Today we’d like to introduce you to Ben-Jamin Toy.
Hi Ben-Jamin, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for sharing your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
Founding On Purpose Adventures was 20 years in the making. I grew up very entrepreneurial and loved the challenge of selling. I was often the top fundraiser producer and had a small lawn care and snow removal business as early as 12 years old. With no real guidance into business ownership, guidance counselors and family directed me toward engineering based on my propensity to math and science. After attending Clemson University for engineering and working at a global auto parts manufacturer, I realized that the corporate world, which was fraught with politics and the lack of incentives for performance, was not for me. I helped a friend start a company that ultimately became a book publishing and authority marketing leader. Making the headquarters in Charleston, SC, brought me to the Lowcountry. After several years of getting that company off the ground and realizing I wasn’t a cultural fit, I changed industries completely. Inside sales for a container freight trucking company was a new challenge. However, after spending two years to get my sales numbers to $350,000/month to receive commissions, management made excuses for six months as to why they could not pay me. That was my last straw; I had to rely on someone else to pay me for my productivity.
On Purpose Adventures was initially created to plan adventures for people. We planned white water rafting and camping trips, hiking trips, ATV weekends, and survival training on uninhabited islands. Since consistent revenue was desired, the focus was on adventure-based bachelor and bachelorette parties and corporate team building. We created scavenger hunts and beach Olympics and facilitated a lot of paintball. To make the most impact possible, we focused on leadership development programming. We joined forces with Dr. Troy Hall, author of the best-selling title Cohesion Culture: Proven Principles to Retain Your Top Talent, to create the Cohesion Culture™ program of offerings for executives, management, and individual contributors in person and online. Those programs fall under On Purpose Adventures’ team building (skill set enhancement) offerings, while the now app-based scavenger hunt, escape game, and gamified training options are aligned under the team bonding (intentional relationship fostering) options.
It wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
We didn’t even have a shoestring budget to build this company because I wear sandals. There have certainly been obstacles and struggles, but it has been fun. On Purpose was started without a business plan other than wanting to get paid to play and had no money in the bank. It took a lot of hustling and part-time jobs for the founder, Ben-Jamin Toy, to turn this crazy idea into something executives from multi-billion dollar companies would invest tens of thousands of dollars into. Learning to distinguish between productive and merely busy has been a tough lesson. After stopping business travel and events in April 2020, Ben and the On Purpose team were forced to evaluate all elements of their business model and trim the fat. When the 2020 dust settled, On Purpose was down 68% in revenue compared with 2019. However, when comparing April-December only, they were down 92%. This required a mental paradigm shift. The lesson still needs to be fully learned, though. In 2022 and 2023, when business got “back to normal,” those busy bad habits resurfaced. 2024 has a renewed focus on creating productive, retainer-based offerings, not simply event-only one-off services.
Let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
On Purpose Adventures helps companies save tens of thousands of dollars annually in employee retention through effective and unconventional team building and bonding. Without ropes courses, trust falls, and death by PowerPoint, their hands-on activities prepare participants to implement what they learned immediately. The intentionality behind the design of all of the programming results from Ben-Jamin Toy’s industrial engineering training, which is logistics-based, paired with the 500+ personal development books he has read over the years. These concepts helped him understand that the circumstances of the event, the room layout, how the instructions are conveyed, how remote teammates are engaged, and when food is involved are just as important as the conversation attempting to be had.
This unique combination is why many clients repeatedly hire On Purpose, and events as simple as scavenger hunts get reviews like this:
- “On Purpose Adventures (OPA) truly helped to make our global summit a massive success. The positive feedback we received from the group was overwhelming. I have no hesitation in saying it was the definitive highlight of the week. The impact of what OPA does has gone so far beyond our summit. Some people who worked a few desks away from one another in the same building and never really had much of a conversation were teamed up. Since our Scavenger Hunt, communication and camaraderie have vastly improved. This even goes for folks who work half a world away – conference calls with our peers are a bit more jovial now that we’ve had the chance to get to know one another in such a fun and dynamic way.” – Ashley C., Project Manager, Cisco
We are founded and headquartered in Charleston, SC; however, we travel and have replicated our services in many great cities within North America. We can easily facilitate Cohesion Culture™ and team bonding (scavenger hunts, escape games, etc.) activities in any city desired.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from growing up.
I loved growing up in a horse barn. My mother taught people how to ride at various barns, and we also had horses at home. My love for the outdoors and creative play was fostered here. I had almost free reign to explore and play. It took me 10 years behind a desk to realize how much the outdoors mattered to me.
Pricing:
- On Purpose Wanderer (non-sequential scavenger un-hunt) $75pp
- New location customization + $500
- Cohesion Culture™ 4 C’s for Executives: Call for quote
- Cohesion Culture™ 4 Pillars of Leadership for Management: Call for quote
- Cohesion Culture™ CORE for Individual Contributors: Call for quote
Contact Info:
- Website: www.OnPurposeAdventures.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/onpurposeadventures
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/onpurposeadventures
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-jamin-toy/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/onpurposeadventurescharleston
Image Credits
On Purpose Adventures
