Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 123 - Developing Habits that work for Travel Advisors
Transcript
- Rachel K: Welcome to day 123 of the Travel Agency New Year podcast. ⁓ Fun fact, at the time of this posting, the 123rd day of the year, I believe, let me take a look. It's Sunday, May 3rd. This is Travel Advisor Appreciation Month. We are doing over at Elevate, not for the success circle, but for any of our other courses, 20 % off. Head over to ElevateWithRachelK.com. and you can get 20 % off with the promos code yay TAs. That sounds weird, but yayayayas. ⁓ Excuse me. Just in case you care. We have courses about figuring out your niche, business plan 101 is free, figuring out how to charge a fee that is aligned with your ROI and your expenses. That's charge a fee, damn it. There is group travel made easy. There is become a destination wedding concierge, which is helpful if you intend to do any sort of wedding or event type planning services along with travel. Yeah, there's others. There's several courses. I would say the most popular ones are Group Travel Made Easy, Sweet Spot to Success. The Success Circle will not have this discount applied. It's just a subscription. What else is there? Oh, becoming destination wedding concierge. Okay. Day 123. We're going to talk about developing consistent habits because again, I've been mentoring, let's see, if you want to know about the whole Elevate and travel agency in your podcast, I started mentoring travel advisors probably late 2020, early 21. And I would just kind of like doing it for free a little bit. And then people were like, let me send you money. And I was like, OK. Fine. Fine. I'll help you. And then that kind of turned into TA Toolbox with Janet Miller. We were partners until 2025. And she is now retired. So I had to recreate a whole new brand. So now it's just me. Elevate with Rachel Key. OK, so I have, I wouldn't say I've mentored hundreds of travel advisors. No, I don't have time for that. I've mentored dozens, maybe. I would say probably. at least 50 that I know of. Maybe more, but not hundreds by any means. Anyway, a lot of us struggle with maintaining consistency. Why? Because you're your own boss. You don't have anyone telling you you're going to lose this job. you're gonna lose this job if you don't do this. And also, there's so many reasons why. But it's hard for us to maintain consistency in our businesses and to stick with habits that we're like, I'm determined to do this today. And then maybe you're at home with your kids and the kid won't take a nap and you're like, this day is done. I'm not getting shit done. This is the worst. let's talk about habit building. All right. If you're completely lost on how to build out your day, what you need to do each day, how to make decisions, all that fun stuff, what is the end goal? What is your three to five year goal? If you do not have this in your brain, and then you come to me and say, well, I'm just not doing great at all, and I ask you, what are your goals? I don't have any. Well, that's why you're not doing great. You have zero plan. You're playing at this. This is a game. ⁓ So you need to have a plan, a goal. And I have a few episodes. There's one where I talk about like 300 things. It was a Steve Harvey thing that I learned to do and it works amazing. I can't find where it's at. Oh gosh. Yeah, I'm so weird. Every episode is in my notebook here. Just written down. I will find it. Bear with me. It's back in the 90s I bet. referral loyalty programs, client feedback. ⁓ these are the episodes I gotta redo, probably, I don't know yet. Oh my gosh, this is, I don't know where it's at. It's like 300 things. Anyway. Okay. You start at the end goal. What do you want in one year or three year or five years? Really sit down and try to mentally visualize this. So it could be, want a brick and mortar office and I want five people working under me. That could be it, I don't know. It could be, I'm retired because I made a million dollars as a travel agent and now I don't do it anymore in five years, great. ⁓ whatever that number is. So let's say in this case and I say this in many episodes and in so many live Q &A's start at that end goal I want 1 million dollars in my retirement account or whatever my investment account. Well how much do have now? Probably like five bucks I don't know your situation but maybe. I want 1 million dollars in five years okay. So you start at that end goal, that is five years away, and you work backwards to create your baby steps to start forming your habits. Okay? So, you should have a general idea, hopefully at this point, of what your niche is, the average trip spend, and like the average number of households in the US or Canada, wherever you're selling. going on said trip a year. Okay, so let's pretend it's a $10,000 trip. And one million, right, in your retirement account or investment account means after all of your expenses. So, $10,000 a year. I do not have my calculator. Be prepared for bad math, everybody. Okay. Let me write down the number 1 million. ⁓ there it is, and then 10,000. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. You would need to a ⁓ ... Okay, hold on. Just to have a million in sales, you would need to book 100 trips. But if the average commission, we're just gonna make it 10 % gross, or net, not gross. So then we got 1,000. Commission for every trip. One, two, three. You need to sell a thousand of those $10,000 trips over the course of five years, which means you need to sell about 200 a year, which means with 52 weeks a year, about four a week. Okay, so give yourself the reality of that situation on average. Now it really depends. Are you willing to do group travel or are you gonna hustle, hustle, hustle with your Bookings and also you need to factor in things like this is like the safe number You need to factor in inflation like that $10,000 trip in two years could become 15,000. We don't know that You also need to factor in if this is going into an investment account I'm not putting all these numbers out there and I just don't want anyone fighting with me about this. But What is the return the average? annual return on that investment account so that you can have a million dollars from where you're at now in five years. Okay? So this is like if you're starting from zero and there is no interest on your account because you're just like, I'm going to put it in a Jaggedy account. Sorry, I'm laughing. There's zero inflation. Okay? Now, if you set these goals like this, I want you to understand If you aim for that and don't give yourself the excuses of, I'm gonna earn interest and oh, ba-da-da-da-da, because nothing is certain, and you aim for 40,000 dollars a week in bookings, that's like 160 a month, thousand, right? Then you have a higher likelihood of hitting that goal than giving yourself, well, I get a 10 % annual return on my investments. Or, oh well, it'll go up, it's gonna be 12.5 next year, so I don't need to sell that many. Don't do that to yourself. Just tell yourself, four a week. Okay? Based on this number, four $10,000 trips a week. How many trips do you have booked this week? I've done this in other episodes before. Let's just do a quick refresher. This is being, ⁓ this is day 123, so it's a Sunday. ⁓ So can you get four trips booked this week? If not, let's talk about starting this next month or next quarter. Not a big deal, but just to give you an idea, don't put it off to next, like, ⁓ well in two years. No, this is a five-year goal, people. But you need to know, I need to be averaging at least four trips a week. at $10,000, okay? Every other episode in this podcast, everything in the success circle, you should have the metrics of how many trips you're booking, blah, blah, blah. We've talked about goal setting, so many different types. I can't tell you what is going to work for you in terms of sticking with habits. I can't say any of this is gonna guarantee to work for you because we are humans, we aren't clones, okay? I can't tell you. This is exactly what I do. Do it. I can't. I can offer you things that I have learned, what's worked for me, what hasn't worked for me, and I want you to test it out for yourself. Be an adult. Like time blocking. Back in week two, we talked about it. That works really well for me. And in yesterday's episode, I talked about like, I'm at a point now where even if things are hectic because those little notifications come up every day, like do this, do this, do this, do this, even if I have to do it at nine o'clock at night, I do it that day. I still get it done that day. ⁓ I'm fortunate enough to have like zero other responsibilities. Like I don't have children, I don't have pets, don't have a spouse. It's just me. So I'm very fortunate in that regard that I have a lot more flexibility in my schedule. And I understand there are days where I just get exhausted for no reason whatsoever. And it's like middle of the day. And it's like, ⁓ but you have all these things to do. And it's like, but I can do them later. I can take a nap now. If you need to take a nap with your kids, nothing in your business is going to kill people. People aren't dying because you are taking a nap. The world is not on fire because you decided to take a nap. Do your best to try and do what you've time blocked out and also just make it like a to-do list with phone notifications. Okay, anyway, so we need to start with small, the smallest habits before you take on big stuff. You can't completely revamp your business immediately. can't, like, here's an example. When I first started out as a personal trainer, I got this girl that worked for a local radio station, and she was like a sales rep, and she made a deal with the owner of the gym. that he could get discounted advertising on their like five radio stations in exchange for free personal training. So I was still paid to train her, but it was like some kind of deal they made, right? And she was, let's see, I was in my late 20s and she was late 30s. I remember she was a heavy smoker, loved to party, bleached blonde hair, little bit larger lady, like out of shape. and she had just had shoulder surgery. And she was like a former high school athlete type, like volleyball, soccer, softball, did all the things. And now that she's like nearing 40, she's like, I'm horribly out of shape, I partied way too much. That kind of job does come with a lot of partying, but that's neither here nor there. So she was assigned to me. And I said, we need to start really small and focus on your form. And she's like, no, boot camp me. And I was like, are you sure about that? And she's like, yeah. I said, OK, well, we'll do a boot camp together. I'll give you one of my boot camp workouts. And we did it. And she couldn't come back for two weeks because she couldn't move, because she was that out of shape. And I was like, you really want to see me be like militant with you? I'll show you. I was like, you aren't sprinting fast enough. Anyway. I see, and yep, and she didn't come back for like two weeks because she was so sore because she tried to do everything all at once and she was like on these weird shakes my boss would sell and she was like keto, low carb, whatever the heck was trending back in the 20 years ago. Back in the 20 years ago, gosh that was so long ago. Almost 20 years ago. So this is a strong example of why, whoop, that's my phone clicking off, telling me to do something. It's fine, I'll get to it later. But that's a really strong example of why you need to make smaller steps. My other clients who would listen to me and weren't obsessed with getting Beachbody fit in three weeks, and I was like, you gotta learn how to just stand up straight at this point. you can't. You are not going to activate the right muscles because you don't even move properly. We got to spend four weeks on that developing those small consistent habits. You can't change your business overnight. It needs to be small consistent habits. It's the safest way. Okay, without small little baby step habits to get you to your goals, moving the needle in your business every day, you will end up overwhelmed, distracted. You can't filter any distractions properly because you don't have any structure and you don't have any discipline because you're just like, I gotta do all these things, ⁓ my gosh. So like small habits. Working in silence, test it out. Can you work in silence? I can't, I need music. Specifically, the most productive stuff for me is going to YouTube and typing in music for plant growth. It is like the best, like lo-fi, focused music for me. I don't know why I get so many things that I'm like, my plants are doing good and so am I. And I just like knock out all this work. ⁓ But little things like that, like turn off your TV. Don't, like, don't, I like to plug my phone in in the kitchen and not look at it for several hours. I don't need it, I'm working. I don't need that distraction. Okay, without a set schedule or some semblance of a routine, ⁓ you can fail to maintain consistency and habits never form. You're constantly seeking another solution. You might be spending too much money because guess what? Everyone marketing to you absolutely knows this is the problem. And they're like, well, here's the solution. This will make your life easier. This will make your life easier. They're trying to solve that problem. It's not a bad thing. And just know when there's like four different companies that offer the same thing and you're like, ⁓ then you get into analysis paralysis because you're like, they all solve the problem. Maybe you need to take a break, you poo, and see if there's one small tweak you can do to help with your productivity for three weeks. And if it does improve, you may be less inclined to worry about which product to invest in or service, or you might find you don't even need it. Maybe it's like a nice luxury and you're like, okay, well, this is gonna be really nice. And I can invest in this down the road, but at least I know how to do this if I have to cut it out. So the other problem is when you build all these systems up that other people sell to you on a subscription basis as well, and you don't have the habits of being able to DIY it yourself, you could run into a big conundrum if sales dipped dramatically. Like if there was a COVID and maybe you didn't, you were just like, You just got to the point where you were being very successful financially and you're like, ⁓ and then the world really is on fire and it's out of your control and then you don't have bookings. So then you got to scale back and you got to cut what you don't need, right? But then you're going to be back to not being able to provide the same. What? Why did this? I don't need to see this Donald Trump thing popped up. Nancy Sinatra. Can I? Okay, sorry. desktop just like hovered something. The news. Okay. All right, if you are successful all the time and you don't maintain any habits and it just like comes magically to you, ⁓ I don't, let's say you just have a really good connection, they spread the word and you're just like boom, boom, boom, bada bing, bada boom. and you become really successful and you're like, I'm just really good at this. Part of it's luck, okay. But you could get bored, you stop striving, you start missing important details, or even accepting feedback from people because it just kind of fell into your lap, the success. You didn't have any habits, you just kind of like vomited things out there and people decided to work with you. ⁓ Yeah, you could hit that goal, but you could also end up losing it all too. So be very careful there. Another thing with habits, multitasking is like a hard no. Women are better at multitasking than men because of how our brains are different. It is not. efficient. usually when you're multitasking. Now you can like do multiple things in the same hour, but if I were trying to record... this podcast episode right now. And I'm also like typing an email to one of my travel clients. Like I can't do that. I can't do anything else except record this podcast episode. I can't write notes for future episodes. You know what I mean? You know what I mean, Vern? It's not efficient. You end up missing details again. ⁓ I also have it written down here. It can lead to micromanaging clients or staff. And it is kind of a form of procrastination. If you tell yourself, have to get all these things done and you try to do them all at once. You're not gonna get it done, we both know this. And then you go in the next morning and you're like, I'll have so many things to do. Bitch, you got three trips traveling this year, calm the fuck down. Like you do not have a lot to do. You've been doing this for seven years, how do you not have this figured out? No, I don't know travel agents who act like that. If habits aren't deeply tied to your identity, they don't take root. Which is why I said at beginning of this episode that is running over. Oh my gosh, can you imagine if I did this in one thing? They don't take root if they don't tie to your values and your identity as you. This is why it's very careful to, I mean, I... Yes, I make suggestions, like you can try this out, you can try that out. Don't think that what I'm telling you is the end all be all. I'm wanting you to go out there and experiment and learn and understand there are so many different methods. There's never like, yes, there are general standard. ⁓ things that you do as a business owner, right? Just standard things. But the way you do them, how often you do them can vary from one person to the next based on their skill level and their values. So, you might have tried time blocking and you're like, this sucks. You might have tried the Pomodoro technique and you're like, this no. Another example I have written down here, ⁓ deciding to follow a fitness trend and be like, I'm a runner. I know I'm not a runner. If you like, I'm not built for running. Maybe swimming, not running. I'm not built for, I'm not aerodynamic. And if you're like me, I mean, I don't mind running, but what if you were not built for it and you hate it, but you were doing it because somebody you admire, whether romantically or professionally or in a friendship way is like running's the best way to get in shape. And I run all the time and you need to run too. And you should just come join my running group. And you're going to be like, yeah, because I really admire you, right? And then your Britney runs a marathon like dying at the end, just walking covered in sweat. Go watch that movie, it's good. So when you are doing habits that aren't deeply tied to you, you end up giving up on running, by the way. Brittany doesn't, but you do. She really wants to run in that movie. ⁓ But if you don't really want to run, you will give up. So picking up habits that are not aligned with who you are can lead to stalled growth due to a lack of productivity. If you are not being productive, you are not gonna grow. And I'm not saying like hustle, hustle, hustle, baby. I'm saying like do something small that can lead to future growth of your business. It doesn't have to be constant going out and networking. It doesn't have to be attending every possible training. It doesn't have to be stress yourself out. You can be productive just by writing down a thorough plan of what you wanna do. The Harder You Work, The Luckier You Get is the title of the, I think memoir of the guy I used to work for when I was a butler. The Harder You Work, The Luckier You Get. That man, I think, was raised on like a goat or sheep farm. Will not eat lamb. That's all I remember. Went to university, met his wife. I think she graduated shortly before him, but they married right after she graduated. It took him seven more years to get his bachelor's, I believe. I could be way wrong about all this. This is just what I remember. I didn't read the book. I got a copy from him, signed with a special note for my son. I have not read his book. But it took a long time, and he had a nice stable job. And he came up with this idea of like, if people could trade stocks on the internet for a smaller fee than they would if they had brokers like us constantly trading all day long? What if they could have their own like self-management because the internet. ⁓ that's what everyone does now. And it was this little, and he busted his butt to get the knowledge he needed. Even though his degree may not have had anything to do with that, he busted his butt to take care of his children that he was having while he was finishing up his degree and supporting his wife, and she also busted her butt. But the harder you work, the luckier you get. The more opportunities are presented when you are putting yourself out there and working not only on your business, but on yourself. And it's small little habits, okay? It's not big, big things. You can build on these small habits over time. Start stacking them. Once you get used to one, like brushing your teeth every day, because we all had to develop that habit, hopefully you do that. twice a day. ⁓ Once that habit's done, then you were taught, okay, you have to comb your hair. You have to comb your hair. You gotta do something. Wash your face. You know what I mean? Like it wasn't necessarily all at once, because you had to learn the skill of brushing your teeth. And you had to learn ⁓ how you like to comb your hair. You know, how to do it best. Not starting at the scalp, but starting at the root and working your way up. And then you learn, if you're a girl, well guys too, you learn how to style your hair. And then you start to develop all these habits. You weren't born looking and acting like you do today, presenting yourself. It took years of habits and you slowly stacked them. Your parents stacked them on you. Here's how you feed yourself. Here's how you hold a fork or a spoon. Here's how you hold a cup so you don't spill milk everywhere. Here's how you use a napkin. These are habits. Same thing with your business. Anyway, it also leads to reliance of limited channels. if you are doing what people tell you to do. If they're like, this is where you need to be marketing and you don't think for yourself, then you're be stuck on limited channels. You need to have a robust and adaptive marketing system as your ICA grows and changes or your niche changes. So. you will be able to find the patterns. We're gonna talk about that in a little bit. And this is my crazy segue of tomorrow is pattern recognition made simple. So thanks for tolerating 30 minutes. I hope this was helpful for you. Please understand the point of this whole episode is not to completely change who you are 100 % slowly tweak over time. Develop small. consistent habits that will eventually get you to your big longer term goals. Have a great day everybody.