Meet Lonnie Somers: Chief HAL (Healthy Active Living) Officer – MY HAL IS: Family, Running, Cycling, Strength Training, Music, Microphones, smiling, finding my inner Yoda, (oh, and 80’s trivia)

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lonnie Somers and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lonnie, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
The most important factor for us is really is more of a concept than a factor. The concept we practice is one that allows us to provide the best service possible and build an exceptional brand, and that is P.E.RR. P.E.RR is: P – Personalization: We always ensure that our service and our brand are and feel personalable. We care about your needs and wants and we listen to what your wants and needs are. E – Engagement: We want you to be engaged with what we do for you and what we do to provide your constituents with unique events. If you are not engaged with your clients and end-users, then you are irrelevant. RR – Remarabke to be Remarketable: We strive to be sure that what we do, produce in events, etc. is remarkable and memorable, this way it becomes remarketable, meaning our clients and event-goers rave about us and that leads to more opportunities. We have never done traditional marketing and by using our PERR concept, we have had great growth and opportunities. 

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Our business is HAL Sports (Healthy Active Living). We produce mass endurance events (runs, walks, etc.). Prior to our business, we started a non-profit and thought we would do a run/walk. After all how hard can it be? Famous last words there! It was at best managed chaos. As a non-profit and really someone wearing many hats, we realized that most run/walk events are charity based and managed by organizations/people that wear many hats and are not experts in producing mass endurance events. For us, at our own charity event, vendors showed up and did a fine job, but they never helped us make our events better, never counseled how we could be different, better, more fun, etc. When we founded HAL Sports, we became that partner with the events and helped them with creating fun, unique, events that helped them reach more and raise more funds. We became the indispensable partner and if we didn’t know the answer to help them, we found partners that did. This wasn’t easy because it was a different paradigm in our industry. We had a lot of nay-sayers that didn’t believe in how we approached our clients. That is when we knew we were on the right path. We started out with a handful of events and a decade later, we now manage over 130 events across the USA for organizations big and small.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Okay.. I live in Colorado! One week isn’t nearly enough. LOL.. 300+ days a year of sunshine and the most amazing beautiful mountains with crystal clear blue skies. Colorado has so much to offer, but of course the most amazing is our spectacular mountains. Top places I would take them: Rocky Mountain National Park Ouray (it isn’t as well known as some mountain towns, but it is called the Swiss Alps of America for good reason) Hanging Lake We have the most 14,000ft peaks of any state, so of course, going on top of one of these such as Mt. Evans or the famous Pikes Peak.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
This is hard to narrow down to one person as I have had so many that have provided inspiration, but most certainly Creigh Kelley (one of the world’s most notable running event producers, agents, announcers and more), brought me in and became a mentor and more importantly, one of my best friends. He set the stage for us to make a difference on so many levels for charities, communities, and for many personally. How amazing is that!!!

Website: www.halsports.net
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/halsportsevents/?hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lonniesomers/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/halsports
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Halsports
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj1viyroqe1sTdJWSVUCB4A?view_as=subscriber

Image Credits
Twain Wilkins