Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 96 - The TA's guide to identifying skills gaps
Transcript
- Rachel K: It's the Travel Agency in a Year podcast with your host Rachel K. We are on day 96. We are wrapping up the end of the quarterly review. Whomp, whomp, whomp. I know I've given you like two weeks because if you're anything like me, technically it's like the 13th week of the year. I don't know. It's weird. The quarters are weird. But if you're like me, I like to do weeks 12, 24, 36, 48. That is not how a standard business year works. quarters. It's every like March 31st and then July 31st. You know what I mean? Not July 31st. See, don't get me started. It's technically like week 13, week 26, week 39, and then week 52 is more like what it is. Now, I like to start my quarterly review and do it every 12 weeks. Why? Because I like to not have anyone travel the week of Christmas and I take that time off for myself and my friends and family time. So I'm usually wrapping up my year by mid-December. ⁓ So I like to have my annual review and everything done by mid-December. I usually start it around the first week of December, which is about week 48. And then it kind of gives me some time to just have the data there. And then on my break, if I want to, I can kind of mull over any major decisions for the next year. or maybe start to work on implementing them a little bit, like little tweaks. So the quarterly review. Technically is on day 90. I know I started it early and that's okay, but I want you to prepare for it Give yourself some time off from working so you can like rest chill recenter look at reality of your business based on all the data of last three months and Let's move forward Okay, so now you've done it, hopefully, hopefully you've done it. This episode is all about analyzing your skills, gaps, challenges, comparing them to your next quarter goals that you may have decided to tweak a little bit based on whether or not you are ahead or behind in your annual goals. So we're gonna talk about this. This is a big lesson in the success circle for the second quarter review. The first quarter, it's a 52 week program. You can check it out at elevatewithrachelk.com. But it's a 52 week program. so the first part is more elementary kind of stuff. And then it moves into more combining it with mindset and more critical thinking. But at first, I'm like, this is how you do this. This is how you do this. So the first quarterly review is like this. Do you have all your information ready? Does it look good? OK, moving on. ⁓ So technically I don't talk about this until the end of the second quarter in the success circle. I can't talk. But it's very important to do a skills analysis, gap analysis, be totally honest. What are the challenges that you're really facing? Because it's gonna help you make the right decisions on expanding your educational needs, ⁓ what you need to outsource and delegate first and foremost, what you might need to work on developing professionally, or even maybe work on personally. so that you can at least sustain your business if not grow. So your needs, not the company's needs, but your needs, because I know most of you listening are not like, I have 15 employees and I just am the president, do to do. don't really, you know what I mean? Like most of you are independent, sitting at home, like I wanna build this into something where I can live my life, book travel that I love to do, you know what I mean? So your needs don't have to necessarily be like, ⁓ I didn't get enough sales and my revenue is down. Although those are like little key data points to consider that might be related to these needs. So it could be mindset. It could be financial. It could be marketing, technology, knowledge-based, any kind of skill-based systems. your business builds off of your skills when you are the only person doing it. Okay? And it sucks because you have to wear every hat and it's also amazing because you have to wear every hat. So you get to learn a lot about yourself, your strengths and your weaknesses. And I'm gonna say this right now, Jack of all trades is a master of none. People will say that, especially when you're like starting your own thing. And maybe they're not the most supportive people. I don't know why I think everyone's just surrounded by the worst people ever, but maybe you are. Maybe you're feeling it right now. But I think the full, if I remember correctly, and I don't know how you're going to tell me if I'm wrong, comment if I'm wrong, jack of all trades is a master of none, yet far better than a master of one. So yes, niching down is important. Don't get me wrong. And it's super important as a travel advisor, because I know you're like, wait a minute, everyone's saying niche down, niche down. Why am I a master of not? It's very important to be a master of the product you're selling. And it's also super important for you to understand every aspect of your business so that when you start delegating, outsourcing, and hiring, you know exactly the type of people you want to work with. And you aren't just going after what people say, ⁓ well, I like this person. I recommend them. Like you can sit and think and be like, does this person align with my business, my values, my company's values, the mission, da da da da da. So I'm a huge fan of spending time doing some professional development in some capacity. It doesn't have to be every single subject all at once. And this is why I like to do an analysis of what are my challenges, what are my skills gaps, and how can I fill them in the next three months and make that my education priorities for the next three months. You're not going to be good at everything. You're not going to be perfect at everything. You're going to hate some things. But I do. there's me saying but again and I do recommend studying all aspects of business ownership as best you can for two reasons reason number one understanding a specific topic or starting to like ⁓ I know all about marketing or technology like you're kind of like pompous about it you're like I know all about this and then you get into it you're like shoot I don't know anything about this That's going to help you understand either way exactly how you need to fill that gap if you need to hire somebody or if you need to not necessarily put all your energy into it because it becomes a time suck if you're trying to do something that you cannot do. It's like a fish trying to climb a tree. What? That's such a big energy waste. But at least you have an idea and you can put down, okay, so I got to bring in enough revenue next quarter or next year. Set a goal, find someone to help me with this. In the meantime, I'll just kind of glance at it a little bit, but I'm not going to go all in investing in understanding this. Like maybe read a book or two that's like 10 bucks, unless you're like the audio books. lot of audio books and Kindles can be inexpensive. I like book books. Excuse me. You may also discover when you start learning about something ⁓ that you're way better at it than you previously thought because maybe you didn't have the right resources or access to specific instructors. There's so many different instructors even in just like travel industry specific courses all with different styles. ⁓ And maybe just because one was like, I'm going to teach you this. And you're like, that's stupid. I don't get it. That doesn't mean another one would be like, ⁓ I'm also going to teach you this concept. Because if you see similar concepts in multiple courses, that means it's like a standard practice that will lead to some success, right? And just because one didn't communicate it or set you up, for success doesn't mean another one can't. But that also doesn't mean that you need to be like, ⁓ well, then I just need to buy this course from this other person. You know what I mean? Because then you're spending too much money, probably. And also, are so many, like for me, when I was studying marketing, I would say I'm like okay at best at marketing. I would not say I'm like any kind of guru at it. If I put my nose to the grind and like come up with a solid plan, I do have a pretty good conversion rate, so I don't need tens of thousands of followers. However, I know my issue with marketing is consistency, especially with doing this podcast, because this takes up a lot of my time until I get 365 episodes of health. It's just part of it. Hope you found me. Hope somebody told me about you. Or told you about me. But you might discover that you're way better at something than you originally thought you were terrible at. Like I didn't think I was very good at marketing. I always knew I was like pretty good at like sales and closing sales if I really wanted the sale. But like putting myself out there, I was like, I don't know for the longest time. And then I just had to kind of, that was mindset related for me. And like making sure I had a plan that worked for me for my marketing strategy. That's all it was. And I didn't have to invest thousands of dollars. I just found accounts like social media accounts back when I had all those accounts. But I found accounts where they were like, people that I related to and also had low cost. a lot of them would reference books. They were like, read this book. This helped me. And that's a lot lower investment because it's more of your time and you've got to sit and think a little bit. So there's time and money. But the money isn't nearly as high as a $5,000 mastermind marketing course type thing. Anyway, so those are the two reasons why I think that you should spend some time if you I'm not in my office, but if you go into my office, I have like a shelf dedicated to mindset practices like different books for mindset, different books for marketing, different books for financial management, different books for developing systems and different books for leadership. Like I have five or 10 books of each. It's ridiculous. of the ones that I was like, these really help me and these are references. And then I have like some, like the 48 Laws of Powers are really good books. It's like basically everything you need to know about psychology in a nutshell. And I've never read it cover to cover. It's more like a reference book. All right, once you have... ⁓ We're going to figure out how to see what your skill gaps are. ⁓ So you're like, why did you just ramble on? Thanks for listening, by the way. I hope you're stuck in traffic and enjoying this beautiful sing-song voice of mine. ⁓ So what you need to do, review your biggest challenges from the last quarter, the last three months. What were your biggest challenges? Was it people sticking to your boundaries and your scheduling? Was it people not wanting to pay a fee that you instituted or maybe you increased your fees? Was it people bashing you on social media? Was it you don't even have a profit because you were like, all the fams. I'm doing all the fams this year. ⁓ We all have similar challenges. You probably fall into one of those categories. Well, did you have a challenge with actually scheduling out and posting your marketing efforts if you do market on social media? Was that an issue? Because that can be an issue even if you have all these tools in place and you're like, ⁓ it's going to be great. And then you're like, no, I'm exhausted. Or life happens and you have to put that on the back burner. But that's the backbone of your business, right? So review your biggest challenges over the last few months. Write them down on a notebook piece of paper. And identify. There's four questions for each challenge. How often did this one come up? How often did this scenario happen? It could be as simple as like, I'm not accepting DMs from clients on social anymore. I'm not doing it. And then you did it anyway. Or you didn't do it, and you said, and they wanted to push that boundary anyway because they're used to it. And instead of enforcing it, or maybe you did enforce it, and you're like, I'm sorry, I don't check my messages on social. then you could have had that challenge come up quite a bit and people get very mad and upset with you. I had a client recently that was a repeat client that wanted to help some family members out and they got so mad because and decided not to book and wasted so much of my time, like literally six hours and two days because something was going on with whatever the package it was that they wanted. regardless of the supplier and I had to call it in and just sit on hold and then they'd have to put me on hold and then they were like, well no, now we wanna do this. Well no, now we wanna do this. No, now we don't wanna do this. And then they decided not to book and I didn't charge them a fee. I didn't follow any of my processes. So I'm like, oh, it's a referral. It's a repeat guy and it's a referral and they literally wasted two of my days time. Like a. Probably an entire full work day for nothing. So when they said, thanks, we're going to wait, and I was like, OK, well, just so you know, next time there's a fee, because I don't want them coming back. And I was like, why did I do this to myself? Because I was just being nice. But that's like an example of a challenge that could come up. And how often does it come up? And how often do you let those boundaries slide? Question number one. Number two. How did it impact your business or your life? So in that example, it impacted my business because there were pressing things that I needed to get done too. And so I ended up working later to get everything done. It was causing me personally more stress. And I worked way too late. And now I'm behind on other tasks. Or I was. I got everything caught up so I could do this. ⁓ And I feel exhausted because they were energy vampires, Craig Robinson's. I wish there was a way, you probably don't watch this show, it's called What We Do in the Shadows. I wish there was a way our travel CRMs could tag leads as like energy vampires. ⁓ Like a little vampire emoji maybe. That'd be fun. That'd be fun. Like even if they like book with you and you're like, I really need to change my processes and you type in, they call it schedule an appointment or whatever and you type in their name in the CRM and it's like a little Craig Robinson face. I think that's his name, the energy vampire. That would be awesome. All right. I'm taking way too long and I don't care this episode might go over. Question number three, what skill or knowledge would have helped? this coming up. Well, the skill for me would have been no. That's the skill. The knowledge would have been ⁓ if the referrer had mentioned these people are flaky, don't take them seriously. Which happened later on. And the referrer was like, I apologize. So what skill or knowledge would have helped? That would have been the knowledge, like, if I had known that in the first place. But the skill would have been reinforcing my boundaries. Trying to help you figure out how to do this, in case you're like, what? And question number four, do you already have this resource? In my case, yes. I could have been like, you need to schedule a call with me. I don't have time for this. Also, I don't even book. No, I'm not doing this. I don't know why I did it. Do you already have this resource? I can guarantee you if it's a challenge. If you have invested in a lot of programs, there's probably the answer somewhere. So you probably already have the resource. If you are one of my students and you are invited to the live Q &As, I know not every course has the live Q &As. But if you are invited to the live Q &As, you can ask me, like, hey, was this in a course because I remember this about something? If it is, I'll just answer you. But if it isn't, I could be like, you know what? That might be in bada da da da's course. I haven't taken everyone's courses, but I have a general idea of what they are, because I don't want to step on anyone's toes, if that makes any sense. All right, once you have those questions answered for each challenge, look at your challenges on your piece of paper that you wrote down. Identify patterns. Let's play pattern recognition. Are you like Rachel and just been like, ⁓ I'm just not going to say no for this for no reason? That's pattern recognition. If I was doing that more than once, that's a pattern. That's a Rachel problem. That's not a one-off. And it's important to. Look for patterns and see if you can recognize patterns and have all your challenges laid out in front of you over the past few months, even if they subsided and you feel fine with it. But just think about what was a challenge, right? Because if you see the pattern, then it's not I get to be the victim. And if you struggle with getting into the growth mindset, a lot of people do, it's fine to go from victim to growth mindset. If you sit there and see all of your challenges and there is a pattern, you have to take accountability and you have to take responsibility because the pattern is you. It's not every single client acts the same way, right? If it's a client issue. It's not ⁓ everything just costs too much money. It's a Rachel issue, spending too much money. It's not. ⁓ I can't get any leads. can't get, it's a marketing issue. It's how you're marketing. And it's the best way to take accountability, responsibility, get you out of the victim mindset and into a growth mindset. This episode's long, sorry about ya. Are these challenges, once you see the pattern, are the patterns in the challenges? Are they skill-based, mindset-based, system-based, knowledge-based? Which, what are they? Is it you don't lack the skill? Is it you have a limiting belief that's like preventing you from doing it? Or you just assume no one's going to book with you, so you just sabotage? ⁓ Or is it like I'm stuck booking Disney for the rest of my life, so you don't even try marketing your dream, whatever it is you want to do? Is it your system's too clunky for people to use or for you to use? Or is it knowledge based? Now, once you have what type of pattern the challenges are pointing towards in you, because most likely it's just you running the show, compare this to your next quarter goals, identify what you can already do or have resources for. Like, ⁓ this class would have helped me and I paid for it, but I haven't even logged in to look at it. This is all my problem. I need to allocate some time each week working on that. Or if you need to invest in development, I highly recommend if you're like, I need to invest in development. I'm broke as a joke. Start with books and read them. Please read them. ⁓ There are so many different books. can't say for certain what books would help you. But if it's like books about mindset for entrepreneurs, Google that and peruse the different listings and read the reviews and make a decision from there. Don't spend six hours doing it. Spend about 15 minutes and be like, this book I'm drawn to. just spend that $10 or $15 and have that book and read it and see if it helps you. Rather than hiring a coach for $20,000. You know what I mean? Like start small, see if that's really a thing that you need to help, like need to develop further, and then make more and more investments. Lastly, and then I'll end this episode that's way too long. Once you complete all this realistically and honestly and really look at it, like really, really, really, really, really, really, really, should be able to clearly state what skills you actually need to develop versus the ones you probably don't but are kind of feeling pressure to because everyone else is doing it. It's gonna save you time, it's gonna save you money, it's gonna save your energy. And tomorrow's episode's all about the energy. The energetic fields. The electromagnetic fields that surround our heart and project three feet from our body. circumference, whatever. Kind of, but not really. So I hope this episode helped you really understand. And I want this episode to resonate with people because I know sometimes people are just told this is your problem because it might be a small part of the problem. And I want people to learn as they develop their entrepreneurial muscles ⁓ to say, no, I don't need a bicep curl. I need push-ups. You know what I mean? No, you don't. You don't have to listen to, like, ⁓ you need this. Bicep curls, yeah, they're going to get you nice biceps. But push-ups are going to work. Biceps, triceps, shoulders, and pecs, and back, and core. OK, that's what I'm saying. You're going to get so much more from a push-up than a bicep curl. Don't just solve one pain point. OK, please share this, please. And I really, really appreciate. staying as long as you did because we went a whopping five minutes over by the time I'm finished recording this of my max time limit limit. I don't know why I can't speak. today it's fine i hope i haven't been your craig robinson in your life today ⁓ and thank you have a wonderful day see you tomorrow