This coaching is for you if...
You make good money, but you want great money
Your software systems are more 2012 than 2025
Your business is going well and you're ready to level up
You want to develop your people, but you're not sure how
Your business was successful but you're finding it harder
You’re getting older, feel tired and know there’s a smarter way
Hospitality Legends who use me as their coach
Hospitality is a love affair and an addiction
We’re hanging on for the high and we're not fussy whether we get our hit greeting guests or mopping toilets. But there’s pain as well as pleasure.
We work too much. We miss family time. We get overwhelmed.
But hospitality can be hard and unhealthy
Short of money
You've tried everything you know, but it's not enough. How do you get to that next level of hospo success?
Struggling to let go
You’re still leading the charge but you’re hamstringing your team's development by not letting them step up.
Short of time
You want to pour less time and energy into the business You’re trying to figure out how you can step back.
Worn down by drama
You find it harder to connect with younger generations, and you’re not sure how to motivate your younger staff.
Getting older
After years working long hours on your feet, you're sore, tired, and thinking this isn't sustainable anymore.
Outdated systems
You were innovative 15 years ago but haven’t updated since. You're getting left behind, but new tools feel too much.
It’s normal if you’re overwhelmed, tired, and stressed
Maybe you feel guilty for wanting to slow down
In hospo we celebrate hard work, rather than people who work smart. You’re cut down if you say you made a record profit but we wear 100-hour weeks like a badge of honour.
Perhaps you feel you're playing at being a business owner
Career hospo people in New Zealand grow up in an industry that isn’t seen as a serious career. It’s easy to buy into that, not to take your business or your ambition seriously.
Your response to stress is simply to work more
Most of us have come up within the industry, starting out as a glassy or a KP. For our entire careers, we’ve worked long hard, physical hours, and it's the only thing we really know.
Or you think everybody else is better at business
We put other businesses on a pedestal, thinking their social media is amazing, they're always really busy, they must be really profitable. But it’s often smoke and mirrors
Jono and Jen Alve,
THIRSTY ACRES, KIRWEE
While not new to Hospitality we are new to owning a hospitality business. We are aspirational about developing our team and our business to be among the very best in New Zealand.
Working with Liz gives us the opportunity to embed great systems and structure in our business much more quickly than if we tried to figure it all out ourselves.
Her passion for people and hospitality is infectious and having had Liz coaching us from the beginning of our journey it is hard to imagine doing this without her. We highly recommend Perkins Coaching for aspirational hospo business owners!
Helen & Damien McDowell
WYNYARD PAVILION
Liz is hands down the best thing that has happened to our business.
Liz is so well read - but importantly has the real world hospitality experience & results to help us action practical solutions to our problems. Solutions that make a real tangible difference to our team and to our bottom line profit!
Running a business isn’t easy and when something tricky comes up it’s so nice to be able to say “Let’s just ask Liz”. We are so grateful to have Liz in our corner and are proud to be continually improving our business all the time with her kind support.
Alex Boyes
WAI HOSPITALITY GROUP
...We had the good fortune of working with Liz Perkins as our business coach, and it has been a
transformative experience.
One of the most remarkable changes we've witnessed is how Liz has empowered and engaged our staff to
become more hands-on in decision-making. This has not only boosted their motivation but has also freed up
our time as owners to focus on making better, informed decisions.
Working with Liz has been an absolute pleasure, and her positive impact on our businesses cannot be overstated. We wholeheartedly recommend her services to any business owner seeking growth, efficiency, and success.
Successful hospitality businesses have five pillars
Finance
People &
Culture
Leadership
Marketing Sales & Fulfilment
Systems
Hospitality businesses operate on three levels
Level One: Hospo Beginner
You’re building your business from the ground up. You may not have worked in hospo before. You’re hard-working and you're a real people person, but you’re doing everything and you’re struggling.
Level 2: Hospo veteran
You’re from a hospo background, now you’re running your own business. You’re an amazing chef or host and you’ve got the basics right. You want to refine your skills, tailor them to your strengths, and become a real expert.
Level 3: Hospo success story
You’re experienced and successful and you’ve got a strong team. Now you want to refine your business to become even more exceptional because you want to go big and open more venues or you’re getting ready to sell.
You’re ready to take it to the next level
Your business is healthy, but not where you want to be
You’re great at what you do and you want more
Your revenue is $1.5 million+, you know your numbers and love your team. You want to grow your business but you’re not sure how, you’re still working brutal hours, and you’re weak in a few areas and you know they’re holding you back.
You’re turning over $2 million+, and you’re ready to take your hospo business up another gear. Perhaps you want to sell, or maybe you want to go multi-venue. You’ve big ambitions and you need some guidance to take your business to the next stage
Helen Turnbull
50-50
Liz is an integral part of my business, helping me to stay focused, on track and motivated. She’s been generous in sharing her incredible depth of hospitality business knowledge which has in turn helped me achieve my goals.
I love having her on my team, understanding my values and caring about the success of my people and restaurant as much as I do. I would recommend Liz to anyone that loves learning, improving and challenging themselves to be better than they could imagine.
Bryony Smith
ALTO CAFE
Liz has been such an amazing asset to our business, with her guidance and tools we have increased our revenue by 150% in a few years (all through the pandemic AND while we had 2 kids under 3!!)
She genuinely cares about people, their business and their successes. She celebrates the wins with you and helps find solutions when things need improvement. Can't recommend Liz enough. Hands down the best business decision you'll make!
Liz Means
DUSTED & DELICIOUS
Stumbling upon Liz changed my life! When I met Liz I was exhausted and disillusioned about my business. Our turnover was excellent but we weren't making any profit. Liz coached me on how to be an effective leader, we introduced systems and strategies that enabled us to see what was happening with the dollars and take control of them.
Liz is an amazing person, not only is she passionate about what she is teaching but she has lived it herself turning her own hospitality business around, so she truly understands what we are experiencing. I 110% recommend Liz as a hospitality business coach.
Fall in love with your hospo business again
More time working on your business, not in it
You’re tired of being tied to your business. You bend over backwards to make things flexible for your staff, while missing gatherings with family and friends, and you never have time for you. Let’s take your time back.
Scalable business systems means less pressure on you
You know successful businesses run strong systems but you’re not there yet. You’ve a few basic tools and your systems have holes. Let’s get your system running your business and your team working your system.
More profit without more blood, sweat, and tears
You’re doing okay financially, but you’d like to be making more. Or maybe you’ve been making good profits but with the dip in the economy and increased costs, your margin’s starting to erode. Let’s sort the $$$.
Deliver training your people love
Without time and money, you can’t experiment, and that’s tough when you thrive on the next challenge. Hospo people love seeing new ideas come to life. Let’s free you up and make business fun again.
Your Coaching Journey
Introductory call
We start with a free call, where you tell me your business story and your challenges. My goal is to diagnose which level you’re at with your business in each of the five pillars of hospo success.
There’s often an imbalance because we naturally focus on things we’re best at. But a hospo business is like a table. The first four pillars – finance, systems, marketing, sales, fulfilment, and people and culture – they’re the legs. Leadership is the tabletop. We don’t want your table to wobble, so sometimes we have to put more effort into strengthening your weaker pillars.
Our coaching journey is a mixture of supporting you to solve problems, teaching you skills, sharing knowledge and experience, and making sure you have the right mindset for growth. I’ve a resource library packed with tools, frameworks, processes, and exercises to help.
Your coaching sessions
Before each session I send you a pre-session sheet, asking three questions.
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Give me an update on what's happening in your business.
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What have you been working on?
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What would you like to talk about this session?
We start each session with your update then circle back to the projects you've been working on, before tackling your to do list for the day.
I like to begin coaching with finance because it’s often the area where people need most help, and you'll see solid results quickly. Starting with finance gives you clarity on what’s really causing problems in your business. You may be guessing but the numbers don’t lie.
Coaching sessions can take different forms
It’s fine to change your mind about what you want to cover.
Hospo is busy and complex. Challenges will come up, and you’ll need to talk them out.
It’s fine to have no idea what you want to cover.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, just come along, and we’ll work out what to do.
It’s fine to ask for my advice on what to do next.
Often I’ll ask business owners what they want to work on, and they’ll say, “Whatever's next.”
It’s fine to ask for a consolidation session.
It can be helpful to review your work, look where you’ve done a great job, and what you can improve.
It’s fine to come to coaching if you haven’t done your work.
These are often the best coaching sessions because I'll help you get unstuck.
I’m available to you between sessions
Your monthly coaching package gives you two 60-minute sessions.
I'm available to you between sessions to help you with whatever you're working on. The people who get the best coaching results are the people who take advantage of this and contact me with questions lots.
You also get access to my resource library for hospo business owners, full of templates and frameworks, to help you take your business to the next level.
You investment for coaching
Your coaching package includes:
Fortnightly 60-minute coaching sessions.
Email support whenever you need it.
Access to a library of resources.
There is no minimum sign up period
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$350 + GST per session.
I’m Liz, hospitality business coach and restaurant owner. Romantically in love with restaurants since I was 18.
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I’ve worked front of house, as a chef, and owned hospitality businesses for 20+ years. I've mopped floors, cleaned toilets, and poured pints. As well as years of hospo experience, I taught at the Southern Institute of Technology, so I know how to break things down and make them easy to learn.
I get how stressful it is to lie awake at 3:00am worrying because your chef is resigning, or bookings were really quiet last night. I know what it feels like to implement the principles I teach. When I suggest you do something, I understand how tough it's going to be.
What to expect when I’m your coach
Coaching isn’t a course
Coaching doesn’t follow a pre-planned pathway. I’m your guide, but we pick your path together. I like to cover the five pillars of hospo success in our first few conversations, but we rarely stick to that because unpicking one problem opens up the next thing to work on.
I try to work to your communication style
Some people ask for a clear structure for each coaching session. Some feel overwhelmed by that. Others push back because they hate being told what to do. I do my best to watch for your cues and communicate to fit your style.
My job is to clear the noise
Once you discover an answer it often seems so obvious, but there’s so much noise in hospo and so many competing demands that seeing the answers in the confusion takes focus. I give you permission to do one thing at a time.
Your commitment is to yourself
You set your goals, and I hold you accountable. It’s up to you to push for what you want in your business. I don’t dictate what success looks like for you. I'm here to hold you accountable to your own standard.
I don't always have the answers
As your coach my job is to sit in your blind spot asking questions to help you think your situation through in new ways and decide where you want to go. We’re solving problems together, not training you on the basics.
This coaching isn’t right for you if ….
You’re just starting out
If you’re at level one in most areas of your business, I’ll struggle to help you. This coaching is for people that can have some pillars at level one but will need a few that are at level two and above to really benefit from coaching.
You can’t make time to do the work
If you’re baker, bookkeeper, and head of HR, torn between which tools to be on each day, will you be able to carve out time to prioritise growth?
Your business is in trouble
If you’re looking for a silver bullet to rescue your business, I’m afraid it doesn’t exist.