Safari2Success is now the Global Institute for Travel Entrepreneurs (GIFTE).
As we continued to put our programs and products out in the market, we realized that there is a void within the travel industry. The travel advisor, whether he or she owns an entire agency, is an independent or works from home, has weathered some choppy seas in the form of airlines eliminating commissions, brick and mortar agencies closing their doors, online booking engines creating fierce competition, and a very difficult economy. If you have survived this, you should give yourself a pat on the back. It is no small feat what you have managed to get through and what’s happened to your industry.
We at GIFTE believe that the future of the travel advisor is bright and full of great opportunity. With the oldest babyboomers reaching the age of retirement this year and the increasing demand for treasured moments and experiences over material goods, the travel business will see incredible growth over the next 10-20 years. But for the travel advisor to succeed and excel beyond his or her wildest imagination, it will take a willingness to change how you do business and how you market.
No single organization is leading the community of travel advisors and showing them how to navigate these new seas. We, at GIFTE, decided to step up to the plate on take on this mission. Our mission, at GIFTE, is to give the travel advisor community all the tools, resources and support they need to reinvent their businesses, revolutionize their marketing and reach a whole new level of success in travel – one that includes making more money while making a difference in the lives of their clients.
Welcome to the community! Please come back often to see what new programs, products and solutions we are adding.
The average travel advisor
makes $35,000 per year. I
don’t know about you, but that is really depressing to me.
It’s depressing because I know how many hours you work. It’s
depressing because I know how hard you work, i.e., how much you do for
your clients that is over and above the call of duty. Most importantly, that number is depressing to me because I know you can do better….a whole lot better. I know you could easily double your income this year. Yes, YOUR business. Not your host agency, not your employer, but you. And here’s the other piece of good news, you don’t have to be smarter than anyone else….it doesn’t take an enormous amount of technological skills…you don’t have to be a social media expert….it doesn’t take luck….it doesn’t take special contacts.
What it takes to far exceed average in your travel business is the ability to make a decision. Not once, but over and over and over again. Everyday.
I can tell you that the reason you are not at your fullest potential, is because you haven’t been willing to make decisions.
What kind of decisions?
- The decision to
specialize.
- The decision to embrace new forms of technology, like Facebook.
- The decision to say “no” to unprofitable business.
- The decision to ask for a service fee that properly compensates you.
- The decision to reach out to former clients each day and ask them if they have travel planning needs.
- The decision to get out there and market your business face to face with people.
- The decision to ask for help.
Your assignment:
Decide today what specialty you will focus on in your business. Just pick one, once and for all! If you have multiple ideas, hone in and pick one and stick with it for 6 months. Pick the one that is easiest to market and will make you the most amount of money. Don’t get wishy washy. Get specific.
If you already have a specialty, then your job is to pick one marketing tool and start using it. Perhaps it’s speaking or networking or Facebook. Whatever it is, learn it and use it. For outstanding help and support around picking a specialty and the multitude of marketing tools you can use to get it out there in a big way, then check out the SAFARI Guide Home Study System: 6 Steps to 6-Figure Success. Just CLICK HERE to learn more.
I was recently reminded of a
powerful
lesson. We all face moments when we are asked
to do something, be something, or get involved with something that we
don’t want to do. Because we want to be good children, good
employees, good parents, good team members or good friends, we say
yes. Deep down what’s driving our yes is the desire to get
their approval, but our heart is saying no. We say yes anyway – because we are too young, afraid or insecure to stand in our own power. The problem, which many of us realize later on, is in that moment of saying “yes,” we said “no” to ourselves. The ramifications of which will certainly be felt down the road.
And thus, the lesson is: when
you say “no” to someone or something, despite the knowing that you will
disappoint or let them down, you say “yes” to yourself. When
you can stand in your power and say no, even when it’s not the popular
response, you have finally given yourself the gift of self love, and
your confidence builds tremendously.This lesson can come up over and over again in your travel business. There are many moments you are tested on this front. For example, a young and likeable couple reach out to you for help with their budget honeymoon. Little did they know you recently made a commitment to yourself that you were no longer taking inquiries for travel that did not meet a certain list of criteria, like a minimum budget of $5,000.
Their inquiry doesn’t meet one single
requirement on your new list, except that they are likeable. BUT,
they were referred to you by a very important client…a client that
books 3 or 4 high end cruises per year. You know in your
heart, you should be saying “no” to this business, but you feel you
should say yes, because you don’t want to disappoint your VIP
client. Plus, you like them and you could use the
business. Another thought comes to mind that you never know
WHO they may know and what referrals might come out of it. So, what’s the harm, right? WRONG! There is a major harm that is getting overlooked. That harm is YOU. My coach and mentor has said to me many times “How you do anything is how you do everything.” If you say “yes” to this client, you will be saying “no” to you and the commitment you made to your business. Where else in your life are you saying “no” to yourself?
Big changes start with small, seemingly
insignificant steps. Saying “no” to this
potential client is one of those seemingly small, insignificant steps
that will produce great, positive dividends for the future of your
business. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at some
negative ramifications of saying “yes” to this new inquiry:- If you say “yes”, you will be too busy to take the phone call that leads to a much better, much bigger booking, (which goes to another travel advisor before you have time to return the call).
- If you say “yes”, you will get frustrated and resentful of all the time they waste with you and then take your frustration out on your spouse.
- If you say “yes”, you will be so pre-occupied with this client that seems to be taking all your time, that you end up being on the computer in your home office when your 1-year old takes his first steps.
So, in conclusion, establish criteria for the bookings you work on and say “no” to the rest. You will be amazed at what shows up after you do this a few times. Utterly amazed.
A Script for You!
“Thank you so much for coming to me. I really appreciate your business. But, in order to service my clients best, I have to stick to what I know best. It doesn’t do my clients any good for me to work on business outside my expertise. Your inquiry falls outside my expertise, so I would like to refer you to a travel advisor (or resource if you think no other travel advisor would want the business either – you can refer to an online booking engine) that can better serve you. I wish you the best and please think of me when your travel plans include (insert your specialty here.)”
If you like this script and want more direction for taking your travel business to a whole new level, then consider investing in the SAFARI Guide Home Study System. Just CLICK HERE to learn more.
If
you are an online marketing veteran, the answer to this question might
be obvious, however, I
get this question A LOT, so if you have been secretly thinking this
question, but afraid to ask….don’t be. Confusing
the purpose of the electronic newsletter with a blog is very common, so
give me a few moments of your time and I will clarify.
An electronic newsletter is
something you send to your existing
list of clients and contacts. It can be sent
straight from your Outlook or e-mail system, but it’s much better if
you use a 3rd party, auto-responder system, like iContact,
Constant Contact, or MyEmma.
Done right, the electronic newsletter is one of the most powerful, cost effective marketing tools you can possibly use. It’s your way of staying top of mind with your clients, potential clients, friends and family, without being intrusive. If you follow the tips below, people will look forward to your electronic newsletter, open and read it often, and are likely to actually forward it to others. My clients who do it well, regularly get multiple inquiries each week, after they send their newsletter. Here are some tips for doing it correctly:
- Be consistent.
Send it once a week, on the same day
of the week, EVERY week, no matter what, even if it happens to be
Christmas. Why? When you are consistent you demand
respect. People believe you are reliable. It speaks
volumes about how you do business.
- Always begin with a
personal greeting. The personal
greeting
makes you a real person to your reader. Your clients want to
work with real people, NOT computers. Differentiate yourself
as much as possible from the online booking engines by always including
a fun, personal greeting at the beginning. Share things about
you and your personal life to let others in. Speak in a way
that you are speaking direct to your reader….not to a crowd.
Don’t EVER address your newsletter with “Dear Friends.”
- Use an auto-responder
service. An auto responder service is
a
3rd party provider that will store your contacts’ email addresses,
provide thousands of beautiful, professionally designed HTML templates,
and allows you to send an email to your entire list of contacts, but
address personally with things like “Dear Diane,”.
As
mentioned above, the auto responder service allows you, without
technical skill, to make your personal newsletter look slick and
p
rofessional,
conveying a powerful message to your reader. If
you simply send an email out of Outlook, it looks sloppy and not
professional. So, check out the ones I recommend today:
iContact, Constant
Contact, or MyEmma.
- Include Excellent,
Helpful Content. Your main article
in your
newsletter should be helpful and interesting….NOT
promotional. You want your readers to look forward to your
newsletter, open and read it, and forward it on to others.
The most effective way to get this result is to always include great
content. Give away your best information and they will come
calling to you for the rest. I promise, this works like a
charm!
- Always include pictures.
It’s almost impossible to get people
excited about travel without good pictures. As we all know, a
picture tells a thousand words, right? People are drawn in by
pictures and will dramatically increase your open rates and click
through rates. You will be putting in a decent amount of time
and effort on this, a little extra effort in finding the best pictures
possible will pay off big time. But here’s another important
piece about pictures. Also
include pictures of YOU,
especially in your personal
greeting at the
beginning. For
example, if you are talking about your son’s baseball game in your
personal greeting, show a picture of you and your son at the
game. You will have to get in the habit of taking pictures
with yourself in the photo. It’s not always easy, but it’s
very worth it.
Your existing clients and others on your newsletter list won’t see your blog posts UNLESS they subscribe to your blog, and most of them won’t. So the blog is really for attracting NEW business, while the electronic newsletter is for staying in touch with existing clients. They are very different purposes…but that doesn’t mean you have to reinvent the wheel all the time.
My advice to my clients who feel too overwhelmed by starting a blog AND a newsletter all at once is this: write 1 article per week and use it for both. Make it 200-500 words. In other words, be sure it’s short and sweet because most people will not read novels. Put this article in your newsletter AND post it to your blog. You have killed 2 birds with one stone.
When you get your system down pat and have a little more time, you could write one or two more articles a week and post those to your blog. But if you can’t get there, just do the one article and do both blog and newsletter. You will see a difference within a few weeks.
A very short post on Facebook reminded me of a powerful marketing lesson…one that you can easily use to attract more and better clients in your travel business today.
The post appeared the morning after the earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. There were lots of people posting messages of thoughts, prayers and love going out to the people of Japan. Even I posted something like this. And then I noticed a post by a gentleman, Jay French, but I couldn’t understand what he wrote….because it was in Japanese.
My immediate reaction was irritation. It was annoying that he was posting something in another language. And then it hit me….he’s genius and demonstrating a very powerful marketing message. If you want to market effectively, you must speak their language. And then I felt a little stupid for posting my own message in English. How assuming of me to think that the people I was trying to send love to would understand my English.
So how can you use this lesson in your marketing of your business? Start speaking the language of your ideal client. First place to start is to ask yourself, who is your ideal client? Have you identified who they are?
Identify your ideal client
If you haven’t identified your ideal client, it’s time to do so….otherwise, your marketing is not going to produce anything for you. Here are some tips for identifying your ideal client:
- Go through your client folders or database and grade each client from A to F. Clients who booked lucrative business, were delightful to work with, valued your expertise and are raving fans who refer lots of other people to you, would be an A. You get the picture, right?
- After you have graded your clients, put your As and Bs together and try to find the common denominators. Are they all men, or women? Are they married couples or single? Do they fall within a certain age group? Do they live in a similar area? What about their values? Do they belong to the same church? Did they graduate from the same college? Do they read the same newspapers or watch the same TV shows? Keep asking yourself these questions to find some of the common themes. There are bound to be some.
- Now go through your D and F grade clients. Make a list of all the reasons why they were not ideal. For example, a reason might be that they were totally focused on price and didn’t really care about the quality they were getting. Once you have completed your list, start a new list, by going through each item on the first list and turning it around. See below for an example. Once you have completed the turn around list, add these characteristics to your list of what your ideal client looks like.
Start Speaking Their Language
Now that you have a better idea
of who your ideal client is, you should
have more clarity around what they are going through in their
life. When you can identify with your clients
dreams and
their pain, you become so attractive to them. The way to do
this is to start speaking their language, even if that means learning
Japanese! Here are some tips for speaking their language:- Get in their head….not
yours. However, a lot of times your ideal
client is a lot
like you, so you can get in your own head if that is the
case. Get in their head and start thinking about the
struggles and frustrations they are going through. For
example, if your ideal client is a bride, some of the struggles and
frustrations she is going through is being really busy, overwhelmed
with the concept of planning a big wedding, not enough time for
herself, tired of worrying about everyone else’s feelings about the
wedding and not her own. And the list goes on,
right? Keep a list of all the thoughts she might have, trying
to start each statement with the word, “I.” It might look
like this: “I feel so overwhelmed right now.” “I am
tired of everyone else’s opinion and not being able to do it my
way.” “I don’t have enough time to get to
everything.” Keep a nice long list of these statements.
- Turn each statement into a question, being super careful to change the wording as little as possible. Using the above example:
- “I feel so overwhelmed” becomes “Do you feel so overwhelmed?”
- “I am tired of everyone else’s opinion and not being able to do it my way” becomes “Are you tired of everyone else’s opinion and want to do it your way?”
- “I don’t have enough
time to get to
everything” becomes “Do you have too little time to get to everything?”
- Now, you are successfully speaking their language! Use these “Pull” questions in your marketing…on the home page of your website, on the back of your business card, in the opening of a direct mail piece, etc.
Your Assignment:
Spend some time going through these exercises to identify your ideal client and start speaking their language. When you do, you will feel so much clarity around the value you provide. When you do, you will be so pleased with the quality of clients that start showing up for your….almost like magic!
You are passionate about travel, you’ve traveled the world, and you’ve experienced many things. You work hard for your clients, going above and beyond the call of duty. You’ll spend hours researching a client’s request. You’ve been woken up at 3am to help clients with a cancelled flight halfway around the world and you give the clients a calm, reassuring voice. You have made the impossible happen – tickets to a sold-out show, space on a sold out, last minute cruise, lunch with Cinderella at her castle on Christmas Day. But you do it all because you love travel.
As you continue on in your quest to make your client’s dreams a reality, the foundation upon which you have built your business is falling apart and disappearing before your eyes. You feel scared and beaten down. The airlines don’t pay commissions anymore. Many suppliers have reduced theirs too. The economy tanked and an entire segment of the population stopped traveling. Competition from online booking engines make it more difficult to charge a service fee and there are times you lose business because you can’t come close to matching their rates. There are days you wonder if it’s worth it. You question if there is a place for the travel consultant in the future of travel.
I say an emphatic YES! 
Today, I want to celebrate you, the travel advisor. I want you to know that I believe in you and your place in the future of travel. You create magical, memorable experiences that are worth more than your weight in gold. You do things no computer will be able to achieve. You are priceless.
But you are under appreciated, very rarely acknowledged and no one is throwing you a life preserver. You are a silent hero. Today, I want that to change. I want the world to know that I respect you, I acknowledge you, I honor you and I want to help you.
In doing so, I am making a commitment to you today. In a few weeks, I will be launching the Global Institute for Travel Entrepreneurs (GIFTE). Here you will find a place for passionate travel advisors to discover the tools, resources and community they need to re-build that foundation, take advantage of new opportunities springing from the ashes, and transform from travel agent to travel entrepreneur. The moral basis of GIFTE is the belief that the travel advisor plays a critical role in the future of travel, but he/she just needs some help, direction, resources and support.
The average travel consultant makes $35,000 per year. You don’t HAVE to be average. Isn’t time to be better than average?
There is one thing I ask of you in return. I ask that you be willing to re-invent yourself and your business. There is an abundance of opportunity in this business and so many ways you can be much better than average. But you will have to do things different. You may have to learn some new things, you may have to change the way you do business and you may even have to start over. The rewards are worth it and I am going to give you as many resources as possible to make those easier and doable. Are you willing? Will you join me in revolutionizing the travel business?
Fear of Facebook is a common disease amongst travel advisors. I don’t think it’s the fear of Facebook, but rather a fear of becoming a slave to Facebook and other forms of social media. To be fair, social media outlets can suck you in and within the blink of an eye, 3 hours can be easily wasted.
But the short answer to the question that is the title of this article: “Do I HAVE to learn Facebook?” is yes, if you want to stop struggling in your business. That’s why it’s so important to understand the role Facebook plays and to have an effective, 10-minute strategy for getting onto Facebook daily.
Why Facebook?
If I were to tell you that every Tuesday evening at 7Pm at your local Starbucks, there is a network meeting for avid travelers with hefty budgets, would you go? Maybe. What if I were to add that they are constantly asking questions about how to plan their travel? That would add a little more fuel to the fire – but you still might find excuses not to go.
Well, this is true about Facebook. There are millions of your ideal clients hanging out there, day in and day out, talking about travel, asking questions about travel, dreaming about travel, forming groups around travel and giving you immense opportunity to just jump in on the conversation and share your knowledge.
Facebook is an awesome, FREE place to network for your business. But don’t go into Facebook expecting to get immediate bookings. Just like at the imaginary weekly Starbucks meeting, you wouldn’t go marching in there with travel brochures and hand one out to each person you meet, expecting to walk away with business. No, you would go there to network, get to know these people, chat, learn more about them and give them great information and advice. That’s what you want to do on Facebook.
What to do on Facebook?
If you decide to test your feet in Facebook, start with the knowing that Facebook is for networking, not selling. And networking is just a place to create “Know, Like and Trust.” How do you create “Know, Like and Trust?”
- To create “Know” – share little things about yourself so people get a flair for your personality. Do you have children, or grandchildren? What’s your favorite TV program? Who is someone famous that inspires you?
- To create “Like” – share a little about your values and make people laugh. People who share the same values will like you more AND if you are able to laugh at yourself, people will be drawn to you. You don’t need to preach, but perhaps there is an inspirational quote you like. Maybe you learned a valuable lesson today and just want o put it out there.
- To create “Trust” – share your best information and advice. So many people think you should save your information and advice for your paying clients. No, DON’T!!! If you only take one thing from this article, please take this: “If you give them the best, they will pay for the rest.”
Personal Page or Fan Page?
On Facebook, once you have a personal account, you can set up “Fan Pages.” Often, businesses set up the Fan Page to keep it separate from your personal page. If you are an independent consultant, you ARE your business and I think you can successfully do either one. If you want to keep it really simple, just stick with your personal page – because many of your friends and colleagues will become clients. The only downside to this strategy is that once you exceed 5,000 “friends” you can’t have any more and at that point, you will have to move to a “Fan” page if you want to keep growing your following.
Another option is to do both – keep an updated personal account as well as a Fan page for your business. To be totally honest with you, being out there on Facebook with the correct strategy is 90% of the battle.
The 10-minute Daily Facebook Strategy
So, if I have inspired you to try out Facebook…or get more actively involved in Facebook, then, here is a great 10-minute strategy for daily “Facebooking” which won’t waste too much of your day.
- Add Friends – Everyday, you should try to add more friends to your profile – people that look like they would be ideal clients. When “friending” them, put a personal note in your request which will maximize the likelihood they friend you back. (NEVER exceed adding 20 friends per day):
- Status update (what you are working on, quote, something good happen?, etc)
- News feed (comment on relevant and interesting news topics)
- Share photo or video
- Inbox for messaging and connecting with your network
- Events for sharing upcoming events and programs
I see a lot of travel advisors without much of a web presence and it’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make in marketing your business. The reality is, your ideal prospects are online looking for advice and help. If you are a travel advisor, you should have YOUR OWN, unique web presence – and no longer rely upon your host agency’s website. Technology has made it really easy and inexpensive for you to do this.
What is the difference between a website and a blog?
The best way to understand the difference between a website and a blog is to define both. However, I am going to tell you from the outset that a blog is the best option for you. I assume most people reading this know what a website is, but the blog is less understood. So let’s start with defining a blog.
What is a blog?A blog (aka, web-log) is a type of website that uses software that makes it super simple to update and add pages. This allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog without needing a website technical guru. The owner/author of the blog can add a page to the website with a “post.” On the home page of the blog, a summary of the “posts” to the blog are arranged in reverse chronological order. To the outsider, a blog can look almost like a journal or diary.
But blogs have evolved and are very flexible, while still being easy to use for the novice. The author of the blog can also add “pages” which are static and act just like the pages of a traditional website. With this capability, one no longer needs a traditional website. A blog can serve as both.
Why Blog?
In addition to the blog being easier to maintain than a website, there are many other critical reasons you should consider blogging or having a blog.
1) Cost effective – you can start a blog for free at www.wordpress.com. Within a few short minutes, you can have your very own website presence for free. However, I highly recommend you go for the added $60-$70 expense per year to “self-host” your blog, to maximize your ability to find prospects>
2) Search Engine Friendly – One of the biggest reasons to have a online presence is so that people searching the internet for what you have to offer, come and find you. Without getting too technical, you want your online presence to be as search engine friendly as possible. “Self hosted” blogs are FAR more search engine friendly than websites…for many reasons that I won’t go into here. Just take my word for it.
3) 2- Way Communication – A blog gives you the ability to communicate with your prospects in a way a traditional website has never been able to do. With a website, if someone wants to reach out to you, he or she must first find your contact information or click on a “contact us” button and then click a link to send an email to you. With a blog, every time you post an article, readers have the opportunity to comment. This is how a conversation can get started and this small nuance is incredibly powerful.
What if I already have a
website – do I still need a blog? I know if you are asking this question, you are hoping my answer is “no”, but unfortunately, my answer is “yes.” If you already have a website, I highly recommend that you migrate your website to a blog platform like WordPress. If you don’t, you are missing out on maximizing your search engine capability. You can hire a website developer to do this for you without incurring too much expense. Someone I recommend is Chelle Honiker Yarbrough who
specializes in WordPress sites for the travel professional, contact@wp-traveldesign.com.
How Do I Get Started?
Go check out www.wordpress.org. If you aren’t sure how to self host your blog, just go to www.godaddy.com.
What exactly is a travel
agent? I did a survey on Facebook, asking my friends to
respond to this question: “what is a travel agent?”
The general consensus was summed up by one single response:
“someone who books your flight and trip.”As a former travel agent myself, I was insulted and very deflated by that. It completely minimized the effort, experience and wisdom great travel agents put into their clients travel journeys. A travel agent does WAY more than books a flight and trip.
But here’s the problem…that’s exactly what most people think of when you tell them you are a travel agent. To be fair, this definition does come close to what an online booking engine does. People are willing to pay a small fee for this convenience. If this is the general consensus, why on earth would they pay you a bigger fee?
The solution to this problem is you. Your job is to educate the consumer. Your job is to change the definition of travel agent. In fact, I believe the term travel agent should be retired, never to be spoken again, and replaced with something that better fits, like travel consultant or travel advisor.
How do you educate the
consumer? Through your marketing. As a service
professional, you might think your job is to provide the service you
offer. That’s only half your job. The other half of
your job is to market. And by marketing, I don’t mean pushing
products on people. Instead, I mean selling you and the
transformation you create in people’s lives. Here are 5 ways you can start marketing today – and educating the consumer at the same time:
Create an “elevator speech” by
following this
formula: I work with (Ideal Client Description)
who want (Juicy
Benefit) and (Juicy
Benefit). If you have taken the
Safari2Success Bootcamp, you will know what a Juicy Benefit
is. If you haven’t, it’s a benefit that really captures the
transformation you provide. Here’s an example of a good
elevator speech. Instead of saying, “I am a travel agent
specializing in Destination Weddings, say:
I work with busy brides who want to escape the hectic pace of life with a dream wedding on the beach, sun setting over the water and to be surrounded by only the most important people in their lives.
- Add your elevator speech to your email signature.
- Add your elevator speech to your voicemail greeting.
- Add your elevator speech to your business card.
On the back, tell them to contact you for a free 30-minute strategy
session.
- Create a 30-45 minute signature speech that educates AND
demonstrates your specialty and find a venue to deliver it once a month
(you could even do a webinar). Again, using the destination
wedding specialist example, she could create a Signature Speech
called: The 5 Biggest Mistakes Brides Make When Planning a
Destination Wedding and How You Can Avoid These.
Start educating the consumer day in and day out by crafting your own elevator speech. Just follow the formula. Here it is again:
I work with (Ideal Client Description) who want (Juicy Benefit) and (Juicy Benefit).
Share your elevator speech with everyone you know and on all your marketing materials.
It wasn’t long ago that I felt totally overworked and underpaid for the services I provided. I think it’s a curse we passionate and enthusiastic consultants must deal with when we decide to make travel our profession and work for ourselves. But the thing is…this situation affects all parts of your life, not just work. So if you are feeling overworked and underpaid, I also want you to notice if this affects other parts of your life, like your relationships, your finances, your health, and your happiness. If it does, I challenge you to read this article to find out how to make more money while working less in your business.
Anyone can get clients. What takes more effort is finding clients that are profitable. Back in the day for me, I fell into a trap (and maybe you’ve fallen into this trap too). Because I wasn’t attracting many clients who wanted to travel to Africa, I took all work that came to me. One day I would be a Caribbean specialist. The next day, I would have to learn the European rail system as I planned a self drive tour of Italy. I didn’t have the confidence to ask for compensation for the hours I would pour into trying to be an instant expert. And my whopping $240 commission for a trip that took 16 hours to put together didn’t go very far. In hindsight, I was, in essence, a volunteer.
It affected my personal life. I worked from home, so there was never an “off” button. In between caring for my 2 young children and husband, I would find myself at my desk, responding to emails, putting together detailed itineraries at all hours of the day and night. “Why is Mommy always working?” they would ask, with big sad eyes. Talk about guilt. Even when I wasn’t working, I was never totally present for them. I wanted to be a good mom, and I wanted to be a good travel consultant for my clients. How does one do it all?
One day in early 2006, I hit rock bottom. I took an honest look at my situation and saw that my family was falling apart. And my business – which totally consumed me – was barely surviving financially. My world was on a fast track to disaster. Something had to change.
I don’t want you to go through what I went through, so here I layout the 5 most important things I did to start making more money while working less. Don’t just glaze over these. My business revenues multiplied 5 times. It wasn’t just about making a lot more money either. Making these changes resulted in a far happier home, a much better relationship with my husband, the freedom to do more and sleeping well at night because I knew I made a difference in my clients’ lives.
1) Claim a specialty and stick with it. If you have followed me at all, you have heard me preach this over and over. Niche to be rich. You have got to pick something and master it. Get known as the expert. It’s the only way to stand out from the crowd and the online booking engines won’t be able to compete. This act alone will make you a LOT more money in your business. Last week, I wrote an article about how I did this in 2006 and my business doubled. Well, I went back and looked at my numbers. The truth is, I went from $68,000 in sales to $390,000 in sales. I way more than doubled my business. My revenues went from $35,000 to $146,000, in 1 year! All because I decided to finally claim my specialty. Picking a specialty and having the courage to turn away business that doesn’t line up with it will catapult you to a whole new level.
2) Get real with your numbers. The purpose of your business is to make money. Don’t feel guilty about charging good, long standing clients for services that don’t generate revenue for you. The reality is, you cannot continue to offer the incredible services you provide if you run a business that isn’t profitable. To be profitable, you have to get real with your numbers and consider the return on investment with everything you do. If processing tickets isn’t profitable at $35 a ticket, charge more or stop doing it. If booking a 4-night Bahamas vacation generates $180 in commission, but you end up spending an extra 4 hours dealing with a missed connection, charge a hefty service fee or stop doing it. I tell my clients to establish a bottom figure. In other words, if a client is not coming to the table with $3,000 or more, in commissionable travel spending, turn them away.
The other thing you must get real with is LOOKING at your numbers. Keep your accounts updated regularly and hire a book keeper if you are not good at it. Make a practice of reviewing your numbers monthly and start becoming more aware of what’s making you money and what isn’t and where your cash flow is.
3) Hire help. In order to do more, you must do less. This statement doesn’t make sense right? But it’s true. If you want your business to grow, you must have the right foundation in place first. Your business cannot grow if you are doing everything. Hiring help doesn’t have to cost a lot. There are millions of highly qualified people looking for a little extra income these days. Each time we took the plunge and hired the right person to fill a need…even though we couldn’t afford it…our business multiplied. (And I am not exaggerating)
4) Make marketing a discipline. You might think that you can market here and there, when you have time. That thinking will take you right down the path of “barely surviving.” If you want to be in a service based business, a large part of your job is to market. And marketing is more than getting new leads. Marketing is about getting new leads, and nurturing a relationship with them and your existing clients so they want to read your emails and they want to send you business. How do you do that? Provide great content in everything you send and be consistent.
5) Surround yourself with people who expect more from you. Getting into a mastermind and having a coach is one of the best things I have done for myself and my business. It keeps me accountable – because I am not really good at doing that myself. A mentor and a mastermind have an uncanny ability to see the best of you. They see your ultimate potential and then expect nothing less. They stretch you way beyond what you would do on your own. Think about a slinky toy. If you tried to stretch the toy with your own two hands, you could stretch it about 4-6 feet. Now if you were to hand one end of the slinky to another person while you held on to the other end, how much further could you stretch the slinky? A lot – like at least twice as far. That is what a coach and mastermind does.
Your Assignment
Figure out how you can take action on any or all 5 of these suggestions that changed my business and my life. Start today.
