How Do You Measure Success?

I had an interesting “a-ha” moment this week. In order to achieve a specific goal, a crucial beginning step is to have clarity on your outcome, right?  For me, I have been working on a program that I plan to offer in January.  I have a specific goal in mind as to how many people I want to “show up” for my next program.  It’s an aggressive goal, but if we don’t aim high, we will never grow.

In all honesty, there’s a piece of me that’s terrified. Of what, you might ask?  I am terrified that:

• No one will show up
• For those that do show up, what they will think of me
• What I have to teach will not be of good value and they will criticize it
• I will omit important material
• The organization of my program will be messy and people will complain

We all have these kind of fears when we are about to step up to the plate. My “a-ha” came to me as I finished my run.  I heard a whisper in my head saying “Don’t measure your success by the number, but rather what you give.” In that moment, I actually got it.  I have been so focused on getting a certain number of people to register for my program in January, that I have lost focus on what I will be giving them, and how it will help them grow…in their business and in their lives.

The thing is, in every personal growth book I have read, or CD to which I have listened, they teach you to pick a number and focus on it, because when you do, you have clarity…and clarity is power. But the realization I had yesterday was that YES, I need to pick a number and focus on it.  However, I should NOT measure my success against this number.  It’s like you have to pick a number and focus on it to give the universe clarity around what you want…but then, you have to let go of it a little and instead focus your energy on what you will give and measure your success by how much you did give.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. When you measure your success by a results based number, you give your power away.  In all reality, I have no control over what people will or will not do…including signing up for my program.  But when I measure my success by the number of people that sign up, I am giving my power to something external, outside of me and my control.  No wonder why that feels so scary!  What I CAN control is what I give to them, and that’s how I should be measuring my success.  And to back up a little, I can also measure my value by what I have to give.  How do I know what I have to give?  A whole lot of personal growth and discovery.

It made me think of the Law of Circulation. We are all aware of the Law of Gravity – that if I jump out of a 2nd story window, I will fall down, not up, nor will I float.  Well, there are lots of other laws that govern our life on this earth and one of them is the Law of Circulation, which is simply that you get what you give.  You may have heard of karma.  Karma is just another way of stating the Law of Circulation.  In fact, you get way more than you give.  But the circuit starts with giving.  So, if you want to get (like I want to get my number), I have to start with the giving side.

Your assignment today is to identify one or two things that you have to give and then give it to people all day long. It could be something as simple as a smile or a sense of humor.  Or it could be a little more intellectual like a great tip on a secret restaurant for a client traveling to Italy.  Change your focus on what you have to give, not what you can get, and go give it.  Do this on a daily basis and you will see significant changes in your life.

Tired of Price Shoppers?

How frustrating is it when a prospective traveler phones, asking you to quote on a cruise, and you spend half your day researching their request, get back to him with great options, and he goes and books his cruise online?

If this happens to you, I have one very simple reply.  You are fishing with the wrong bait. In other words, your marketing message is attracting the wrong type of client.  My advice to you is enhance your marketing message so that you are promoting YOU, not just the products you sell.

Your ideal clients don’t buy products, they buy solutions – and that’s the huge value you provide. There are lots of tire kickers, bargain hunters, and “do-it-yourself” vacation planners out there.  They happily take all the free information they can get.  When you only market the vacation product, which is what you do when you promote cruises, tours or vacation specials, you attract price shoppers.  In fishing terms, the bait is wrong, because it’s appealing to the wrong types of fish.  These are NOT your ideal clients, because they will never value your services.  Stop trying to convert them.

All you have to do is change your bait. Create a marketing message that appeals to travelers that already value the services of a professional and willingly pay for them.  Get clear on the solutions you provide, not just the products you sell.  Everybody is tuned into WIIFM – What’s In It For Me?  Show your prospective clients what’s in it for them when they work with you.

A great place to start is by focusing on common motivators. According to Jim Edwards and David Garfinkel in their book “Ebook Secrets Exposed” www.ebooksecrets.com, the most powerful motivators are (in order):

1. Make Money
2. Save Money
3. Save Time
4. Avoid Effort
5. Get More Comfort
6. Achieve Greater Cleanliness
7. Attain Fuller Health
8. Escape Physical Pain
9. Gain Praise
10. Be Popular

Not every one of these motivators fits your travel business, but I am certain you can choose at least 4 that do. Decide which motivators fit your business – then craft specific examples of how this has already happened with past clients.  Weave these messages throughout your marketing.  When you market yourself, the solutions you provide and the experiences you create, you will attract your ideal client.  People silently want to be lead.  When you show them the way to the memorable, life changing vacation that you can create, your ideal client will seek you out and willingly pay for your services.

Now this does not mean you should stop promoting vacation products, by any means! In fact, I urge you to use all the fantastic marketing materials provided by travel vendors.  All it means is that your marketing message is missing a very important piece – YOU.

What is Web 2.0?

Travel agents are often on a shoe-string budget to market their business, and thus, marketing can often take a backseat. This is the road to failure.  Please know that effective marketing is the key to your success.  You cannot overlook this.  It’s easier and easier now to market your travel business on a very limited budget.

So, if it’s a shoe string budget  you are after, then you will need to understand Web 2.0, otherwise known as social marketing. This article will breakdown exactly what Web 2.0 is, and will give you three very good reasons why social marketing is so important. 

Web 2.0 is simply a form of marketing using one or many of the social media outlets. Those outlets can be broken down into 6 different types.

1. Social Networking – the most popular of these outlets include Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, DirectMatches, and Ryze;
2. Social Bookmarking – well known ones include Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.  Originally, social bookmarks were places you could store your favorite bookmarks online, so that you could access your bookmarks from anywhere, not just your own computer.  Social bookmarking has evolved as people began to share their bookmarks with others.
3. Content Sharing – best known sites for content sharing are Wikipedia, Squidoo, Hubpages, Gather and E-zine Articles.  Content sharing sites are great for people who don’t have any web skills but want to share content on the internet.  This is a perfect fit for travel agents, because people always want to learn about places to travel.
4. Media Sharing – most well known are YouTube, Flickr, SlideShare, JamGlue;
5. Blogging – go to my recent post on Blogging to learn more, Blogging 101
6. Adapters – Amazon, Google Products, Cafe Press – these are traditional websites that “adapted” their products to the social marketing scene.

Why Focus on Web 2.0?
The answer is simple.  FREE marketing of your travel business. What’s so powerful is the multi-dimensional nature of the free marketing.

1. Social media sites and content get excellent search engine placement, so that when a potential traveler searches on “India”, your social media content may rank very high and they will find you, for free;
2. If you have your own website or blog, which I highly recommend, you can create links from your social media posting to your website or blog, called inbound links.  The inbound links to your website or blog from every piece of social media post and content, substantially improving your website rankings – and that means potential travelers will find YOU and not Orbitz, when they are researching online for their next vacation;
3. The quantity of people using social media outlets is huge, so the potential traffic is enormous.  Just to validate this point, as of today, Alexa, the website service that ranks traffic on websites, ranks Facebook as the number 2 most visited website, just behind Google.  In addition, YouTube is number 4.  Thus, of the top 4 most visited websites, social media websites have 2 positions.

Web 2.0 gives independent travel agents powerful tools to market their travel business, without costing much money, and the ability to compete with even the most impressive competition, like Travelocity.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by all of the different options, have no fear...just pick one or two social media outlets and focus on them until you have mastered them.  This effort alone will put you on the path to success.  Only then, should you look to add other social media outlets to your marketing pie.  Start with the ones that come most naturally to you.  It will be fun and your business will thrive.

Make Money Online for Free

If you are a travel agent and you don’t have YOUR OWN website or blog, then you are missing out on a huge, effective and FREE marketing opportunity in your travel business. A website or blog does so many things – it captures potential travelers when they are searching on the internet about their next vacation, it helps you stand out from the crowd and distinguish yourself from online booking sites and other agents, so they book their vacation with you, and it helps you keep in touch with prior clients, inspiring them to go on another vacation and call you when it happens.  Thanks to Wordpress, starting your own blog is easier than ever (and it costs NOTHING too!).

Read this article to learn exactly why a Blog could be a turning point in your travel business.

1) Safe Place
A blog is a safe place for potential customers to learn more about you, read your material, get to know you and decide if they want to do business with you. On a blog, they can look without buying.  On a blog, they can acquaint themselves without having to give you contact details.

2) Branding & Positioning
People don’t buy products, they buy solutions. A blog is where you position yourself as a solution provider…not a seller of travel.  When you approach someone in an effort to sell a vacation, that person will pull away, which can result in you chasing them.  The most successful marketers never chase customers.  Instead, they position themselves as experts in their field.  On a blog, you can share everything you know about your specific expertise in travel, and show them how you will solve their vacation problems and create lifetime memories.  It lets them know that you are trying to help them, not scam them.  When they realize they need a solution, they will come back to you.  A blog is a great FREE tool for you to shift from push marketing to pull marketing.

3) Amplifies Social Marketing Efforts
If you want the travel business of your dreams, but only have a shoestring budget, you must embrace social media by using Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and other FREE marketing outlets. Once you are actively using those, it is much more effective to direct Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and MySpace followers to your blog than to company website.  People will take you seriously.  In addition, you are able to gather so many more e-mail addresses because you are a real business, not doing this as a hobby.

4) Building Equity
I have saved the most important for last. Every time you post an article to your blog, you are building your content.   What’s even better, as a travel agent, you have so much interesting content sitting in your head, based upon all the travels you have taken.  All you have to do is download your fabulous portfolio of amazing vacations onto a blog.  If you post daily or even once a week, consistently, for several months, you will eventually have a very valuable asset.  All your articles generate FREE marketing on the world wide web and that NEVER expires.  You will continue to get FREE website traffic from 3 months worth of daily posting for years and years to come.

Learning how to market your travel business online for free will take time and effort, but it can be done. Setting up and posting to a blog is a critical starting point for long term success.  What I love most about blogging is that people can be their true self and it’s the most genuine and authentic way to promote your awesome travel services.

Home Based Business Opportunities

Years ago, travel agents did not have to focus much time or effort on marketing. Today, with so many people using the internet to search for things like information on their next big vacation, the emergence of online booking engines may seem like competition, but shed a different light on it and you will see a fantastic opportunity for travel agents to snap up new business.  However, this means that you, the travel agent, must go online to get your prospects.  And that does NOT mean relying upon your agency’s website with a little bio on you.  It DOES mean that you need to have your own, personal website.  The good news is that using online marketing is very cost effective, anyone can do it (including internet virgins!), and it can be a whole lot of fun if you understand what you are doing.

Online Marketing overwhelm

My goal today, is to get you to understand the big picture of online marketing. There are a lot of hot topics and terms that we are bombarded with on a daily basis like Facebook, Twittter, MySpace, SEO rankings, LinkedIn, YouTube, Keyword Research, tags, and the list goes on.  There are so many bits and pieces floating around, it can make a travel agent’’s head spin and feel so overwhelmed and intimidated, they want to give up.  Don’t give up!  This post is going to be immensely helpful to you.  It’s going to show you how to use online marketing as a HUGE asset, rather than see it as competition.

Let’s go back to the old days for one minute, before the internet existed. If you were a travel agent back then, you most likely worked out of a brick and mortar location (and got paid salary, not commissions).

Today, there’s a good chance you work from home.  Even if you don’t, you must think like you do, because you are in business for yourself. So nowadays, the only difference is that your brick and mortar will be your website.  This is your hub, where people can learn more about who you are, how you can help them create vacations to last a lifetime and how to book their next vacation with you.  Your website can be as quick and easy to set up, as a Wordpress blog.  Read my post called “Blogging 101″ to learn more about setting up a blog.

Once you have the websiteblog established, you have 2 simple goals:

1. Get visitors to your website (AKA traffic)
2. Convert visitors into buyers

Website is your hub

Getting Visitors to Websites
Getting traffic to a website is far easier and cheaper than it sounds. This is how you can compete with any other travel planner.  All of the social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc, are simply ways to drive traffic to your website.  In addition, they are powerful, effective and FREE.  That’s how these outlets fit into the big picture.  The reason they are so popular is because they are fast,  incredibly effective and FREE.  So, clearly, these are outlets worth paying attention to, if your budget is limited.

Conversions are where the rubber meets the road

Converting Visitors into Clients
Converting your traffic into paying clients is the where the rubber meets the road. This is the piece that draws the line in the sand between success and failure.  Anybody can drive traffic to a website, but if you are good at converting your visitors into buyers, you can make millions.

Some super clever internet marketers, in the 1990s, figured out a system that is very effective for converting website traffic and is called the “sales funnel.” In the next few paragraphs I will explain the “sales funnel” to you show you how to apply this clever marketing strategy to your travel business, resulting in a consistently full pipeline of high paying, ideal travel clients.  It will be so easy, you won’t believe it.

There are three goals of a sales funnel:

1. build a relationship with the prospective traveler
2. filter out the people that would not be ideal clients (you don’t want them anyway!)
3. convert them from prospective client to buying customer

The powerful part of the sales funnel, is that it works on auto pilot, in your sleep.  That’s the incredible leverage of the internet!  Even if you are a one-man shop, you can build an enormous database of awesome, high paying, ideal travel clients.

IFO

A sales funnel begins with an “irresistible free offer” on the home page of your website. Let’s say your specific expertise is luxury cruises.  Many, many people search the internet on a daily basis trying to find the best deal on a luxury cruise.  Because you have done your research on the best keyword phrases, and your website is optimized because of clever useage of social media outlets all directing traffic back to your website, this potential cruise traveler finds your website at the top of the Google search page.  When they get to your website, they see an amazing offer to receive a fabulous FREE report called “The Top 10 Secrets to Saving Money on Your Next Luxury Cruise.”  That visitor thinks, “Wow!  That’s exactly what I was looking for.”  In order to receive this wonderful and educational piece of information, he must complete a form asking for his name and e-mail address, and perhaps other contact details.  If your website visitor bites, he has immediately taken one step closer to qualifying himself as an ideal client, and you collect his contact details in a database where you can begin establishing a relationship.  It’s a win-win.

The name and e-mail address of your website visitor go straight into a program called an automatic responder (A/R). Here, you have set up a confirmation and thank you e-mail sent immediately to your prospect, and includes your free information.  In addition, you will have set up a series of follow up e-mails that keeps your business in front of this prospect and continues with developing a relationship.

Sales Funnel

The sales funnel continues through correspondence with this prospect in your A/R. At some point, you will offer or recommend cruises that you have enjoyed, and detail how working with you maximizes the cruising experience.  You might begin offering lower priced cruises, or specials which are not necessarily the bookings that will make you fortunes…but if you are only focused on selling the big ticket item, then you are missing an important piece of the sales funnel.  For each response to your cruise special, your prospect continues to qualify himself and, eventually, may call you, inquiring about the special, but then talk himself into your big ticket item, without you doing a thing!  In addition, the client will have learned so much about working with you, thanks to all the free information you continue to drip to him through your auto responders, that the booking process is shortened considerably.

I hope that you can see the power of the sales funnel and that I have clarified how it leverages the internet to build thousands of relationships, lets the client self qualify and even possibly puts money in your pockets, all while you sleep.

Industry Leaders

If you want to be a raving success in your travel business, hands down, the best, most efficient and easiest path is to find the people who have achieved the level of success you desire and duplicate what they have done. So, success secret #2 is:  “Surround yourself with the best of the best.” Seek them out, observe what they do and then take action.

Are you coachable?

There is an implied Success Secret here, and without the implication, Success Secret #2 will not work. The implication is you have to be coachable.  I cannot stress that enough.  Seriously, why struggle with figuring out how to do something when, odds are, someone else has already done it successfully?  Of course, you can adapt things, but the blueprint already exists.

Your job is to find your industry leaders, surround yourself with them, and then follow the blueprint. There are many ways to surround yourself with your industry’s top producers and I am going to cover a few..

Books
A trip to the bookstore could be one of the most cost effective, life-changing journeys you ever go on.  Find the non-fiction area and begin exploring.  There is tons of advice out there, even if you can’t find a leader in your industry, you can always find one that resonates with you, and then apply the philosophies you learn to your business.  A few of my favorites are:  “Secrest of the Millionaire Mind” by T. Harv Eckar, and “Happy Pocketful of Money” by David Cameron Gikandi.

Home Study Systems

Client Attraction Home Study System

Typically in a home study system, you get a set of 8 or more CDs or videos, accompanied with a binder, chock full of information and worksheets. There will usually be a lot of other extras, like access to a password protected area of a website, a rolodex of resources that would take you years to accumulate yourself.  I like these because they are the exact blueprint created by your leader.  All you have to do is commit to following along, completing your course, and then taking action in your business.  The price tag is almost always in the 3 digits and sometimes in the 4 digits, quite a step up from reading a book, but the interactive nature make them well worth the splurge.

My personal mentor, Fabienne Fredrickson of Client Attraction, has one of the greatest Home Study Systems around, and I am not saying that because I earn a commission if you click the photo and purchase it, (thanks to brand new FTC rules, I have to disclose if/when a reader purchases a product I recommend and I make a small commission.)  What’s great about the Client Attraction Home Study System is that it can be applied to many, many different industries.

Live Seminar Events
I have personally benefited enormously from live events, because not only do you get to interact with your industry leader, you get to meet hundreds, maybe thousands of people trying to succeed in their own business, just like you. The ideas and exposure is simply amazing, and then there is the interaction with your leader.  Often, live seminar events carry a pricetag in the 4 digits, so this can scare off many people.  Even still, I highly recommend them and you will find you get back way more than your investment.

Oprah Winfrey

The most successful entrepreneurs, like Oprah Winfrey and Richard Branson have a few things in common that I believe are their secrets to success. If you master them all, you will be on the path to a very prosperous future, but also a most fulfilling life.  I also want you to know that:  YOU ARE CAPABLE of mastering these.  Today’s post is about one of those secrets.  Later posts will detail the other secrets.

Sir Richard Branson

Most important however, is they recognize that all their power is inside themselves, and in valuing what they have to give. When that happens, financial prosperity naturally follows.

“Wealth accumulates on the inside before it expresses itself on the outside.”  David Cameron Gikandi, Happy Pocketfull of Money

Sadly, it’s rare when we come across a business or person who has. We all have special gifts and we were put here on this earth to share them with others.  This may seem a really simple concept, but it is incredibly powerful if you live your life and run your travel business by it.

So, step one in laying the foundation to a successful travel business is identifying your own personal gifts and making a commitment to value what you have and then give to others. When you value yourself, a natural side effect is the desire to share yourself with others.  Conversely, when you don’t value who you are, you are afraid to share yourself with others, or subconsciously hide who you truly are, and end up pretending to be something else.  Trust me, that’s not a fun way to live, and it gets exhausting.

Think about this example – let’s say you have a beautiful pendant necklace that was passed down to you from your grandmother. It’s made out of a semi precious stone and set in platinum.  It’s a necklace you have loved all your life and it makes you smile everytime you look at it.

Pendant from Grandma

You have a good friend that is going to a big, red carpet, Hollywood event and she shows you her dress. The second you see it, you know your pendant necklace would be the perfect complement to her dress.  You scream with delight as you tell your friend about the perfect necklace she must borrow.  She is just as excited as you when she sees it, and it looks so beautiful.  Everybody is happy and everybody wins.

Now, let’s look at this same example and change one, simple thing. You still have the pendant, but you never liked it.  Your friend shows you her dress and you tell her it’s gorgeous, but it never occurs to you to tell her about your grandmother’s pendant.  It’s been years since you looked at it and it’s burried away in the bottom of some dresser drawer.

There are a lot of lessons you could draw from this example, but the one I want to focus on is:  when you value your gifts, it gives you immense pleasure to share them with others. You WANT to share them with other people.  When you don’t value your gifts, it doesn’t even occur to you to share them with others, you have buried them away so long ago, that you have completely forgotten about them.

So, today’s assignment is to explore who you are and what natural gifts you have to give. A great place to start is by identifying the things you enjoy doing most.  For some people, it’s terribly obvious, but for others, it might not be so.  A lot of limiting beliefs will come up.  Don’t listen to them.  Today’s assignment is to begin your Safari 2 Success on a personal discovery journey.