340 N. Madison Street Marshall, Michigan 49068 269.317.3771 keith@k2consulting.net Home | Consulting Principals | Consulting Team Mark Twain said it best, 'I cannot give you a formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.' Strategic marketing and communications for today’s unique lodging properties. Welcome to K2 Consulting! Over the past eight years, it was my great pleasure and privilege to work with more than 400 independent innkeepers as Marketing Director and then Executive Director of Select Registry. As you might imagine, this has provided me with somewhat unique and extensive insights into the increasingly complicated travel industry—and especially the slice of that industry that involves inns and B&Bs. Now that I am working with individual clients, I’d like to introduce a new, strategic approach for your marketing and communications needs. My purpose in establishing K2 Consulting was, quite simply, to help innkeepers sell their unique lodging experience to their target audiences. Based on years of experience in the bed and breakfast, country and urban inn hospitality sector, I believe that we can help you in two separate but related ways. You won’t find a traditional marketing approach with us; we won’t advise you to just yell louder and more frequently. Instead, we want to help you nurture conversations with past and prospective guests—conversations that will lead them to your door, again and again. Some of this you already do quite well, but in today’s economy, we all have to be better, in order to succeed. First, we want to help you to find the audience that is (or should be) listening. We will look with fresh eyes at your guest experience and help you take it to the next level, using comparative analysis and experience gained by evaluating others in the industry. We call this part of the business—INNSPIRE. Having read and analyzed literally hundreds of inspection reports over the years—and having stayed in inns and B&Bs throughout North America—I have a deep appreciation for what today’s guests expect. K2 Consulting can help you find your unique sweet spot and then polish it to a high sheen. To compete in this business, your guest experience has to be simply remarkable—very good just isn’t good enough anymore. As I’m sure you are aware, we are in a buyer’s market. Your competition is stepping up their game, and so should you. And, once you hit the right notes, it has to be easy for your guests to tell all their friends and families all about their ‘find.’ What authors like Emanuel Rosen have called “buzz” has become even more important in today’s social networking society. And that is the second part of why we created K2 Consulting. So what good is a fabulous bed and breakfast or inn if not enough people know about it? We can help you update and expand your existing marketing plans. This part of our business is suitably called—INNPR. We’ve assembled a virtual team of extremely well-qualified consultants to help you accomplish just about any kind of marketing, branding, or public relations activity. And if our group of consultants doesn’t have the expertise you need, we have connections in the industry to find the right fit for any project. If you are intrigued by either or both of these strategies, we offer two initial options. For a consultation fee of $250, we will conduct a short survey on either your guest experience quotient or your current marketing approaches, followed by a one-page, high-level plan with some focused suggestions about the efficacy and evolution of your existing expenditures in either category. For $400, we’ll provide surveys and a one-page high level plan for both areas. If, as I expect, you find value in our preliminary product(s), we can chat about other consulting services we might provide down the road. Interested? Please email or phone me to discuss our guest experience or marketing assessments and to explore how we can help your property be even more successful in today’s highly competitive marketplace. I hope to hear from you! Warm regards, Keith Email: keith@k2consulting.net