Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 171 - The Mid-Year Chasm: How a TA navigates disappearing momentum
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome to the Travel Agent Senior Podcast. We are at day one seventy one and I am your host, Rachel Kay. Just getting my headphones on still, people. It's fine. You to do that. Take a deep breath. ⁓ look at the number. We are at day 171. We are so close to halfway through the year. And since we've already talked about like the quarterly review for this year in past episodes, these next few episodes, well, I think since about like day 160 all the way to 180, are all more like mindset. Let's Get your mind together. If you haven't done your quarterly review yet, you still have some time. And you can listen to this while you're doing it. Okay? But if you're being completely honest with yourself and doing this quarterly review, or just sitting in your office at least, or driving down the road, I don't know what you're doing when you listen to this. All the excitement from the beginning of the year. That we all get like this is a new year, new me. That's gone. It's gone. It's probably completely gone. ⁓ maybe your current revenue that's coming in is not matching the daily exhaustion. Maybe you feel like you're just throwing spaghetti at the wall and nothing's sticking. Even with having a plan, maybe you had a plan and you were like not following it, and then you're like, Why is nothing working? ⁓ it's because you're not following your plan. That's fine. Maybe you're at your dashboard and you're like, ooh, I'm nowhere near where I should be. ⁓ maybe your checking account when you're doing if you do profit first, which I recommend, but maybe you're looking at it and you're like, Well, where's that profit? And you're wondering, there's a chance you could be wondering, can I keep this business alive? you're feeling alone, you're feeling doubtful, because not everyone in the industry talks about these slumps. They're just like, ⁓ everything's great. I mean, you'll get one-on-one conversations with colleagues. ⁓ maybe in certain communities you can feel comfortable doing that, but for the most part, nobody's posting on their social media, business sucks dick right now because they are pit scared. That their clients are gonna see that, or potential clients will see that, and they're gonna be like, Well, I'm not booking with this person that doesn't have any business. So then you are like, I feel like the worst person ever, and I've just failed at my business. Also, failure is only feedback. Don't let failure get to you. And what you're experiencing right now, where you're just like, This is not how I thought that 2026 or whatever year it is when you're listening would go. This is not how I thought this year would be six months ago. And now we're halfway through. And now I feel like the worst person ever. It's a universal milestone with travel advisors and entrepreneurs, self-employed freelancers in general. This is known as the J curve chasm. When you first started as a travel advisor, you were like, This is the dream Okay. And then every January you're like, I'm gonna do it right this year. And sometimes you do it right, sometimes maybe you're maybe you've done really, really well for a few years and you're just feeling burnt out. ⁓ your hope essentially was at an all time high. maybe your capability for what you wanted to do was lower than what it should have been. ⁓ but you were running on blind optimism and pure adrenaline. And just like, I could do this, you know? Now we're almost halfway through. You can do all the things, you've done all the trainings. you are very secure in your processes and procedures, how you want them to look. But that like emotional fuel, ⁓ not necessarily dopamine, but maybe a little bit of dopamine, but like that whole rush of like starting something new has completely evaporated by now. Most likely. ⁓ you've entered the hardest phase of building an asset, which is what you're doing by building your travel agency, by the way. These little middle J curves, the middle bits. This is where like the romance of being self-employed is gone. It's it's dead. Just like if you're married, you know you go through phases like this where you're like, Well, I may have made a huge mistake, but I'm ten years in. ⁓ and then it comes back. ⁓ but right now you're in that I made a huge mista I may have made a huge mistake. ⁓ because the reality of executing everything that you want has exposed itself to you and you've exposed yourself to it and you're like, ⁓ man, I gotta do work on myself. So the biggest danger that you're facing right now is the illusion of retroaggression. ⁓ think back to like 30 days in as a travel advisor or even like 30 days into the current year. If you closed like a real basic booking with a cut like a two hundred dollar commission, you'd be like, hooray, khalou kalay. Especially when you're brand new, like your first trip, you're like, I'm the best. Also terrified I'm gonna screw this up. But you felt like a real business owner. You know, when you go into small business, like small shops and things, like downtown area, wherever you live, and they have the little one dollar bill framed on the wall because that's the first dollar they made, and they're so proud of that. You you did the same thing with your book first booking. And you probably did the same thing if you have been an advisor for more than a year in January with like your first big booking or like hitting your monthly sales goal or s maybe you had a big check come in in January because you had a lot of holiday travel and so you're like, I'm gonna make all this money. ⁓ same thing. But if you were to sell that same booking today, you would just be like, Why is this not scaling? Why is this not why am I not doing more? I'm just stuck doing these little piddly bookings for like a two hundred dollar commission. I'm stuck here forever. And then that might make you feel like you're a total failure and maybe you shouldn't be in this industry. You might be thinking, I should be further along. Why am I still fighting for these tiny little bookings? what is going on, especially if you've been around for a few years. You're like, why I should be doing bigger and better. Yep, that happens. This is the trap. You're mistaking a higher standard of self-evaluation for a lack of actual progress in your business. So you haven't gone backwards. You're not going backwards. The reality is your awareness of what like the big boys in the industry, like a scalable, successful travel agency, what it looks like, you have a better awareness of that now and it's simply outpaced your current situation. S and you might feel especially frustrated if you have colleagues who started at the same time as you and they are just like taking off like nothing and you're just like, why am I still doing these little bookings? Please don't get I mean, jealousy can be a good thing because it's just showing you the emotion. Don't don't like act on it or anything. But when you get that emotion come up or envy, it's showing you what you are capable of. Not that Like you shouldn't get to the point of like I want what they have and I need to be angry at them for it. I hope that makes sense. But even if someone's doing better than you, you might be like, ⁓ man, I wish I had that for like a second. And that's just showing you maybe it's God talking to you if you don't take out like any anger or get really crazy or do anything silly. But maybe if you just sit with that for a little bit, it could be God showing you. You see what you're capable of, I want you to do this too. I don't know. Because you see that gap where you are and where you want to be, your brain tells you that you are failing. The gap isn't proof of failure. It's just proof of growth. You're hyper aware of your like business metrics now in a way that you may not have been six months ago. Or if you're just like in a slump right now, because it is summertime. Summertime's kind of slow for travel advisors. many travel advisors. You're just seeing things in a way that you weren't at the beginning of the year when you were all hopeful, or if you're a newer travel advisor when you first started. So don't let your mind use these elevated standards as a weapon against you to destroy your confidence or to make you like say anything hateful or weird. You know what I mean? Don't be crappy to other people if they're doing better than you. You're fighting through the mud right now because you're learning. how to operate under a heavier load. So if you like watch or listen to a lot of those, I don't know, manifestations, video, like whatever, there's a bunch of like coaches that are like Teach you how to manifest, I don't know, anyway. But if you see a lot of that content where it's like, ⁓ you can manifest and you can meditate and da-da-da-da-da. Even if you are Christian, you can see it this way too. God, the universe, whatever you believe in, shows you what you're capable of first, and then gives you like the worst possible scenario to see if you can handle it y now. Or to make sure it's called like if you're a Christian, it's like, ⁓ you're being prepared for this next chapter, God's preparing you. ⁓ so it's not necessarily bad that you're going through this because it's like, ⁓ well I am capable of more I know what I'm doing more and I'm being tested to see if I can take less business right now and still manage it without getting angry. Because here is the thing. And I know that sounds like 'cause here's the thing. If you can't handle, like if you're annoyed with a little bit of business and not grateful for what you have right now, even if you're in a slump, you can just acknowledge like I'm grateful I'm in the slump so I can recognize this isn't what I want forever, right? But if you're annoyed by it, you're like, nobody wants to book with me, this is the worst, I must be the worst traveling, like you are sending that energy out and you're not showing gratitude, and you aren't detaching from the outcome. And I've done episodes about detaching from the outcome, but if you are just like doing this for some kind of external validation or revenue and you just get frustrated because you aren't hitting the dollar signs in your bank account or the awards you wanted to win, whatever the case may be, you aren't detached from the outcome. And that negative energy is going out and it's showing up in all of your content. It's showing up ⁓ when you interact one on one with people, whether it's in person, over Zoom, or on the phone, like you can kind of tell in your tone when it's like, this lady's not happy, or this man. This person's got a little bit of an attitude going on. I don't know if I want to work with them. And so phases like this, the J curve chasm, are just preparing you for bigger and better things. Because if you can manage the slump now. when you're like, ⁓ I wish I had a thousand dollars, like an extra thousand dollars a month and but you were okay with it and you weren't mad and like kicking rocks and being like, Everyone else is at the reason why this is failing, you're being prepared for being like, ⁓ I wish I was making $10,000 this month. And then a year later, I wish I was making $20,000 this month. When you hit the slump again, it's gonna be higher numbers, is what I'm saying. And you'll look back because trust me, I have. You'll look back and be like, wow, I was so grateful for so little money. And you need to keep that mindset. So I remember when I first wanted to book $100,000 in a month of ⁓ travel. And I was like, I'm gonna break a hundred grand the every month this year. And I was like hyper focused on it. January, it was like I'd have to pull up the numbers, honestly. January was probably like twenty-two thousand. February was probably like fifteen. And I was like, I can't give up. It's not gonna be immediate. And I was grateful for all that business. And March of that year, I remember it was March, was the first time I booked a hundred thousand dollars. And then like in travel booking. So then April was like sixty and then May was like, I don't remember, fifty. June and July were slower, but then August, September, October, November, December were all like one twenty, one fifty, one eighty. And so then it was like, can I get to two hundred thousand? And so when I'm gonna slump now, I look back on those reports in my CRM of what my monthly booking value was and my monthly commissions. And I'll be like, I was so grateful for so little revenue compared to what I'm doing now. I need to continue to have that feeling of gratitude. And that's just something I want you to think about. If you are in a slump, just be grateful. Look back at where you started if you aren't a new travel agent. And if you are a new travel agent, just know that it's coming. Okay, so when you're fighting to break past the fun foundational my notes. ⁓ ceiling income ceiling let's say your first year you had a loss second year you made like five grand and you're like I I need to make a real living people you know so whatever your ceiling is right now you you're there it's fine staring at like an abstract hundred thousand dollar year if you're only making like five or ten a year ⁓ that causes psychological paralysis because it feels so far away and your daily actions feel too small to matter. So you're just like, why even bother? So to cross this chasm, the J curve chasm. We're gonna do backwards J, because you'll just go to the moon. Let's talk about implementing a 14-day little micro sprint in your travel agency for the next two weeks. ⁓ I know you're like, I still gotta do quarterly review, I still gonna do all this stuff. What are you talking about? Just something to consider, extra actions to take when you finish out your quarter. So starting today, you are gonna completely divorce yourself from your emotional state regarding your annual income goals and your annual sales goals. I can't talk, it's fine. ⁓ we're gonna shrink that horizon because we're halfway through the year. There's no more 12 months from now. Okay. Let's just say you only have your business for 14 days. So for the next two weeks, your only objective is just to s is just to secure one booking more than. What you have on the works right now. That's it. Make sure it's one booking. It's like mid-tier, so it's a decent commission. And it's someone highly aligned with your business. That's the only focus over the next two weeks. Like you may have other things in the pipeline. You may have had consultations, sent off the fees, but just one more. Just one more in the next two weeks. So Ways you can do this. Let's talk about it. You can shift your ⁓ metrics from the lagging indicators like your total revenue for the year, which yeah, I tell you to look at your total revenue because it is data, it's information to see where you're going and where you've been. ⁓ but let's just talk about implementing activities that you can completely control. You can't control if a client or like a lead opens your emails today, but you can control how many highly targeted direct outreaches you send. And let's do them as outbounds. So these are like cold outreach. Okay. And cold outreach means they don't follow you on social, they aren't on your email list, they aren't like a f they might be like a friend of a friend or whatever, but there's someone that doesn't know you. So you can cold outreach by calling or emailing or DM on social media. ⁓ make sure that you have like a decent script. Just don't be like, Do you want to book a trip with me? Like, try to build that connection. Something like that. You could do cold outreach just to get one new highly aligned client. You could do additional social media posting. It doesn't have to be perfect. Like you don't have to be like perfectly curated. Just like and you don't have to look good on camera. You don't don't look at the camera. It's fine. I mean you'll have to look at the camera but don't realize you're on camera. I don't know how I don't know why I'm just comfortable just being a mess on camera all the time. It's fine. But a successful day during these 14 days is simple. Did you do the activity to bring in that one extra booking? Did you make any follow-up calls? Did you reach out to any past clients who haven't booked a trip in over a year? Like that's an easy way to do it. did you create and publish and post additional content? If you hit your inputs, then your day was a perfect success. regardless of what your inbox says. And if you do this, most likely you will get that one extra person actually working with you. It's shocking when you put your nose down and you're like, I want to acquire exactly one or or like a small number, like I want five more trips or something like that. Like keep it smaller. Don't be like, I really wanted to make a hundred thousand this year and there ain't no way it's gonna happen kind of thing. For now, just keep it smaller. ⁓ but it's a lot easier for you to get creative and be like, who can I reach out to when it's just like one to five people versus being looking at the big number goal that you have and not hitting it. Because guess what? If you get those five, then you get that momentum back like you had in January, or when you first started as a excuse me, as a travel advisor. And You're gonna start reaching out to more people and you'll ask for referrals and that confidence will come back just from that one extra booking. And then you're golden. So This week is like an absolute graveyard because it's like Father's Day and Juneteenth at the time of like day 171 is Juneteenth. Happy Juneteenth. Hooray. I'm not trying to sound sarcastic. I'm just like, by the way, if you don't know your days of the year, Juneteenth is day 171, unless it's a yeap leap year. so you know, I know, like if you have children, you You're you just got the kids out of school. And so you're dealing with summer and if you are the same ho stay at home parent, which most of us are, ⁓ when we are the home based travel advisor, ⁓ you know things are pretty hectic right now. You know people are already taking their summer vacations that they planned last year. ⁓ you may or may not have anyone really traveling right now. But this doesn't mean that you need to quiet quit on yourself or just quote unquote, I need to take a break too and stop marketing. Like, make sure you got your stuff set up before you take a few days off. ⁓ don't let your business coast into Hobbytown. Is what I'm trying to tell you because this month is a little bit slower. ⁓ for example, I have done a lot of destination weddings. That was my primary focus in my travel agency. And they were all Riviera Maya and the Caribbean for the most part. Like a handful of European weddings. And literally a hand like less than five that I have done. but they were mostly Caribbean, Mexico, Costa Rica, little bit of Cabo, but my clients are mostly Central and East Coast. Anywho, because of hurricane season, and because I was just like turning and burning. for so many years, like Riviera Maya, Punta Cana, Jamaica weddings, I would just be like, I don't take weddings on after June fifteenth. That's like the absolute hard stop last day for a wedding for me in the summertime. And then I don't pick ⁓ back up until October fifteenth. ⁓ so I would have June, July, August, September, ⁓ basically July, August, September to have more time to focus on like any tweaks I wanted to make in my workflows or any new software that I wanted to invest in. ⁓ but I would never like slow down and take a break. Because fun fact, if you do romance travel, the second most common time of the year to get engaged is late summer. So you can't just stop marketing and wait and be like, well everyone gets engaged around the holidays. No, they're not. You could get some really my best clients come from those like summer engagements. So let's not put you in Hobbytown. And these kind of slumps are the reason why the statistics show travel advisors don't really make a whole lot of money their first few years because they you if you can't get yourself out of these slumps, that's why I'm telling you like this is normal and you can do it, I'm here to support you. So your battle today is not against a slow summer market or your competitors or you having to manage summer things your own. ⁓ it's against your own desire to stop pushing, even when things are slow. So Do have any notes from the beginning of the year? If you journal, go go take a look back at January. You've probably wrote down your goals. If you're in the success circle, I make you write down your goals in your very first week. ⁓ but take a look see. And look at the like look at your calendar and look at all the things that you were doing. Was there anything there at the beginning of January that was like you were starting new and was scaring you? Solid, maybe, maybe not. So write down these distinct technical skills that you've developed or like scary client scenarios that you've pushed through. And now you can handle with absolute confidence, do it in your sleep. But you're like, it's no one's calling me anymore. It's slow now. And honor that progress too. That's massive progress. When you've been able, if you were not able to say no to somebody that wasn't a good fit in January, but now you're like, even though I'm slow, I'm not taking this crazy person on. That's huge progress. That is massive progress. And celebrate that. So we're so close to halfway through the year. The momentum is gone from New Year's. New Year New Me. ⁓ Any forward movement that you made or make today is discipline and character. And people who make it in this industry or any industry have to have a good level of discipline. So you're built for this. Put your head down. Focus entirely on the next 14 days. See if you can get that one extra client, one extra booking. And I will see you tomorrow.