Night and day difference. Standard coaching gives you bi-weekly 30-minute calls with a coach, access to training materials, and group sessions. You’re primarily learning and implementing on your own. The Growth Accelerator is a strategic partnership. You get direct access to three senior consultants (Kelsey, Gez, and Lucy) who’ve scaled tour businesses to $30M+.

We build your strategy together, then work alongside your team to execute it. Think of it as having a fractional VP of Strategy and COO for a fraction of the cost. We’re not teaching you what to do – we’re rolling up our sleeves and doing it with you.

Great question, and we handle this head-on in the first 45 days. We’ll review your existing contracts, pipeline, and seasonality patterns to establish a realistic baseline. The performance bonus only applies to growth above that baseline.

For example, if you have $1M in signed contracts that will deliver next year, we’re not taking credit for that. We adjust the baseline accordingly. One client had similar concerns – we documented their pipeline, factored in seasonal patterns, and structured the bonus to only reward truly incremental growth. We want this to be fair. If we’re getting paid, it should be because we helped you grow beyond what was already in motion.

The performance bonus is generally tied to revenue (bookings) because it’s cleaner to track and you maintain full control over spending decisions. But here’s the important part: we’re deeply focused on profitable growth. In the first 45 days, we look at your margins and make sure the bonus structure makes sense for your bottom line. If hitting a revenue target would require spending that wipes out your profit, we’d adjust the approach.

One of our recent clients increased revenue 100% while also improving profitability by 100%+ through better pricing, yield management, and supplier agreements. Revenue and profit aren’t opposing forces when you’re strategic about growth.

Expect 5-10 hours per week on average, with heavier lifting in the first 45 days and during quarterly planning sessions.

Here’s what that typically looks like:

• Week 1-6: 10-15 hours (initial strategy work, data gathering, planning)
• Ongoing: 5-7 hours per week (implementation work, check-ins, reviews)
• Quarterly planning: 1-2 full days every 90 days

You’re not doing this alone. We’re working alongside your team, and a lot of the execution happens in parallel. One client told us: “I thought this would add to my workload, but it actually gave me clarity on where to focus my time. I’m working the same hours but getting better results.”

If we don’t hit the agreed growth targets, you don’t pay the performance bonus. Full stop. The bonus only kicks in when there is real, measurable growth above your baseline, so your financial risk is limited to the base fees ($5K initial + $4K/month).

And because the agreement also includes a clean exit option (ending the engagement with three months of the retainer), you’re never locked into something that isn’t delivering.

That said, we’ve never had a client not see measurable improvement. Sometimes targets get adjusted based on market conditions or strategic pivots, but the work always moves the business forward. We saw one operator go from $700K to $1.4M in six months. Another scaled from €750K to €6M over a longer engagement. These are the types of outcomes we’re aiming for.

You work directly with all three of us. We also have an expanded team of tour business consultants and account managers to help hold your team accountable during implementation.

Kelsey leads on tour-specific strategy and guest experience optimization. Gez focuses on commercial strategy and market expansion. Lucy handles operational efficiency and team structure. Depending on your quarterly objectives, you’ll work more closely with whoever’s expertise is most relevant.

We may also recommend specialists from our network for specific needs (marketing campaigns, guide training, etc.), but the strategic direction and accountability comes directly from us.

We get it. The consulting industry has a terrible reputation for this. Here’s what’s different: our compensation is tied to your results. If you don’t grow, we don’t get the performance bonus. That means we’re incentivized to make sure things actually get implemented.

Also, we’re tour operators, not management consultants. Gez scaled ExperienceFirst across multiple markets. Lucy built a travel division from €750K to €6M. Kelsey has worked hands-on with 2,000+ tour operators. We’ve done the work ourselves. We know what it takes to execute in this industry.

One client said it best: “If you guys were involved in Fyre Festival, it would have worked.” = ) That’s the level of commitment to execution we bring.

Absolutely. The first 30-45 days is all about figuring out where you need help most. Some clients need OTA channel optimization and direct booking growth. Others need operational efficiency and team structure. Some want to launch in new markets or develop new product offerings. We customize the quarterly objectives based on your specific situation and priorities.

For example, we had a client focused almost entirely on market expansion into APAC. We streamlined operations, then supported their regional launch. They added £700K in year one and £6.9M in year two from that market alone.

This is exactly why we work alongside your team rather than just advising from the sidelines. In the first 30-45 days, we’ll assess your team’s capacity and structure. Often, we find inefficiencies in how work is allocated. We’ve helped clients restructure roles, hire fractional staff, or bring in contractors for specific projects – all while staying within reasonable budget constraints.

One client had a two-person team doing $700K. We didn’t tell them to hire a bunch of people. We helped them use fractional staff strategically and got them to $1.4M in six months with minimal overhead increase. If capacity is genuinely the issue, we’ll factor that into the roadmap and help you build capacity as revenue grows.

No games here. It’s a practical constraint. Each client gets direct access to three senior operators. We’re doing monthly strategy calls, weekly Slack support, quarterly planning sessions, and hands-on implementation work. We also invest significant unpaid time when critical moments arise.

We’d rather work deeply with a few businesses and deliver exceptional results than spread ourselves thin across 30 clients.

Everything is covered under standard consulting confidentiality agreements. We don’t share your data, strategies, or even that you’re a client unless you give explicit permission.The only exception is anonymized case studies (like “a multi-day tour operator in North America” without identifying details). Even then, we’ll run it by you first.

We’re also careful about potential conflicts of interest. If we’re working with a tour operator in a specific niche/market, we won’t take on a direct competitor during the same engagement period.

We build in flexibility. The quarterly review structure means we can adjust strategy based on changing conditions every 90 days.

During COVID, Lucy led The Yacht Week’s crisis response – pivoting products, renegotiating supplier agreements, implementing a credit system that retained 40% of revenue from canceled bookings. That’s the kind of real-time problem-solving we bring.

If the partnership stops being the right fit due to changing circumstances, there’s a straightforward exit path: we can end the engagement by settling two months of the retainer. And with the performance bonus tied only to actual growth, you’re always protected in the event of a down period.

The short answer is we don’t do short term contracts. That being said, the agreement includes an amicable termination option. So while the program is designed as a 12-month partnership, there’s a clear, fair way to exit if it stops being the right fit.

The first 30–45 days aren’t a trial period, but rather they function like a deep diagnostic: a full review of your numbers, operations, channels, team structure, quick-win fixes, and your 12-month growth roadmap. It sets the foundation for everything that follows.

The reason we don’t offer 1-3 month agreements is simple. Real growth in any business takes time – especially if we’re deviating from the status quo. The first 1–2 months are diagnostics and setup. Months 3–6 are where momentum builds. Months 6–12 are when the bigger gains compound. A short pilot just doesn’t provide enough runway to generate meaningful, lasting change.

Three main differences: Price: Big firms charge $15K-25K per month. We’re $4K/month base plus a performance bonus to create an incentive for delivering results.

Execution: Big firms usually hand you a strategy deck created by junior consultants. We do the opposite. You work directly with us — the senior operators — on the strategy and the implementation. We also have accountability coaches who help keep projects moving, but the actual strategic thinking and decision-making comes from us, not delegated down the ladder.

Industry expertise: Generic consultants know business frameworks. We know tour operators specifically. We’ve optimized booking systems, negotiated with OTAs, hired tour guides, optimized yield management, and scaled tour businesses from $1M to $30M+. A big firm might give you better PowerPoint decks. We’ll give you better results.

The initial 12 months builds the foundation and delivers meaningful growth. Many operators then want continued support as they scale further, enter new markets, or prepare for exit.

We offer flexible extensions – either continuing with quarterly engagements or shifting to an advisory retainer for ongoing support at a reduced rate. That said, the goal is to build a business that eventually doesn’t need us. If after 12 months you’ve got strong systems, a capable team, and clear momentum, you might not need continued support. And that’s a success worth celebrating.