Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 116 - How does a Travel Advisor create win-win Partnerships?
Transcript
- Rachel K: Welcome back to the Travel Agency In A Year podcast. We are on day 116, how to create win-win partnerships. Remember from yesterday, partnerships can be your host, the agency owner, suppliers or brands BDMs, possibly hotel management if you can really get in good with them, local complimentary businesses, online complimentary businesses, influencers, colleagues, friends, family and clients. All of these have potential for partnerships. So how do you create a win-win partnership? Again, we talked about the 13 things that you need to understand like signs that you can cold approach them and you're ready to do this. You don't have to have all of those boxes checked off. If you want to listen to yesterday's episode, go right ahead, pause, come back to this one. Also, if you haven't subscribed, you're missing out on daily notifications as these episodes are published every single day. So subscribe to the travel agency in your podcast. Lastly, before I get into this, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Rachel K. I'm a travel agency owner and I also have elevatewithrachelk.com which has courses, ⁓ mentoring one-on-one consulting services for travel advisors to really build a business that builds you up the way you want it to look. It's not just me saying this is what I do and this is the only thing that works, okay? Like there are options. This podcast kind of coincides with a 12 month program I have. called the Success Circle. So if you are like hesitant, Success Circle is a very low cost investment, but if you are hesitant or maybe you're like, I'm broke as a joke, lady, this podcast serves that purpose. 20-ish minute episodes per day. Some are much shorter. Some, like yesterday's, run a little bit longer. And just concepts to teach you how to become the CEO of your travel business. So, creating win-win partnerships. ⁓ Are you, when you are coming up with these ideas for partnerships, even with clients, what are the benefits for them partnering with you? And if it's not a client, what are the benefits for their business or organization? for partnering with you? What are the benefits? Can you name them off easily? So I'm doing a very unique niche now. I used to do a lot of destination weddings and I'm not like hating on DWs or anything. I'm not saying DWs are going down the drain because advisors I mentor are killing it with DWs. Anyone telling you DWs are dead doesn't understand how to ⁓ really connect with the ICA for DWs and they're just marketing in the wrong spot. Most likely. So they are not dead. ⁓ But I've completely switched niches. And so when I had to start cold approaching on a much more local level, I had to have at the ready, here's how this is going to benefit your organization. So do you have that? Are you willing to follow up? I will say a long time ago, I was working for a catering company part time and I was also like starting up a cleaning business. Like this was like 20 years ago and that was like my first round at a cleaning business. I was in school, I was catering part time, I was teaching piano and I was cleaning random houses. I wasn't trying to create, I was just essentially trying to survive and figure my life out because I was in my early 20s. I wasn't trying to like... And now I'm doing this. I also had a child I was raising. But I remember, and I probably learned this from my dad because he was also self-employed, ⁓ the owner of the catering company was like, I might hire you to clean my house. And I was like, cool. And I kept coming in to do the cooking and serving for a lot of weddings, honestly. It was like two or three weddings a week. every summer from like April to October, something ridiculous, and then holiday parties. But anyway, I remember coming in and I remember she called me a bulldog because I was like, okay, when am I gonna come do your consultation? When am I gonna come give you an estimate for cleaning? When are we gonna get this started? I wanna get this done. I was following up and I remember she said, you're a bulldog. You do not give up on a prospect. She was like, all right, let's do this. I've been busy and I'm like, yeah, that's why I'm reminding you. So it's very important to follow up. Don't just leave them hanging. Are you going to offer any kind of referral, like a finder's fee or whatever for them helping you? Like what are you going to offer them for them helping you build your business up? Are you willing to do social media collaborations? I wrote down SM collabs. I was gonna be like, collab? It's 2026. No, I'm in my 40s. I don't need to be like, let's collab. No, collaboration. I'm an adult. Anyway, are you gonna offer, like you should probably offer some kind of social media collaboration? This could be engaging with your content. As simple as that. sharing their content. I don't really do a whole lot of social media stuff anymore, but I remember back in my day on the early tic tac toes, you could stitch each other's content and you could like 50-50 it. I'm sure you could still do that, but are you gonna do that? If it's someone close to you, like in your community locally, can you go buy their business or like... Go somewhere and create content together. Are you gonna mention them in your newsletter if you just do email newsletters? Like there's plenty of opportunity for social media collaborations. Follow each other is a simple start. And it really depends on the type of partnership, how you're gonna do all this. So let's go back to the list. Sorry, from yesterday. Your host, you're probably not gonna be like tagging them. The benefits for them doing, for you doing well for them is they typically get a split. So, it's often an investment. When I, I remember when I first started hiring on agents on my team, my ex was very like, why are you wasting all this time? And I'm like, because I'm helping them build their business and I'm gonna get a return. Because if they're making six figures, I'm going to get 10 % of that. That's worth the 10 hours a week I'm spending with them for the first three months, you know? To me, at least. ⁓ So your host has that benefit already. they should. Or if you're working under just an agency owner, they should have that benefit already. Like the more money you make, the more money they make. The happier you are. The happier they are going to be. Same with your BDMs. The more business you bring in, the more perks and bonuses and raises they get. ⁓ Other business owners, the benefit obviously is like exposing each other to completely different audiences that are possibly aligned. So both of you benefit in getting more business at that opportunity. Same thing with influencers. I would say influencers at UGCs are very similar to just like online complimentary businesses because most of them have to create an LLC if they're smart about it. They're creating an LLC so they are a business. They usually have part of their real name or some kind of like fictitious name as their handle and that kind of acts as a DBA almost. Colleagues, they're gonna get referrals, right? You're gonna get referrals, but how is this gonna benefit them? They're gonna get referrals. Friends and family, really just depends. They're gonna get you not being stressed out all the time, because they're helping you build your business. That kind of differs. And if you create a really robust loyalty and referral program, your clients will get those benefits as well. Okay, that is day 116. See, this is the thing. I'm looking at the timer right now. Yesterday it was 25 minutes, today it's not even 10 minutes. Welcome to the podcast. Okay, that's a little bit about creating win-win partnerships. Don't be afraid to cold approach people. Tomorrow, we're gonna talk about a completely different topic. I know every few days I stick with the same subject, then I'm like, and pivot. So, if you want to really build up your business and have just me rambling on to kinda keep you motivated to do the things you need to do today, hit that subscribe button and I'll see you tomorrow.