AJ Lakes

Alison helps you to increase money, standards, time and people.

Multi Award winning hospitality consultant & trainer Alison Magee-Barker, is the North's answer to the Hotel Inspector, bringing you the magic of success with clarity, focus, vision & drive.

14/09/2026

🏨 Imagine walking into your business and seeing confident managers, motivated teams and genuinely happy guests.

That is what a high-performing hospitality business should feel like.

But it does not happen by chance.

When those foundations are in place, everything starts to improve.

✅ Managers become more confident
✅ Teams become more engaged
✅ Guest experience becomes more consistent
✅ Commercial performance gets stronger

Sometimes businesses do not need more people, more meetings or more pressure.

They need more clarity.

If you know your business could be performing at a higher level, let’s have a conversation.

13/09/2026

🏨 𝙔𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙗𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙘𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙨. 𝙄𝙩 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥.

When I walk into a hospitality business, I start with the people.

Because your team and your leaders influence almost every part of performance.

Within just a few hours, I can often see where communication is breaking down, where accountability is missing and where opportunities are being overlooked.

And when we strengthen the leadership?

The team improves.
The guest experience improves.
Performance improves.
Results follow. 💥

Sometimes the biggest opportunity in your business is already standing right in front of you.

If you know your business could be performing better, let’s have a conversation.

11/09/2026

Owning or investing in a hospitality business should not mean getting dragged into every problem, every staffing issue and every operational decision.

Your investment needs strong leadership, clear accountability and commercial focus.

That is exactly where I can help.

I work alongside hospitality investors as the link between ownership and the operational team, helping to make sure the strategy is being delivered and the business is performing.

I support and challenge the leadership team, look for commercial opportunities, improve accountability and provide clear reporting so investors know exactly what is happening.

You can stay informed and in control without having to run the business yourself.

If you are an investor, owner or shareholder in a hospitality business and want stronger performance with less operational involvement, let’s talk.

11/09/2026

Your team may look busy, but are they driving profit? 🤔💰

Let's get real:

👉 Busy doesn't equal productive.

👉 Clarity, leadership, and training are key.

👉 Measure results, not just hours.

Want to transform your team’s performance? Let's chat!

10/09/2026

If you could only measure THREE things in your hospitality business, I’d start here:

1️⃣ Leadership accountability
2️⃣ Guest experience consistency
3️⃣ Team engagement

Why?

Because when these improve, revenue, profit and retention tend to follow.

Financial reports tell you what has happened.

Your people often tell you why.

Which of these three would you focus on first in your business?

09/09/2026

People often ask me, “𝗔𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻, 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀?”

The answer is… it depends on the business!

A typical day could involve reviewing the numbers, looking at commercial performance, coaching a manager through a difficult challenge, identifying new revenue opportunities or helping a leadership team see something they’ve become too close to the business to notice.

And that’s one of the things I love about my work.

No two businesses are the same.

But I regularly see the same challenges appearing:

Leadership.
Communication.
Culture.
Accountability.
Performance.
Profitability.

I never walk into a business looking for everything that is wrong.

𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿.

Sometimes that means a quick win that can generate additional revenue almost immediately.

Sometimes it means helping a manager become a stronger leader.

And sometimes it simply takes an outside pair of eyes to identify the thing everyone inside the business has stopped seeing.

So I’d love to know…
𝗜𝗳 𝗜 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄, 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁?

And if your answer is “𝗜’𝗺 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁”, send me a message. That’s exactly the sort of conversation I love having.

06/09/2026

Nobody enjoys having to tell someone they are underperforming.

But if you are a manager, those conversations are part of the job.

The problem is that we often promote people into management and then expect them to automatically know how to handle difficult conversations, poor performance, conflict and challenging behaviour.

That is a huge ask.

Managers need somewhere to practise too.

𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙬𝙚 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙄𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙞𝙑 𝙓𝙋.

You can experience realistic situations, make mistakes safely, try different approaches and build the confidence to deal with those conversations properly when they happen in real life.

Because good leadership is not about avoiding difficult conversations.
It is about knowing how to have them well.

🎥 𝙃𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖 𝙬𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙚 - 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙙𝙞𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙖 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙧?

05/09/2026

𝙒𝙝𝙮 𝙙𝙞𝙙 𝙄 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙄𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙞𝙑 𝙓𝙋?

Because I’ve spent more than 30 years in hospitality and I’ve seen the same thing happen again and again.

We recruit good people, hand them a manual, give them some basic training and then expect them to know exactly what to do when a real guest situation happens.

It doesn’t work.

You wouldn’t learn to drive just by reading the Highway Code — you need to practise.

Training our people should be no different.

ImmersiV XP gives hospitality teams the chance to experience realistic situations, make decisions, learn from mistakes and build their confidence before they face that situation for real.

No boring manuals.
No training just for the sake of ticking a box.
Just practical learning designed around what really happens in hospitality.

04/09/2026

I will never forget the night my kitchen team walked out.

We still had guests to look after.

We still had a service to deliver.

And suddenly, everything we had planned had changed.

That is when you discover what leadership really means.

It is not about being the person with the biggest title.

It is about staying calm, stepping forward and helping everyone around you believe:

“We can deal with this.”

The rest of the team pulled together, and somehow we turned what could have been chaos into a successful night.

Was it perfect?
Absolutely not.
But hospitality is rarely about perfection.
It is about people.
It is about teamwork.
It is about resilience.
And it is about having people around you who will step up when it matters most.

In this video I share what happened that night and one of the biggest leadership lessons it taught me.

Because you find out a lot about your culture when the unexpected happens.

Would your team know what to do?

04/09/2026

✨ Review what really happened over summer

✨ Protect your prices

✨ Create autumn packages

✨ Reset your team

✨ Start generating Christmas business

This week’s shares five ways hospitality businesses can make September genuinely count.

🎥 Watch now.

👉 Book your Profit Leak Diagnostic Call at AJLakes.com

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