important to a lot of people. So they might want to spend some money to make it look like they’re doing some good stuff, but I mean, you’ve got such a great business now, and it’s a multimillion-dollar business, but it’s not about how you look really, is it? It’s about the future.

Quentin Nolan:

It’s not solely about money. Money is one way to measure the success of a business, but it’s the process. And I love doing what I do. And if my focus was on, how can I make the most money this year? We probably wouldn’t be here because that’s not been my focus. My focus has been looking after the customers and sharing this experience with as many people as we can. And money and profits are sort of a byproduct of that. I think some of the time, people have the wrong idea and then go into something thinking, “well, I’m only doing this to make X amount of dollars.” I don’t think that is the right approach to it.

Andrew McCombe:

It’s interesting. Every outlier, I’ve spoken to talks about the passion for delivering for other people, value to other people. Why is that so important for you to share this experience? What does that touch in your heart to want to share that?

Quentin Nolan:

People come over here and have a holiday, and they have the best time skiing that they’ve ever had. And then I’ll have a beer with them in the bar afterward. And they’re stoked. They love it. And I went on my first ski trip when I was in high school, and I loved it. And coming over here, it was like Hakuba was amazing, and I want to share this with as many people as I can. And if other people get a bit of enjoyment out of it, then awesome.

Andrew McCombe:

And the byproduct of doing that is obviously a successful business.

Quentin Nolan:

That’s how we’ve grown. We do some marketing, but the vast majority of our growth has come from either repeat business or referrals. And I think that’s kind of the success in any business, if you’re treating people the right way and you’ve got a good product, they’ll tell their friends about it, and that’s worth a lot more than going out and spending a thousand dollars on Facebook ads.

Andrew McCombe:

So when you first started, what was your vision? Was it just to go skiing and take a few people? You know, did you ever believe it would be where it is today?

Quentin Nolan:

I didn’t think it would be where it is today. I was always very business orientated and always knew I wanted to run my own business.

Andrew McCombe:

What does that look like? Like, for someone who maybe wants to do the same or isn’t sure what that means? What would that mean to you? To be business-oriented?

Quentin Nolan:

I always had that bone in my body and like, even as a high school student. When I was 12, I was trying to make some money washing people’s cars, doing different things around the community, buying and selling things in high school to make a dollar, and learning some things as well. I guess for me, being business-orientated is just having control of my destiny and not relying on a boss or somebody else. And I don’t know if I’d be a very good employee. I’ve never really been one. I was an employee for six months and..

Andrew McCombe:

You don’t take instruction well, do you?

Quentin Nolan:

I prefer to give the instruction. But a lot of people would say that it’s more about having that control. If I stuff up and we don’t do well, it’s completely on my shoulders, but if I do a good job and deliver, then I get the reward for that as well. It’s not somebody else getting that. So it goes both ways. Cause it’s easy to say, “Oh, I want to have control of my own destiny and stuff,” but then you’ve also got to take responsibility for your mistakes.

Andrew McCombe:

How easy is that to do for a young fellow growing up?

Quentin Nolan:

I feel like that I’ve always been quite good with that. When I’ve stuffed up, I’ve taken ownership of it and moved on. I don’t get too caught up on something that’s happened, move on, and learn from it. You have to have thick skin because, over the years, we’ve been thrown a number of challenges. There was the earthquake here a number of years ago, which really slowed tourism to Japan. There’s the global financial crisis where the exchange rates went from being a hundred yen to a dollar to 50 yen to a dollar. So everyone’s trips just doubled in cost overnight. And these things shut other people down, but you need to have thick skin and move on and deal with the hard times to get the good times as well.

Andrew McCombe:

So how did you adapt in those times?

Quentin Nolan:

I did everything I could to keep all my staff on or definitely all the key staff. I mean, some of them had to move to part-time hours and move their shifts down. It was actually through that process that I managed to acquire my general manager who came from another ski company that dealt with it in a different way by firing most of their staff. I got her on board, and it’s been one of the best things for us. I guess that also goes back to relationships and, really, I’d pay my staff before I pay myself. We were doing whatever we could to keep them on board. And people understood that and respected as well. And then give me that loyalty in return.

Andrew McCombe:

So going back to the vision, from bringing a group of people over to now having a multimillion-dollar business, was that the vision, or is there a bigger vision at play here?

Quentin Nolan:

Now we’re at a stage where we’re starting to get some serious investors coming into Hakuba. So when I’m looking at partnering with some different people and doing some developments on a bigger scale and really opening up. Hakuba has developed through initially Australians coming over. Now that’s starting to grow with more people from Canada and the US and Europe. But I see a big future in Asia and a lot of people coming from Hong Kong and Singapore and mainland China. That’s what’s gonna be the next real push in the Valley here. We’re looking at partnering with some people that can help deliver that on a bigger scale, that have a high level of expertise in five-star hotels around the world. And then moving on and doing something different.

Andrew McCombe:

So what’s the exit strategy?

Quentin Nolan:

I think I’ve got another five or 10 years here. And then we’ll see what happens. We’ll see how it develops and see what the opportunities are. Then who knows what’s next. I’ve got a lot of interest in different areas, so we’ll see how we go.

Andrew McCombe:

Are you starting to feel other things, or are you still focused on the development you’ve just talked about or?

Quentin Nolan:

I’d say the next five years are the most important of the journey. I’m super focused on that and super pumped about that. And then following on from that, that might be a good time to sort of sell up some of the assets and move on to something different.

Andrew McCombe:

What gets you up in the morning?

Quentin Nolan:

Just the passion of the business really. And I love it, and I can share that with other people. I try to get out on the Hill as much as I can, take advantage of the spot that we’re at, and just have the control of that business.

Andrew McCombe:

Is work-life balance important to you in that fact, that you do get to go for a ride, you get to hang with the family as well.

Quentin Nolan:

It is, for sure. That’s been a lot of work. But now, with my young son and my wife over here, it is a great opportunity that I’m not restricted to just being in an office at certain hours of the day.

Andrew McCombe:

And if you look back at the 21-year-old or even earlier, and you want to help the young outliers that are out there, the entrepreneurs, if you had a couple of key points; you mentioned earlier, relationships is paramount for you; but is there a process they can follow or is it more of a natural guidance system within themselves, or would you suggest to them?

Quentin Nolan:

I think it’s being passionate about something, to start off with following that, following that passion, and then trial and error. If it doesn’t work, move on, don’t worry about it. It’s not the end of the world. And also persistence. You’ve got to go through those hard times to get the good times, and you’re not going to make a million bucks in your first year. So it’s gotta be a bit realistic. I feel like some of the time now, people aren’t as realistic. They want instant gratification, but it takes time, and you’ve got to have that commitment.

Andrew McCombe:

How do you know when something’s not working versus being persistent and seeing it through, knowing you’ll come out the other end, and it will work?

Quentin Nolan:

That’s a good question. I guess that for me, it comes down to gut instinct. When we’ve tried something, we can see the results. I’m quite data-driven and quite good at recognizing something and scratching it when it isn’t working.

Andrew McCombe:

And you’ll look at the numbers to tell you whether it is or isn’t?

Quentin Nolan:

Well, yeah. And take everything into account. There might be other factors that have affected it. So without those same situations, it might work. So that might not be the time to just move on to the next thing, but just looking at the whole situation and using the numbers, but also you’ve got instinct.

Andrew McCombe:

So it’s interesting. Isn’t it? So it’s not just purely numbers, it’s variables, like at the moment, there’s a certain virus, you’ve got the lowest snow in 70 years, et cetera. It doesn’t mean Huckabee is not working. Does it?

Quentin Nolan:

Looking at a chart yesterday, that’s got the last 90 years of snow, and you go back 80 years, and there was like similar snowfall. And that chart was really good to see because I believe in climate change. And I think it’s a big problem for our generation, but to see this chart and to see how variable it’s been over history, snowfall wise, that after having one bad season, which is still a good season in most parts of the world. Then, you know, it’s not all doom and gloom, the next season could be the best season. So I don’t know. You can’t get too worried about that kind of stuff. You can’t control it. People are still having a good time.

Andrew McCombe:

Well, it’s definitely working. I can see it all around me. And why wouldn’t you want to come here? (A hundred percent.) So the last thing for the outliers out there, they might be feeling a little different, a little, like they don’t belong to the norm, the nine to five or the, you know, society as a whole. What advice have you got for them based on you being that 21-year-old, just going with your gut, going with your passion, that’ll help them get through to where they destined to be?

Quentin Nolan:

I guess it’s just believing in yourself and having that level of self-confidence. You don’t need someone else’s approval for all of those decisions, and if you stick at it and you believe in yourself, you’ll get results. It might not happen today. It might not happen tomorrow, but it’ll happen.

Andrew McCombe:

The final question. How would you like to be remembered? Not that you’re going anywhere, but..

Quentin Nolan:

I’d like to be remembered as someone that’s contributed to society. And whether that’s in helping people have a better time, helping people put a smile on their face, on a ski holiday or helping other people on their journey as well.

Andrew McCombe:

Fantastic. Well, thanks for coming on the show. You’re officially an Outlier.

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