Depends whether you know what's broken.
Groundwork
I find what's wrong and rank it with an audit. Credited against a Build sprint.
Build
I do the work. Fixed scope, fixed price, agreed before anything starts.
Backbone
I stay on. Your numbers, a dashboard, a session every month. However you need.
I'm Kieran.
Life is about experiences, and there's no better way to experience the outdoors than staying right in the middle of it.
I've spent over 10 years both running small businesses and advising them. I trained as a Chartered Accountant, so the numbers aren't too much of a mystery. I've consulted across size, stage and industries, so know where people get stuck. I ran a brewery through COVID, so I know what it is to keep the wheels on through chaos. I've built a non-profit and started my own business, so I know what it costs to do that, in money and in everything else.
So I know what makes a small business here work, and what quietly kills one.
More about me
Groundwork
Start here if your list is long and the order isn't obvious.
I go through the business properly and give you a ranked plan, plus a roadmap so you can see what happens next.
A review across the whole business. How you make money, how guests find you, how the place runs.
Your baseline numbers. Occupancy, your average nightly rate, revenue per available night, direct booking share, off season runway.
A ranked plan, sequenced by payback.
A live project board you keep and work in, not a PDF that goes in a drawer.
A 90 minute walkthrough with the awkward questions answered.
Fixed price, so you can find out what's wrong without signing up to something open ended. And if you go on to a Build sprint, $1,500 comes off it.
Build
One sprint, one outcome, price fixed before work starts.
This is the part most consultants don't do. I don't recommend the booking system, I migrate you onto it.
One thing at a time, scoped and priced in writing first, built around how you actually work. You get trained on it, and every account is in your name.
Booking and reservation systems
Guests booking themselves, direct, instead of phoning you at nine at night.
The highest payback thing most operators can do, and the most often put off. I pick the system that fits how you trade and migrate you onto it without losing a booking.
Rates, policies, deposits, taxes and confirmation emails set up. Booking engine on your own site so direct is the easy option. Channel manager connected if you list on the big booking sites.
At Birken this took online bookings from zero to ninety percent, most of them direct.
The digital foundation
Website, Google listing and booking path, so people find you and can act on it.
Not a design project. Someone searching for a place to stay finds you, understands what you are in four seconds, and books without emailing anyone.
Site built for booking rather than for looking at. Google Business Profile claimed and connected. Set up so Google and the AI assistants can both find you. Domain migrated with the search history intact, which is the bit that goes wrong when people do this themselves.
Finance and reporting
Books, dashboard, and knowing what a night actually costs.
Nobody else in this market sells this to an independent operator, which is odd, because it's the one that changes decisions.
Accounting rebuilt to match how an accommodation business actually earns, with the booking system feeding it. Then the numbers that matter, and a seasonal cash flow forecast, because your costs and your income sit in different months and that's the thing that kills people.
CRM and guest data
Enquiries and guest history out of your inbox.
Most small operators have no CRM at all. Every enquiry and returning guest lives in an email account and in memory.
One place for enquiries, guests, groups and partners, with your history pulled in and cleaned up. Automatic follow up on enquiries that go quiet, which is where most lost revenue sits.
Your guest list is the only asset the big booking sites can't take off you.
Revenue streams
Weddings, retreats, corporate. The stuff that fills a dead shoulder season.
We work out which streams fit your site, capacity and licences, and which are a distraction. Then the package gets built properly, with sales material that does the selling and a pipeline of planners worth knowing.
Birken's wedding pipeline is now booking into 2027.
Lightweight AI
The admin that eats your evenings, handled. Nothing you can't run yourself.
Being honest, because there's a lot of noise. I'm not building you a robot.
We find what's actually repetitive. Enquiry replies, guest questions, listing descriptions. Then small, boring, reliable tools, with training in plain English.
Guest relationships stay human. Nobody comes to your lodge for an automated welcome.
Succession and business continuity
The place keeps trading if you step back, sell up, or can't work for a season.
Most owner run properties have no version of this written down. If you were off for six weeks, the business would stall, and if you wanted to sell, a buyer would be paying for you rather than for the operation.
Written procedures for the jobs only you know how to do. A handover pack, clean books a buyer or a bank can read, and a plan for who covers what. Then adoption, so the family or the team actually work to it rather than filing it.
The best time to do this is years before you need it. Nobody ever does it then.
Backbone
Start here if the systems are in and nobody's watching them, or the plan from the diagnostic is stalling.
I stay on. Your numbers produced and explained, a dashboard tracking the handful of things that matter, and one session a month.
Written scope, so it's proper support rather than me being on call. Not priced here because a six unit glamping site and a lodge with a restaurant are different jobs.
An implementation partner, long term. Monthly meetings, and the plan keeps moving between them.
Accounting and bookkeeping support. Books kept current, month end done, and someone to ask.
Marketing support. Campaigns, listings and seasonal pushes run to a calendar rather than in a panic.
Funding. Windows watched, applications written, reporting kept up once the money lands.
Hiring and onboarding. Job descriptions, pay benchmarks, and procedures for the people you take on.
Reporting for a board, a bank or a silent partner, produced on time and explained first.
Once we're working together, you can just ask. An hour of judgement, a fast read on a funding window, a second opinion before you sign something. Billed by the hour.
Some different way for you to work through this.
If one of the other four is right for you, I'll say so on the call.
The things people ask before they book.
How small is too small?
I've worked with businesses of two people and businesses of forty. Somewhere between four and forty units, with you doing the admin at ten at night, is the sweet spot. Under about four units the numbers rarely justify hiring me, and I'll say so on the call rather than take the work. Above forty you're usually big enough to have someone in house, though plenty of properties that size still don't.
Do you work outside BC and Alberta?
Not usually. The regulations, the funding programs, the seasons and the guest market are all local, and knowing them is a large part of what you're paying for. A consultant who has never dealt with a BC tourism accommodation licence or a Destination BC program is starting from behind. If you're just outside and the fit is right, ask anyway.
Will you come to the property?
Where I can, yes, and I'd rather. An hour walking a site tells me more than a week of calls. How guests arrive, where check in bottlenecks, what the connectivity is like at the far cabin, which matters a great deal before anyone picks a system. Not every engagement needs it and some properties are a long way from Squamish, but usually at least once.
How long does this take?
The diagnostic is two weeks, start to finish. Sprints vary. A booking system migration is usually a few weeks, a full finance and reporting build takes longer. At Birken it was two months from the first meeting to a live booking system, a new website and AI running in the day to day, across several sprints back to back. It also depends on the season, because migrating a reservation system in July is a bad idea and I'll tell you to wait. Timelines go in writing before we start.
What happens to my accounts and logins?
They're yours from the start, in your name, on your email. If we stop working together tomorrow you keep everything and nothing breaks. Some agencies hold the domain or the hosting account and it becomes a hostage situation when you try to leave. I won't do that, and I'd check whoever you hire next on the same point.
Do I have to use AI?
No. I use it to work faster on my side either way, which is part of why the pricing works. Whether any of it goes into your business is your call. If we do use it, it's two or three repetitive jobs made faster, with training so you can run them, not a system you'll be frightened of.
Can I skip the diagnostic?
Yes, plenty do. If you already know what you want built we scope a sprint directly. The diagnostic is for when the list is long and the order isn't obvious, which is most people, but not everyone.
What if I just want to talk it through?
Book the call. Thirty minutes, free, and it's a conversation rather than a pitch. Worst case you get a second opinion, and I point you at whoever is a better fit.
A lakeside resort with cabins, a campground and a grille, run by an owner who knew the place inside out. Every booking came by phone or email. The calendar was manual, the files were paper, and a guest couldn't book at eleven at night, which is when most people decide to.
Nothing was broken exactly. It all just ran through one person, and that person was running out of hours.
Not a list of problems, an order. The booking path was losing the most money and cost the least to fix, so it went first. The numbers were invisible, so they went second. Revenue only made sense after both.
First meeting to a live booking system, a new website and AI running inside the day to day. Several sprints, back to back, in the quiet season.
A real reservation system, guests booking themselves, direct through Birken's own site.
A full brand and 58 asset logo suite, then a new site with the domain migrated without losing the search history.
Accounting migrated, restaurant point of sale in, the systems talking to each other.
A retreat package built from scratch, and a wedding pipeline now booking into 2027.
AI built into the day to day, not bolted on as a demo.
Where the rest comes from.
Regional small business lending and advisory across the Sea-to-Sky. We funded over 50 entrepreneurs and went through the financials and models of over 500 businesses, deciding in each case whether they'd make it. Heavily tourism, hospitality, outdoor and events.
Finance and general manager. Payroll, cash flow, procurement, liquor board reporting, staff. When COVID hit I opened new revenue streams and kept it trading.
We set it up, wrote the grants, opened an innovation centre. Over $1M in grant funding won, $800,000 of it for the centre itself.
Built the commercial and government side. Procurement pathways, funding alignment, and a lead pipeline.
A full funding search and a playbook they work through as windows open.
"Kieran remained calm, professional, patient and grounded through an extremely stressful and complex situation. He was firm where needed, supportive where possible. That combination is rare."
Business owner, during a business sale"Incredibly approachable, knowledgeable, and genuinely invested in helping us build both stability and momentum."
Founder, Sea-to-Sky"Instrumental in me purchasing and running my first business in the Sea to Sky."
Owner, Reactive Media
Life is about experiences, and there's no better way to experience the outdoors than staying right in the middle of it.
I've spent over a thousand nights in tents, huts, campers, hostels and lodges. Months camping across Wales. Backcountry camping through South America. RV parks up and down BC. This month I've spent most nights in a camper, working on the road. I've also visited and advised over a hundred businesses on site, here and in New Zealand.
So when I look at a lodge, I understand what the owner is trying to protect. It isn't the occupancy rate. It's the reason they bought the place.
I'm one person, on purpose.
You talk to the person doing the work, and I take a handful of clients at once rather than a hundred.
I lean on AI to do in a week what used to take a month, which is a large part of why it is possible. I'll put some of that into your business if it's useful. If it's more than you want to manage, we don't do it.
Honest, even when it costs me.
If you shouldn't hire me, I'll say so.
Simple over clever.
The smallest system that solves the problem. You run this after I leave.
It stays yours.
Every account, every domain, every login in your name. No hostage situations.
A rising tide.
A stronger operator makes the whole rural tourism economy stronger.
Based in Squamish. Working across BC and the Alberta Rockies.
On the unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Nation. Most of it runs fine over video. For the parts that don't, I'll come to you.
Six areas, scored out of a hundred.
Scored out of a hundred, weighted by what each one usually costs you.
Twenty-four questions, mostly taps, about five minutes. Nothing is asked that doesn't score, and nothing is asked that I can look up myself.
Two of the six can't be seen from outside. Those are usually the two that matter most, which is why this asks rather than guesses.
If nothing here needs me, the report will say so.
So you can see which is dragging.
Ranked, not priced to the dollar. Five minutes of questions can tell you where the money leaks. It can't tell you exactly how much, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
Sequenced by what pays back soonest.
Email it to yourself if you want. You don't have to give me anything to see it.
Some people take this, see what's wrong, go and fix it themselves and I never hear from them. Genuinely fine outcome.
Some read it, decide they're never going to get to it, and book a call. That's the one I'm hoping for. Either way you get the report.
Five minutes now, or another season of guessing.
First one's coming shortly.
I'd rather publish three things worth reading than twenty that aren't. The assessment captures your email at the end and I'll use it to tell you when the first lands, and for nothing else.
What booking site commission really costs a small operator over a season
The arithmetic, shown properly, for a six unit site in the Sea-to-Sky. It is bigger than most owners think and smaller than the scary version.
Body copy sets at 18px on a 720px column, which lands around 70 characters. Paragraphs sit 22px apart. This is the reading measure for every article on the site.
A subhead looks like this
Subheads are Montserrat 600 at 28px, with more space above than below, so the eye reads them as the start of something rather than a caption on what came before.
Numbers in the body are set plain. Where a figure carries the argument, pull it out rather than bolding it inside a sentence.
One pull quote per article, using the gold left rule from the home page.
Images inside an article run the full column width at 12px radius, with a mono caption beneath in Deep Gold.
And it ends with the next step
Every article closes into the same block as every other page. No separate article CTA, no newsletter box, nothing invented for this template alone.
I fix the business side of outdoor accommodation across BC and Alberta.
More about me
Already know what you need?
Thirty minutes, no charge, and it's a conversation rather than a pitch. If I'm not the right person I'll point you at whoever is.
Not sure where the problem is?
Five minutes, free, and the results are yours whether we ever speak or not.
Based in Squamish, BC. Working across the Sea-to-Sky, the BC Interior and the Alberta Rockies.