Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 149 - Step 1 to the TA's Quarterly Goal Adjustments
Transcript
- Rachel K: Hi it's the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. Welcome back, thanks for joining me. My name is Rachel K, your host, and I'm taking you through an entire year of working on your travel agency. Day by day, day by day. ⁓ dear lord, these things we pray. Alright, today's episode is the quarter is ending, not really. But in my brain it is, and don't worry, I'll explain my reasoning behind this in two days. have it noted down. Nope, tomorrow. So it's time to maybe look at where you are now for the year for your annual goals and for your quarterly goals because the quarter is coming up in a few weeks, right? In about a month, ⁓ it's going to be coming up. So you might want to start really looking at it. If you aren't doing monthly reviews especially, I highly recommend weekly just data tracking. monthly reviews of said data, finding the patterns. We've already done episodes on all of this. And then at the quarterly, you don't have to spend so much time freaking out about what's going on. You still want to do your quarterly reviews and your annual reviews. So let's talk about adjusting goals. If you need to adjust your goals for better or for worse, please be as unemotional as possible. I know it's really hard, especially If you are in one extreme or the other where you're like, have all this business or I have nothing coming in and nothing's working out, it is very hard to detach and not be emotional about it. Okay, and I want you to do your best if you are doing this. Please be unemotional. As an example, just because you love a lead magnet that you created, it doesn't mean that you keep it as it is, especially if it is not performing well. Conversely, if you have a lead magnet, you're like, I want to redesign this, but it's performing well, why are you wasting your time with that at this point? When you are looking at and like adjusting your goals on a quarterly basis, it's better to do this again without emotion and to also course correct sooner than later. Why are you going to wait until the end of the year? Now you don't want to stress yourself out and constantly be changing it every week. There is a balance you need to make with the monthly monthly review. can do smaller immediate actions and we've done episodes in the past about this. Save this episode, go back to any other episodes and just save them if you need them to reference later. And if you have this data and you are tracking it consistently, you can course correct sooner than later. So for example, you could just not be tracking anything. You could just not be caring about your marketing and just be like, ⁓ woe is me, nothing's working out. Are you actually looking at your copy? Does it align with your ICA? Do you have an ICA? Do you even have a goal you're trying to achieve? If you don't have those things in place, it's going to be very, very difficult to actually get anything done. It's kind of like, well, you're all travel advisors listening. It would be like... planning a road trip and having no idea how you're going to get there. Having zero idea what interstate or highways or scenic byways you're going to take to get to that place that you're on your road trip. And you also refuse to use Google Maps. So you're just like, well, I got to head east. That's all I know. Or I got to head north. You're going to end up lost. You're going to end up not getting to your destination. you're gonna end up being like my dad. So when I was a little kid, yes, we had those atlases in the back seat of the car and the road maps and everything. And my dad did travel a lot for work and he did do a lot of driving when I was very, very, very little. And also, he... Even if it was like a place we would regularly go to, he'd be like, I know a shortcut. And he'd just like turn on this random dirt road. And by the time I was probably six or seven, the second he would say, I know a shortcut and start turning, we would all just be like, okay, time for the long cut. Because he would just be like, I don't need a map. I don't need anything. I know I'm going to get there this way. And I don't even recall why he would take these random detours because it's not like we would like stop at the world's largest ball of yarn or anything. It was just like, I know a shortcut. That was literally it. He thought he was saving his time. it would almost always add a minimum of 90 minutes to whatever trip we were doing. Even if it was just like an hour trip away to a friend's house in the country. Just add it. So do you want to run your business like my dad thinking he's taking a shortcut? Or do you want to actually have a goal in mind and know which directions you need to take, what steps you need to take? When you're doing these quarterly reviews, Especially if you start kind of looking at them before the official quarterly review meeting that you put on your calendar for yourself. You can come up with ideas to course correct sooner than later. ⁓ Excuse me. Allergies. So you want to also review your projects and your goals for expansion in your business. You can get very, very creative because you are your own business owner. You don't have to do what everyone else is doing. ⁓ But you also want to make sure that it makes sense. And when you're reviewing your projects and your expansion goals, and so your projects can be, want X number of groups or I want X number of trips, or I want to train myself on this type of travel and start launching that marketing plan by next quarter, whatever. ⁓ look at where you are with those projects if, or goals and look at if there's any tools or anything you need to invest in or have invested in and compare it to your P and L statement that we talked. about yesterday and the day before. and see if it is still feasible to be on track. Okay. So let's say you really want to hone like target your marketing for a very specific niche and you're like, I'm ready. I quit my full-time job. I got to do this. I got to bring money in. And in order to do so, I have to market like crazy to really expand my business. So look at your P and L, look at what tools you have to help you get there for now. and look at what you might be possibly interested investing in and see if it's even feasible to do so. Because we want to make sure cash is flowing in your business, And also when it comes to your projects or any goals for expansion, is this what your ICA wants? Just because you're like, ⁓ I can do this. Is it aligned with your ICA? Now you can have multiple ICAs based on if you have multiple niches. And if you do expand and it doesn't align with your current ICA, do you know the ICA that it would align with? Okay. ⁓ Business models, this is your friendly reminder. This is like my little Rachel K crazy ⁓ metaphor simile. I don't know. It's one or the other. But this is your reminder that business models are like a hypothesis and this is all an experiment. You're all scientists. You can change the variables in your experiment if you want to. ⁓ Don't do it constantly and you shouldn't change any variables if your hypothesis is testing to be incorrect. That's when you should look and you need, like I've stated before, weeks if not several months of data to make an informed decision, not days or just like a month. But at that point, you can change the variables. Your overall business model, your mission statement, your communication philosophy, that's all aligned with you and your values. That's your control part of the experiment. But like where you show up online, the copy that you use, the way that you speak, the way that you have your consultation, those are like variables that can be adjusted. You do not have to constantly readjust. Test it out for a few months. If it doesn't work, tweak it, all right? Okay, lastly, do not be afraid to ask for help or feedback from colleagues. If you are a student in any of my courses that are like more than $100 investment, because there's like some free stuff and very low cost things that I have. But if you are any programs that are like more than $100 or the Success Circle, you can show up. to our live Q &As every single Monday from 2 4 PM Central Standard Time at the time of recording this. So that is an option for you as well. But you can also go to a trusted colleague and be like, hey, can we practice this? Can you take a look at this? Just make sure it's someone you know that isn't just going to take your information and then suddenly start promoting it themselves. That's weird. And if that does happen, it's just lesson learned on that person, right? Kind of pull back from them. ⁓ And if you are the person that's providing feedback, please be 100 % honest. Don't be afraid from what you hear if someone, cause I offer to every once in while, like schedule free call with me and we can do this together one-on-one. If they're like a student and they're like, I'm kind of nervous about doing this in front of people on a call. Cause we usually have several people on our live Q and A's. So I will offer like, just do free call with me. Like you've already invested in me. I should invest in you and I want to see you succeed. But don't be scared and don't be mad and don't get reactive if we do a call like if I were the colleague or whatever and I'm like that sounds stupid. You know what I mean? I I'm not going to say that. But just be aware that any feedback you get good or bad it's just feedback and take it without emotion. Just like I said at the beginning of this episode be as unemotional as you Possibly can with your business. I know it's your brainchild I know you've put so much work and effort and I know a lot of advisors like Tie their identity not just advisors, but people who are self-employed in general, especially if they've like moved from having a regular job into being self-employed they really tie their identity to their business and That can be a good or bad thing and I know you're thinking Rachel you tell me to make sure it's aligned with my values. Yes, this is your brainchild. So for a little bit more perspective, if you are a parent, your child is your child, right? You want to instill your values into your child. You want your child to grow up to be happy and healthy, just like you would your business. However, do you want to be the parent Like are you the parent that's like hyper controlling, kind of like a helicopter-y parent because you're afraid to let them really be themselves? Because you're afraid that if they do something wrong, that's a reflection of who you are? It's the same thing with your business. I've been a parent and I am a business owner. I get it both times. Like you are, get, get like when they're in elementary school and you're like, I'm gonna be a room mother. or I'm going to volunteer for this event. And then you're like, I hope my kid's good. And same thing with your business. A lot of people get so caught up. even if you aren't self-employed, there are people out there who just tie their identity so strongly to their career. And I have done that. just do your best to start pulling away from that. You are separate from your business. Your business provides for you. you provide for it, it's like a weird imaginary friendship because your business isn't real. Like it's not a living breathing thing. And it kind of is. All right. There's day four, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, if I could talk. There's day 149. Tomorrow we're going to have a real strange episode on why I do my quarterlies every 12 weeks instead of the normal times of year. Okay, thank you for joining and have a good day.