Hillary Folkvord is the Founder of Lady H, a lifestyle and consulting brand focused on hospitality, entrepreneurship, and mentorship. She is the owner and operator of boutique hotels, including RSVP Motel, Farmers Daughters Cafe, and The Cottages at Bigfork, located in Montana. With over 17 years of experience in hospitality, she has expertise in property development, branding, revenue strategy, and independent hotel operations. Hillary also advises emerging hoteliers on marketing, financial management, and building guest-centered hotel brands.
Beautiful rooms don’t pay the bills. Occupancy does. Hillary Folkvord built three Montana hospitality businesses — RSVP Motel, Farmers Daughters Cafe, and Cottages at Bigfork — by connecting story-driven design to revenue strategy. She grew occupancy from 40% to roughly 80% across her properties.
Hillary Folkvord, Founder of Lady H Consulting and a 6th-generation Montanan with 17 years in hospitality, joins Kin Sio on The Lights On Podcast to break down what actually works for independent hotels. Her approach: every property needs a clear narrative. RSVP Motel leans into roadside nostalgia. Cottages at Bigfork plays up the lakeside retreat. That identity shapes design choices, local partnerships, and which guests you attract. When the brand is specific, the right travelers book direct and come back.
They dig into the mechanics — using OTAs as a visibility tool without giving up long-term profitability, building partnerships with local businesses to drive occupancy in shoulder periods, and knowing when to stop doing everything yourself. Hillary founded Lady H Consulting to mentor emerging hoteliers through exactly these decisions: when to hire a revenue manager, how to think about ADR and channel mix, and where first-time operators waste the most money.
This episode is sponsored by Lights On.
Lights On helps hotels grow revenue more consistently by managing pricing, distribution, and digital marketing together.
We help hotels identify new revenue opportunities, so they don't leave money on the table. We also run the full revenue and marketing operation, so the team on the ground can stay focused on the guest experience.
If your hotel needs more revenue growth, visit lightson.co to learn more.
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Kin Sio: Welcome back to the Lights On Podcast. I'm Kin Sio, CEO of Lights On and your host today. On this podcast, we share stories from across hospitality about building and growing hotel businesses.
This episode is sponsored by Lights On. Lights On helps hotels grow revenue more consistently by managing pricing, distribution, and digital marketing together. We help hotels identify new revenue opportunities so they don't leave money on the table. We also run the full revenue and marketing operation so the team on the ground can stay focused on the guest experience. If your hotel needs more revenue growth, visit lightson.co to learn more.
Today, I have Hillary Folkvord with me. Hillary, welcome to the show. You are a hospitality entrepreneur and a hotelier dedicated to creating memorable guest-centered experiences through thoughtful design and service. With extensive experience in boutique property management and revenue strategy, Hillary focuses on elevating local tourism while supporting community partnerships in Montana.
Hillary is passionate about sustainable hospitality, creative storytelling, and mentoring emerging leaders in the industry. Her hotel and restaurant portfolio includes the RSVP Motel in Bozeman, the Farmer's Daughters Cafe in Bozeman, and the Cottages at Bigfork. And obviously her lifestyle brand, Lady H. And Hillary is also going to be launching some new exciting projects we're going to talk about later today. Hillary, welcome to the show.
Hillary Folkvord: Thank you so much for having me.
Kin Sio: So we always want to start with this question for our guests. How did you start in hospitality in the first place?
Hillary Folkvord: Yes, it was by default. My family, we are entrepreneurs by trade. I grew up on a family farm just west of Bozeman, and it's where I learned about hard work and being an entrepreneur and being gritty. We talked about business around the dinner table.
I was actually in grad school at the time at University of Denver, just finishing up. And my father called me unexpectedly and he said, "We need your help back home." They had just bought back the company they built, Wheat Montana. So they were in the process of rebuilding that company. My grandfather had just passed away, so they were short a person on the farm, and they had just bought this historic 1910 hotel property in the hometown that I grew up in. And they just said, "We need some help." I said, "All right, I'll give you a year of my life." And here it is 17 years later -- it's crazy how that works out.
But I was really thrown into it just by default. I was seeding wheat during the day and then bartending at night at the hotel and just learning a lot about hospitality. Later, that was in the spring -- later that fall, the GM moved in a different direction and my parents said, "Well, you're the new GM." And I was 23 years old. I had never worked in a hotel. I'd never managed people. I'd never worked in a fine dining restaurant -- all the things. So I really just learned as I went, and sometimes that's the best way to learn.
[3:17]
So we started that project off the 1910 historic property and it really cultivated my love for hospitality, for creating memorable moments for people, for just really creating story and brand building. And it was really the launching into my career in hospitality.
And from there, we started the RSVP Motel, which is in Bozeman. It's a trendy, funky roadside motel, along with the Farmer's Daughters Cafe, which is our passion project for real good whole foods. We call it a fast food that makes you feel good type of food.
And then from there, we recently purchased a property up in Bigfork, Montana. It's on a beautiful lake up there called the Cottages, and there are 13 individual cottage units. And we're hoping to bring some of our love for luxury hospitality to that property.
Kin Sio: That's great. So when you started, it was a one-year commitment. Obviously that turned into 17 years and is going to be turning into a forever career for you. Was there a defining moment where you realized this is your true passion?
Hillary Folkvord: There are a few. I realized that everything that I love to do in my personal life and my true lifestyle has to do with hospitality. I love to entertain and have people over and have dinners and create memorable moments. I love to travel. So it was when we were traveling, we were bringing back these really cool experiences we were having around the world. And so it was really encompassing a lot of the things that I was doing anyway.
Style and fashion -- that all has to do with interior design when it comes to properties. And I always believe when someone steps into your property, they should have this feeling, whether it's cultivated through a signature scent, playlist, color scheme -- there should be a feeling that you're creating as people step through the door, whether it's in your home or in your hotel or restaurant. So a lot of those things I was doing anyway has really come back to my love for creating memories for people.
[5:14]
Kin Sio: Yeah, I actually have been to the RSVP Motel and the Farmer's Daughters Cafe, definitely. And it's the blessing of being an independent hotel owner where you have a lot more freedom to really create -- to your point -- the scent, the color scheme, the playlist that are very unique to that property, the feeling and experience that you want to create for your guests.
Hillary Folkvord: And I think that's the best part about being an independent hotel -- we're able to partner with these amazing local vendors and bring these experiences into our hotel rooms, into our guest experiences, that you're not always able to do when you're with a big flag or a big corporation. So that's been really fun for us.
For example, when people check in, we do complimentary champagne, and people love that. Throughout the rooms, you're going to find local companies -- local Grounded Coffee in the room. We've partnered with another woman who does a signature face oil, so you're going to find samples in the room for that element. The electrolyte company is actually based out of Bozeman. So again, that's another little feature inside of our rooms that I think really helps us stand out when people are looking for value when they're traveling.
Kin Sio: Yeah, and the key thing is everything that you guys offer is all made and partnered through local businesses in Montana. I think that is really a big one.
Hillary Folkvord: It is, and it's amazing how those partnerships and collaborations really help both of our businesses, right? So we're promoting them throughout their stay. They're promoting us, whether it's on their website or through their social media. It's really great partnerships.
So it's one thing that I always tell hotels at the hotel conferences -- the more partnerships you can do, the better. We also connect our hotel as a music venue, and that's been a huge partnership for us. They're selling our hotel out on Tuesdays, right? As we know in hotel world, we want to be full on the weekends, we're fine. It's like, how do you fill those heads in beds on those off days? So partnering with local music venues, other local activities has been really important for us and our success.
[7:14]
Kin Sio: Yeah, that's great. So knowing that you've built a very unique experience at RSVP Motel, and obviously in the past the previous hotel, the Sacajawea Hotel, had a very different vibe. Now the newer project, the Cottages at Bigfork -- I know you guys are going through renovations -- it's also a different style. So you've built distinct properties -- they all feel and look different. How do you think about having a portfolio of multiple properties? How do you think about differentiating each asset while maintaining a cohesive vision for everything that you do?
Hillary Folkvord: Absolutely. Well, it's all about story. Every hotel, whether it was built in 1910 or the 1950s or even 2025, it all has a story, right? So it's how do we bring that story to life for each property that's so unique?
And the Cottages up in Bigfork, for example, it's just this beautiful nostalgia of going to the lake house during the summer. And it's like a Hallmark town up there. So how do we really bring that feeling to people when they step through the door? This is going to be a quiet retreat where you can read and you can restore and relax, but at the same time have adventures on the lake or the river or up in the mountains. So every hotel has a story, and that's my job -- to tell that story.
Kin Sio: Yeah. And sometimes it's so refreshing because in our line of work, we work with independent boutique and also the big corporate hotel corporations. When talking to hoteliers from across the spectrum, it's always the boutique and the independent owners who are really spending time thinking about the roots of hospitality. It's about creating that experience that's so unique that people get to love. I think over time, with technology involvement and all that, people tend to forget the uniqueness of what people are looking for when they go on travel. So really big kudos on that.
Hillary Folkvord: Thank you.
[9:12]
Kin Sio: So how do you balance that? Following on that part -- design and storytelling is a big part of hospitality. And at the same time, running a business, financial performance, all those metrics matter too. So how do you balance the design and the storytelling part with all these performance metrics in hospitality? We always talk about the ADR, the occupancy, top-line revenue. Do you find yourself having to balance that? Are there moments that they are complementing each other, and how would you navigate that?
Hillary Folkvord: Well, it's all about creating place, right? And I think first off, when you're in unique communities such as Bozeman, where we're very protective of this place that we call home, it's how do you create a place that feels authentic to the area? And with that, your customers will come.
We are an independent hotel and they're finding us because they're looking for something super unique. They're looking for something that makes them feel like they are in Bozeman, Montana. We've all stayed in big box hotels. They don't want that anymore. The traveler is changing so much in terms of how intentional they are about where they're booking, how they're booking, where they want to stay, where they want to eat. They want to eat at the local mom-and-pop restaurants. I think the demographic is changing in a really great way. So I think that's exciting for us.
But again, there's a lot of challenges that we are up against when it comes to these big branded hotels who have huge marketing spend behind them. And that's why a team like Lights On has been a game changer for us. And I can talk about how our occupancy went from 40% to 60%. And now we're running almost at 80% through working with a company that is hotel-based marketing. They understand how to work with the OTAs. That was something that I did not understand. They were the enemy for so long. Now I know we got to play the game.
So I think there's a lot of ways that independent hotels can really build off some of the marketing things that are going on with these bigger hotels. But how do we get in the flow? And how do we get our names out there? Because again, we don't have those big budgets to spend. So we have to be very intentional on where we're spending our money.
[11:27]
Kin Sio: Yeah, we're actually going to go back and touch on that topic as it has been top of mind for many independent owners for sure. But just following up on that -- obviously the storytelling, the design part of things -- the premise is always that once you create that unique product, people actually will come and purchase the product, AKA staying at the property that's unique. Do you have any examples? Where have you seen the design and the storytelling part directly impact revenue?
The reason I ask that is many hotels that we talk to, especially people not coming with a strong hospitality or design background, they always have a hard time wrapping their heads around -- "I can be spending all this time creating the experience and marketing message, but how do those efforts really impact the financial performance?" So I think what you've seen and what you did would really help our listeners understand that connection.
Hillary Folkvord: Yes, I think a lot of what we do is we tell our story. We're sixth-generation Montanans. We are stewards of the land here in Montana and we just want to see this place prosper. So I think it's coming back to your "why," and every hotel has a why. Why did you start that? Why are you starting this hotel? What's the reason? What's the story behind the location? What's the story behind the design? We all have that why, so it's how do we tell that story?
And again, it's always coming back to your roots and coming back to what makes you excited about bringing guests in, what is the reason. And I think that's what we get to do as independent hotels -- it makes us so exciting and so unique.
[13:18]
Kin Sio: Yeah, that's great. Going back to what you just mentioned about OTAs being the enemies, right? Definitely many people think about it that way. And I think a few years ago when you were at some of the conferences out there, you mentioned the same topic too. So I'm curious how that has evolved over time -- the direct booking debate, which we all know. Everyone wants to have more direct bookings versus the frenemy of OTA dependence. How do you think about that -- turning from treating them as enemies to something that you learned to collaborate with and work with and have good results?
Hillary Folkvord: Yes, so when we started working with OTAs 17 years ago, I did everything I could to avoid them, right? That 18 to 20% is a lot for a small hotel and those checks hurt to write. However, when we were really struggling big time with our occupancy at RSVP, we said we got to make some changes.
Speaking to someone else in the hospitality industry, they said, "You need to play the game with the OTAs. They have a million-dollar marketing spend on your hotel. If you can be at the number one top of their page at Booking.com or Expedia, people are going to book through Expedia, but they might go find you there and then go book direct with you."
And because we don't have the big marketing spend and we're kind of a nobody in terms of the internet -- when you just Google where to stay, the Hiltons and the big ones come up -- it was a huge opportunity for us to get in front of the right audience. So since then we have done all their promotions. Whenever they have something going on, we do it. And we have seen huge return on that. Granted, we have plenty of bookings that are booked through those OTAs, but we're still seeing a lot of direct bookings.
So sometimes people use it as a tool to find out where to stay in these areas. Hopefully they go and book direct. And I always really encourage that to guests.
[16:00]
Kin Sio: Yeah, and especially the other common challenge I hear from different owners is that they really don't like the quality of the guests coming through OTAs and things like that. But end of the day, we're all human beings -- when they come in and actually start getting to experience your property and that unique experience, there's also the opportunity to really wow them and turn them into VIP guests in the future.
And obviously one strong way of boosting direct bookings is getting them onto your email list so that you start owning that direct guest relationship. So hopefully you have ways to attract them coming back to the same property and staying again -- and this time they better be booking direct and not through OTA.
Hillary Folkvord: And we've seen a lot of VIP guests that had booked through OTAs originally. They loved their stay and they're booking with us before they even leave, direct. So there are some great opportunities and I would just recommend play the game and pay the 20% and move on.
Kin Sio: Yeah, and the beauty is it's not always the same, right? Everything is so fluid and seasonal, especially in the market of Montana. We all know the seasonality can be pretty extreme. Just knowing when it's going to be the right time to lean more onto the OTA business, and when the market is great during the summertime peak season, there's a lot more to be done shifting that traffic and business to web direct.
So nothing stays forever -- just making sure that every tool in your toolbelt has a place and knowing when to use it to maximize and not leave money on the table. And I think that's really important. If people don't have a revenue management team, you need to be looking at that daily and you need to be turning off those OTAs when you get to a certain occupancy, because you know you're going to get the direct walk-ins versus needing the OTAs at that point. So I think that's huge for us in the summertime, knowing when to turn that on and off.
Hillary Folkvord: Yeah, that's great feedback, great recommendation.
[17:24]
Kin Sio: So let's talk about something a little different. I know that we mentioned the original hotel that got you started with the hospitality industry, the Sacajawea Hotel. And after decades of running it, you guys ended up successfully exiting that property and sold it to another local operator. So what was that experience like, and what have you and your family learned from the process of switching ownership?
Hillary Folkvord: Yes, it was definitely bittersweet. That was a legacy property for our family. It's in a small community that we love. I grew up there. It's a wonderful place. But we always said if there was the right owner and the right buyer, we would pass the baton, and the right person came along.
So that's now giving us some flexibility to do some other things. And I think that's the really exciting part. Someone asked me the other day, "What are you going to do with all your free time?" I thought, you know what, I might take a pause and just take a breath, but also there's a lot of opportunities that we can do within hospitality that's not just necessarily brick-and-mortar hotels.
Kin Sio: Yep, especially getting to that point -- we're going to talk a lot about your exciting new projects as well. And obviously with the Cottages at Bigfork, it's also a newer property that you guys acquired and you're probably going to be spending more time on that.
Is the plan always going to be keeping the spirit of being the local Montanans? Are you guys planning to invest locally in the state, or any thoughts about going to other states? And if so, how would that philosophy change with different locations?
[19:06]
Hillary Folkvord: Yes, we're always looking for the next project, the one that just fits our portfolio. I'm not sure what that is yet, but we've been doing this for such a long time that I feel like we can pick up these type of businesses and do them again and again and again. And there's so much that we have learned, so many mistakes that we've made, that it's just going to make the process easier and easier. So we're always looking for the next venture.
My dream is always to own a hotel in Italy, which is a crazy dream, but it's out there. And so that's going to be something always on my goal list, my dream list there.
Kin Sio: Yeah, I mean, don't they -- all the small towns in Italy, right? Because everybody moved out, so they're always advertising, "Hey, come in, fix the place and all that." I definitely start seeing a trend of people going there and actually doing the work to fix up properties that are probably hundreds of years old. It's crazy.
Hillary Folkvord: It's so amazing and beautiful, and these properties are just so unique. So that's always out there. But besides that, there's going to be some other opportunities. We kind of know our wheelhouse now. We know what we're looking for. We've done the fine dining. We've done a bar. Those are a few things that I won't be doing again, so to speak. But we're much better at hotels, and our cafe is something that we can stand on.
The properties that we have, we just keep building on them. The opportunities are endless and the ideas are endless on how to market this place. And we have these shoulder seasons in Montana -- how do we fill the hotels during that time? What partnerships can we do? So it's really allowed us to have some time to think about that as well.
[20:38]
Kin Sio: Yeah. With everything that you learned over the past decade or two in hospitality, why don't you tell us -- I think that really gave you the motivation and ideas to launch the new project that you're working on. Why don't you tell us about Lady H Consulting and what you're thinking on that front?
Hillary Folkvord: Yes, so with Lady H Consulting, I have been helping young hoteliers for years, right? And giving them my playbook. And it's time that I start really doing one-on-one consulting, whether it's through hospitality or motherhood. And Lady H is my lifestyle brand that I've been building since 2017.
There's just a lot of opportunities to help young people, mentorship. I can teach them what I did wrong, all the mistakes I made, to just save them so much time. We hired a consultant in 2019, and I wish we would have done that 10 years prior. What I learned from hiring someone that knew more than I did about hospitality -- I mean, you could never read enough books. It was unbelievable what I learned.
So I was like, how can I help other people that might need -- how do you increase occupancy? How do you work with the OTAs? How do you create brands? How do you do storytelling? There's all these things that we've learned that I think I can share with others. And I hope that it'll be informative and value-add for a lot of people.
[22:05]
Kin Sio: That's great. So from there, and obviously over the years, you've been mentoring and consulting other younger, next-generation hoteliers. From that experience, what are the most common mistakes or challenges that you see new hotel owners make?
Hillary Folkvord: Oh man, just from my experience, the one thing I always say is hire people that are smarter than you. Hire people that really understand it. Working with a revenue management person -- that was a game changer for us. We were doing all of our rates on our own and we just didn't understand the market well enough on how to do that. So that was a huge game changer. Our ADR -- I mean, I should get an exact percentage, but it was way up from when we started with the revenue management person. So that was huge.
I think working with a branding and marketing team -- because social media is a job in itself, right? So we partner with a local company here who is really helping us build a brand. I think that's so important, especially in this day and age where there's so much noise on the internet. There's so many hotels out there. How do you stand out? How do you catch people's attention when there's so much noise?
So I think those are a few ways that are really important. And the other really big one that I would talk about with people starting out is your accounting -- understanding where the money's coming, where the money's going, watching the pennies. It's really important. I think as entrepreneurs in general, really getting a good grasp on that. And I think that's what holds a lot of entrepreneurs back from growing -- not knowing where the money's going.
[23:39]
Kin Sio: Yep. And I think you also touched on the other common challenge for entrepreneurs -- being an entrepreneur myself too -- when you're starting from zero to one, knowing that you don't have that much resources or capital at hand, and yet at some point you need to hire out. Finding the right people at the right stage to start that growth so that you can really get to that next level. How do you think about that balance? Bootstrapping your business, limited resources, at the same time finding a way to find the right people on your side to help you scale. How did you balance that?
Hillary Folkvord: It took us a while to figure that out. I mean, I did mention we hired a consultant and that turned things around tremendously. He introduced us to Lights On and he said -- we were using a local marketing company, which was great for our bookings and our travel ads and Google Ads, and they were wonderful, but they hadn't worked with hotels. So it's such a different market when a hotel is trying to put themselves out on Google and TripAdvisor.
And so I think it's important to get the right team on board that understands SEO and all those other metrics, because that's again a full-time job. And as an entrepreneur, we always joke -- when people walk through the door, they're just like, "Who's your IT person?" "That's me." "Who's your HR?" "That's me too." "Who's your marketing?" "That's me." So it's how can you offload some of those things to people that really understand it? And those are really good investments for your business.
So knowing where to spend the money, how to budget into these different categories that are really important -- I think that's critical for the growth of your business.
[25:15]
Kin Sio: Yeah, yeah. And speaking of that consultant, we also want to do a shout-out to him -- Alan Barmettler. He's definitely one of the legends in the industry. He's been around for such a long time and he's been consulting with lots of the independent owners like Hillary. And this is kind of how we eventually got connected. So big shout-out to him. He's just a legend.
Great, so getting into the last question of the show. Obviously we talked about the consultant, Alan, but Hillary, I'd love to find out -- any other mentors or figures in your life that really impacted how you think about hospitality? And share the best advice that you got from them.
Hillary Folkvord: Yes, well, the first one is my sister, Haley. She's my business partner and it's amazing to work with a family member because you're on the same page, you have the same goals. So it's been huge for us to divvy up a lot of the tasks and we both have our strengths. So it's really great to have that second person that really understands that. So that's been great.
I think otherwise within mentorship, it's finding someone within the community that really understands business or understands the community and how to build and how to bootstrap your way through it. We made a lot of mistakes, like I said, but we figured out a lot of marketing that we can do on our own around the community just to get our name out there. And the more partnerships that you can do, the better. And through that, you're going to find some really incredible mentors like I have.
[26:55]
Kin Sio: Yeah, awesome. Thank you, Hillary. So for everyone, we've been talking to Hillary Folkvord, owner of RSVP Motel, Farmer's Daughters Cafe, the Cottages at Bigfork, and Lady H Consulting. Hillary, where can people learn more about you?
Hillary Folkvord: You can find me over on my Instagram page. It's the best place that houses all of our businesses, and that's just at Hillary Folkvord on Instagram.
Kin Sio: Awesome. We'll make sure that's going to be on the show notes. All right, Hillary, thank you very much. Great conversation today.
Hillary Folkvord: Great, thank you for having me.
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