BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT COACHING
For tourism operators above $1M who have decisions in front of them that are too consequential to make alone.
The longer engagement with Sarah Colgate. Built on the Business Analysis methodology, which I have refined for tourism over more than 20 years and applied to more than 400 businesses across tourism and beyond. Starts with a Profitability Clarity Call. Goes from there.
This is for you if
You run a tourism business turning over $1M or more.
You have a team. You have moving parts. You have decisions in front of you that are bigger than the day-to-day — pricing structures, channel decisions, hiring, expansion, succession, exit planning.
You know enough to know what you do not know. The cost of getting the next decision wrong is bigger than the cost of getting help to make it right.
You want to work with someone who has run a tourism business at your scale, not someone who reads about it.
You are comfortable with a process. The work is staged. We do not jump to coaching before we know what the coaching is for.
How the work is staged
There are four steps. We only go to the next one when the previous one says we should. That structure protects you from paying for work that is not the right fit, and it protects me from taking on operators where I cannot make a meaningful difference.
Step 1: Tourism Business Health Check
Ten minutes online. Free.
The Health Check is your starting point and my qualification tool. It tells me whether what I do is likely to be useful for your business — and it tells you whether the conversation is worth having.
You finish it. The numbers come back. We move to step 2.
FREE
Step 2: Profitability Clarity Call
30 minutes with me. Free.
No pitch. No report. No presentation.
A working conversation about your business — what is driving profit, what is draining it, and what your next move should be. In 30 minutes I will tell you the one number worth fixing first, based on your Health Check and one or two questions I will ask on the call.
You leave with a specific direction. Whether that involves working with me or not.
If the Tourism Profit Review is the right next step, we talk about it. If it is not, I will tell you that too — and point you to what is.
FREE
Step 3:Tourism Profit Review
The Business Analysis methodology applied to your business. Four components.
The questionnaire about your business.
About 60% qualitative: how you see the business, what you are happy with, what you are not. About 40% quantitative; sales, prospects, competitors, cost of sales, gross margins, team productivity, overheads.
The market research. I personally interview 12 referees you nominate, 6 of your customers and 6 of your suppliers. Hours of conversations. None of this is outsourced. About 80% of what comes back is positive. The 20% that is not is usually the gold.
The Business Analysis Report. 120+ pages. The system runs your numbers against the market research and identifies your profit leaks across 12 profit levers. The math behind each lever is shown in full.
The 90-minute interpretation. I walk you through the findings, the priorities, and the order of work. The report covers a lot of ground. The interpretation is where the patterns become clear.
THE 10-TO-1 GUARANTEE
For tourism operators above $1M, the Tourism Profit Review will identify at least $60,000 in profit currently leaking out of your business — based solely on your own numbers.
If it does not, the Review is free.
$6,000
Step 4: Coaching
Monthly working sessions across 12 months. Sometimes longer.
The work is part strategic — pricing structures, channel mix, hiring decisions, expansion, partnerships, succession. And part accountability — the things you already know you need to do but have not got to.
Most operators stay in the coaching for longer than they initially expected to, because the business keeps getting better.
The format is monthly working sessions, with check-ins between when there is something live to talk through. You bring whatever is on the table that month. I bring over 20 years inside the tourism industry and the discipline to keep the work moving.
Discussed individually after the Tourism Profit Review.
What changes when this work is done properly
You know the true profit potential of your business — across 12 profit levers, with the math behind each one shown.
You know which decisions to make first, in what order, and why.
You stop making consequential decisions in isolation.
You have someone in your corner who has run a tourism business at your scale and who understands the difference between the strategic question and the operational one.
The business produces meaningful movement on revenue, profit, owner workload, and enterprise value — usually within the first 12 months.
You start to see the business as something you own that produces a return — not something you are inside of every day.
Who you would be working with
I am Sarah Colgate, Tourism, Hospitality & Events Growth Specialist. I have spent over 20 years inside the tourism industry — operating, not consulting. I ran Aquaduck Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, where we grew revenue 36% in 10 months, improved net profit per passenger 200%, and shifted online sales from 4% to 47% of turnover.
I rebuilt Southern Cross Tours after COVID — a business that was 92% international and had disintegrated. Sales doubled in 100 days. 749% sales increase in 12 months. I have built operations from scratch — iToursntix Gold Coast — taking it to seven stores and $5M in sales in 2.5 years.
During COVID I went to bat for Australian tourism operators — meeting with government ministers and politicians to fight for the mum and dad operators who needed help. The Business Analysis methodology I use in this work has been refined over 20 years and applied to more than 400 businesses across tourism and other industries.
What this is not
It is not a course. There is nothing to log into, nothing to consume on your own time, nothing that runs in cohorts.
It is not a mastermind. You are not sitting in a Zoom room with five other operators learning the same thing.
It is not generic business coaching with tourism examples bolted on. The work is built around the specifics of how tourism businesses actually make and lose money.
It is not for operators under $1M. For those operators the Tourism Profit Program is the right fit — twelve weeks of 1:1 coaching with a different structure and a different price point.
It is not a sales funnel. The Profitability Clarity Call is free and it is genuinely a conversation about whether this is the right fit. If it is not, I will say so on the call.
“Sarah came in at exactly the right time for our business. We needed someone to step in, sort out, and completely restructure our sales activity – and Sarah delivered beyond expectations. She helped us successfully launch our Jetboat sales, putting in place the right systems and strategies that immediately shifted our results.
What sets Sarah apart is her drive and professionalism. She’s intelligent, hardworking, and hustles like no one I’ve ever met. She quickly turned our sales structure and team around, helping us focus on what actually matters, driving sales, rather than getting bogged down in operations.
Sarah’s impact has been game-changing for us. She not only built clarity and focus into our sales approach but also energised our team to perform at their best. I couldn’t recommend her highly enough to any tourism business looking to get serious about growth.”
Anthony Ardern
Managing Director
The Tour Collective
Common questions
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The Review is driven by two things — how quickly you complete the 273-question questionnaire, and how quickly your 12 referees make themselves available for the market research interviews I conduct. Most operators complete the Review in six to eight weeks from signing the NDA to the interpretation session.
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Most operators have more than 12 once they think about it. We need six customers and six suppliers — a representative spread, not your best six of each. Pain-in-the-backside customers who still buy from you are particularly useful to include because they often say things your favourites will not. If you genuinely cannot get to twelve, the work is probably not the right fit for your business at this stage.
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Because the operator's customers and suppliers will tell me things they will not tell a researcher. The 25 years of doing this matters in those conversations. The hours are not the easy part of my week, but they are where the most valuable findings come from.
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Coaching investment is discussed individually after the Tourism Profit Review. The reason it is not listed on this page — the right monthly engagement for a $1.2M operator with a stable team is different from the right monthly engagement for a $4M operator going through a leadership transition. We agree the scope and the investment based on what the Review actually identifies.
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Yes. The Review is a complete product on its own. Some operators do the Review, implement the priorities, and check in twelve months later. Others move into coaching immediately. The decision is made after the interpretation session, not before.
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30 minutes. No pitch, no report, no presentation. I will ask one or two questions about your Health Check and your business. You will tell me what is on your mind. I will tell you the one number worth fixing first. You leave with a specific direction. If working together is the right next step, we talk about it. If it is not, I will tell you that too.
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Probably not yet — the Tourism Profit Program is likely the better fit at that revenue. The 10-to-1 guarantee on the Profit Review applies to operators above $1M because the calculation needs the volume of revenue to find $60,000 of leaks comfortably. Worth doing the Health Check anyway and having the Clarity Call — we work out the right starting point together.
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Yes — the methodology scales. The Tourism Profit Review has been applied to operators well above $5M. The math behind the profit levers gets more interesting at that scale, not less. The shape of the coaching that follows usually changes with the size of the business, which is why investment is discussed individually after the Review.
The Next Step
If you have not done the Tourism Business Health Check yet, start there. Ten minutes, free, online. It tells me whether this work is the right fit for your business.
If you have already done the Health Check, the next step is the Profitability Clarity Call. Thirty minutes with me. No pitch, no report. We work out together whether what I do is the right thing for your business — or whether something else is.
Either way you leave with a clearer picture of where you stand.