Hospitality and events strategy
You didn't start this business to be busy.
Strategy, operations, and marketing consulting for hospitality and events business owners — from someone who built six brands across ten markets and learned most of it the expensive way.
most of what's holding you back isn't effort
You're booking. The phone rings. Weekends are full.And somehow the business still feels like it's running you — pricing you're not confident in, a calendar that falls apart on your busiest Saturday, marketing you're paying for but nobody's checked in months, and no real answer to where any of this is going in three years.That's not a work-ethic problem. It's a structure problem. And it's very hard to see clearly from inside the thing you built.
Any of this sound familiar?
You've raised prices once in three years, and you flinched doing it.
Your best salesperson is you, and you don't have time to sell.
You know which marketing is working, roughly — the way you know roughly where your keys are.
Every new hire seems to make the business more fragile, not less.
You've taken work you didn't want because saying no felt too risky.
Growth has come to mean more weekends, and you've stopped pretending otherwise.
None of this gets fixed by working harder.
You've already tried that.
What I help with
Vision & Positioning: What you're actually selling, who you're selling it to, and why they choose you instead of the cheaper option down the street. Being busy is not the same as being positioned.Offers & Pricing: How your services are packaged, tiered, and priced. Structured well, pricing stops being a negotiation and starts being a choice between good options. Same service, completely different sale.Operations: Booking flow, staffing model, customer communication, and your tech stack — specifically, how much of the business still runs through you personally. Operations don't fail gradually. They fail on your best weekend.Marketing: Local search, social, paid, referral, partnerships. An honest read on what to kill, what to fix, and what to start. In a service business, the easiest money to lose is money you're already spending.
Two weeks. A written plan. Then you run it.
01
We talk: A 20-minute call to see if I can actually help. If I can't, I'll say so and point you somewhere better.
02
I dig in: A 90-minute discovery session, plus an independent review of your market presence, booking experience, and closest competitors. You send a short intake packet. That's the extent of the homework.
03
You get the Blueprint: A written strategic blueprint covering positioning, offers and pricing, operations, and marketing — plus a prioritized 90-day roadmap with a clear "start here." We walk through it together, and I'm on email for two weeks after.
About Me
I've been where you are.
I'm Nelson Brooks. I built Cabana Boys Events from nothing into a six-brand experiential hospitality company operating in ten markets — bachelorette parties, cocktail experiences, corporate events, and more. We were featured on Shark Tank, took investment from Kendra Scott, and have hosted more than 8,000 events.I've also made most of the mistakes available to someone running a service business at scale. I priced on gut feel for too long. I let software spend pile up unexamined. I ran marketing channels nobody had audited in a year. I built processes that were really just me, and found out the hard way on the weekends that mattered most.I fixed all of it. That's the part that's useful to you.I'm not a consultant who read about your industry. I'm an operator who runs a company in it, working with a small number of owners a few steps behind me. I'll tell you what I'd actually do — including when the answer is that you're fine and should stop worrying about it.
WHO I work with
probably not a fit
Pre-revenue or still validating. Come back when you have paying customers. Strategy before traction is expensive guessing.
Looking for someone to execute. I hand you a plan and the reasoning behind it. I don't run your ads, manage your staff, or post to your Instagram.
You need bookkeeping, tax, or financial cleanup. I look at revenue and margin to inform strategy. I'm not reconciling your accounts, and I'll tell you honestly if that's what you actually need first.
Enterprise or PE-backed operations. You already have people whose job this is. I'd be redundant and overpriced.
A direct competitor of my own company. I'll flag it on the first call if I see it, and I'd rather lose the engagement than have an awkward moment when you realize it.
Hoping for guarantees. I'll give you judgment, structure, and a plan. Nobody honest sells outcomes.
Not actually planning to change anything. Some owners want validation, not a plan. That's a fine thing to want — it's just not what I sell.
a good fit
Hospitality and event operators
- Mobile bartending and cocktail services
- Event and party rental companies
- Bachelorette, bachelor, and group experience operators
- Photo booth and entertainment businesses
- Wedding and event vendors
- Tour and excursion operators
- Venues and event spacesFounders heading into a pitch
- Brands preparing to appear on a televised pitch show
- Founders raising from angels or pitching at competitions
- Product businesses that need their story, numbers, and valuation tightened
- Anyone who's about to have one shot at a room and wants to walk in readyWhere you are in the business
- Roughly $250k–$3M in revenue, with real customers and real traction
- Still owner-operated
- 1 to 10 markets, or looking hard at their second
- Thinking about franchising, licensing, or building something that runs without you
ENGAGEMENTS & PRICING
Clarity Call
For owners who know something's off but can't name it.- 90-minute working strategy session
- Pre-call intake so we skip the small talk
- Written 2-page summary: what I heard, what I'd fix first, what I'd stop doing entirely
- Recording of the call
- One round of follow-up questions by email
$499
Credited toward The Operator's Blueprint if you upgrade within 30 days.
The Operator's Blueprint
Most Popular
A two-week strategic reset for the whole business.- Everything in the Clarity Call
- Independent review of your website, local search presence, booking flow, reviews, and top competitors
- Optional session with one key team member
- The Blueprint — a written strategic document covering vision and positioning, offer and pricing architecture, operations, and marketing
- A 90-day roadmap — prioritized and sequenced, with owners assigned
- 60-minute walkthrough call
- Two weeks of email access afterward
$2499
Ongoing fractional support is available month-to-month for a limited number of clients after a Blueprint engagement.
Fixed scope.
Fixed price.
Real end date.
No retainers you have to escape from. No hourly meter running. You know what you're getting and what it costs before we start.
You already know something's off.
You've probably known for a while. The hard part isn't noticing — it's naming the thing precisely enough to fix it, which is close to impossible from inside the business you built.So let's start there. Twenty minutes. Tell me what's frustrating you right now.If I'm the right person to help, I'll say so and tell you exactly what it costs. If I'm not, I'll say that too, and point you somewhere better. Either way you'll get a straight answer from someone who's run the business you're running.
Not ready to get on a call? Email me the single thing that's frustrating you most about the business and I'll write back with a real answer. No catch — it's the fastest way for you to figure out whether I'm worth talking to. [email protected]
FAQs
Do you look at my financials? At a high level — revenue, margin, and where the money's going — because strategy without that context is guesswork. But I'm not your bookkeeper and I won't be reconciling accounts. If you need that, I can tell you what to look for in hiring it out.
Will you compete with my business? No. I work with businesses that don't overlap with mine, and I'll tell you directly on our first call if I think there's a conflict. Your information stays yours.
What if I don't agree with the recommendations? Then don't run them. You own the document regardless. You'll still have an outside read on your business from someone who's built one — and honestly, the disagreements are usually where the useful conversation is.
How much of my time does this take? Under four hours total. A 90-minute discovery session, a 60-minute walkthrough, and a short intake packet. The point is to hand you a plan, not add to your workload.
What happens after the engagement ends? Usually nothing, and that's by design — you have the plan and you run it. If you want ongoing help, I keep a small number of month-to-month clients. No pressure either direction.
Can you get me on Shark Tank? No, and be skeptical of anyone who says they can. I have no affiliation with the show and no involvement in casting. What I have is the experience of standing in that room, taking the questions, and coming out with a deal. I'll get you ready. The rest isn't mine to promise.
What if I need help actually executing the plan? Then we talk about the month-to-month option, or I point you toward people who do that work. I'd rather refer you out than pretend to be something I'm not.
Do you offer refunds? Not on completed work — you'd have the document. But if we get through the discovery call and I don't think I can help you, I'll say so. That's happened, and I'd rather it happen than take money for a bad fit.
Why should I trust a consultant who still runs another company? Because that's the point. Everything I'll tell you is something I'm currently doing or have recently stopped doing for a reason. I'm not working from a framework I read about — I'm working from this month.
Can't I just have AI do this? Partly, yes — and you should. AI will give you a competent list of pricing models and a decent competitive analysis in four minutes. What it won't tell you is which of those options survives a Saturday night in your market, with your staff, at your volume. Generating options was never the hard part. Knowing which one is right for you — and killing the other four — is. It also won't push back on you. I will.
What size business is too small? If you're doing under about $250K, the honest answer is that a $2,500 engagement is probably the wrong use of the money. Start with the $500 Clarity Call, or reach out anyway and I'll tell you what I'd focus on for free.
Nelson Brooks Consulting
Scottsdale, Arizona
Working with clients nationwide[email protected]
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