Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 196: The travel advisor's framework for building a brand
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome back to the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel K. It is day 196. Whew! The practical framework to building your brand story as a travel advisor. Let's talk about using your brand's POV and turning it into actual usable content. Yesterday we did talk about what a brand story actually is. It's your agency's point of view, separate from your personal history, you're separate from your founder's story. It's if anyone joins your team as a VA or an in-person assistant, employee, travel advisor, whatever, they can embody this story as well. So let's build it into something that you can actually put to work. Okay? You're gonna start with ⁓ like a one paragraph type brand story. Now, if you haven't written anything in a minute, paragraph we're gonna say is three to five sentences minimum, preferably no more than seven sentences. I'm gonna go five sentences. Okay. But three to five is fine. So let's start by writing one single paragraph that captures your agency's point of view. Not the mission statement full of budwort buzzwords, just plain, simple language. If you are struggling with this, this is a tip from my eighth-grade English teacher. Shout out to Mrs. Saul. If you are like stuck in the middle of a sentence, we used to have to journal like every single day. And she was like, just write the same word over and over again until a new one pops up in your brain. So you could do that too. You might have a whole page of the word the. Anyway, you could write a mission s not a mission, ⁓ brand story paragraph, something like always use the we. You could pretend it's the royal we, but you're you want to make this an actual business. There should be we in the copy about your brand. Even if it's just you. I know it sounds nuts. But anyway. We believe travel should feel like stepping into someone else's life for a while, not checking boxes off of a list. We push back on the cookie cutter itineraries, even when a client initially asks for one, because we've seen what changes when a trip is built around real connection instead of just efficiency. We'd rather plan three unforgettable days than seven rushed ones. That's a paragraph. That paragraph, when you write it, becomes your reference point. Every piece of content, every client convo, every proposal can be filtered through that. Does it reflect what you actually believe? And this can also help you create your ICA. What kind of person, that paragraph I just read, would be drawn to that sort of travel agency? I when I was reading this paragraph, I was pictur someone retired or near retirement or early retirement and just fine financially stable. No children though. I didn't picture if it was like male or female or married or single, but I definitely had that in mind. So you could start rolling with that information. Like Who do you picture when you're writing about this? Like who are you speaking to if you read that paragraph that you wrote out loud? Who do you start picturing in your mind? That's gonna help you form your ICA. But where Does your brand story even need to go? I already have the about me, my founder story. Yep. Your brand story is in. We talked about this in the last few episodes about fonts and branding colors. Do not worry. Don't do a complete overhaul yet. But it's in your visual and your verbal identity. The tone of your captions, the tone of your voice when you are. recording any content, the tone of your newsletter. This is if if I think I if you're interested Head over to elevate with Rachel K.com, click on the courses, go to the Success Circle. Week three, we talk all about creating your branding voice and creating master prompts if you want to use AI to help you create consistent content, okay? Like consistent brand voice in your content, your email, your website, okay? The type of images you choose. The language in your proposals, all of it needs to feel consistent with that paragraph you've written. And if your brand story is like about slow or immersive travel, but your content is ten things to see in three days, that's a mismatch that quietly erodes trust. Okay. So number one. your visual and verbal identity. If you are slow and immersive in luxury travel, don't have super beachy colors in your branding. Don't go with your favorite colors. Like when you're going in like slow, immersive, you're probably gonna like I'm picturing in my head, and you could do color theory research on this, but I'm kind of like picturing in my head like more slightly muted, not heavily saturated, maybe some earth tones, but leaning cooler. Like not like the mustard yellow or like army greens, but like maybe like a deep teal and Or like a navy blue. I don't know. I'm picturing just different things in my head with the colors. But you don't want to have like bright crazy colors. Okay? Because high saturation, which makes me sad because I'm a bright winter. High saturation in your branding colors can look less expensive and so slow immersive travel, I mean you could do it if you're like a budget if your ICA is towards budget, you could have brighter colors. But over saturated colors or highly, highly saturated colors. This is from my color psychology class years ago. they denote like less expensive, like you're gonna spend less money with this brand. Like McDonald's, that's a high saturated red. And Burger King, those are highly saturated colors. Like I'm just thinking of fast food places. Jimmy John's is just simple black and white. They're still highly saturated colors, so you know that it's gonna be lower price, but it feels more elevated because it's not like primary cartoony colors, right? ⁓ just think about this when you go shopping, like I don't know, I think Target rebranded. So I'm gonna stick with Walmart. But like Walmart's got that bright blue. And when you go into those stores like Walmart and Target, Target, the light is high fluorescence, so everything's really saturated with that light. Anyway. Alright, where else your brand story shows up? In how you talk about what you don't do. Brand story isn't just what you stand for, but it's about what you're willing to say no to. ⁓ TA who says, we don't build itineraries that pack six cities into five days, because we've seen what that does to a trip, is telling their brand story more clearly than any about page could. Okay. My For my travel agency, like the brand story, like we don't throw you into some resort that's gonna well I'm anti sandals for that's just me. It's fine. You don't you can love sandals, I don't care. ⁓ I just don't find their brand appealing or a brand that's appealing to my clients. So I'm not like we're not like part of my don'ts is like I'm not gonna send you to a resort where their logo is in the background of your wedding photos. Sandals. Like that's a huge thing thing. I even had one couple, fun fact, that did not want an all inclusive resort at all for their wedding. But and we were talking to the Kimpton and Grand Cayman, and I was like, look, your budget's gonna be way too high and for what you're wanting and they don't product prioritize weddings here. I think you need to look at it all inclusive. And they were like, nah, that's the last thing we wanted to do. And I hooked them up with Excellence Oyster Bay. And I said, trust me on this one. And I didn't fully I don't know how they I don't know how much of their of my content they had had, like consumed before they started working with me. But I sent them all the photos, like the estimates of the ceremony costs and all those fun things, and the package pricing, blah blah blah. Sent that all on. And they were like, I mean, I kinda like this property. And we hopped on a phone call because they wanted to discuss it more. And they're like, when you said all inclusive, I was picturing sandals. And I was like, ⁓ I don't do sandals. And they're like, we've never done an all-inclusive because all we know for all inclusive is sandals. And it just seems like cheesy to us. And I was like, same. I feel that this is why we work together, because we feel the same way about that brand. You know, like just and I told them I think of Michael Scott from the office. I think it's like season three or something, where he tries to take a girlfriend to Sandals, Jamaica. and she dumps him so he takes his boss, like her superior, Jan instead. And he's like, I've got two tickets to paradise. And it's just like the cringiest thing ever. So I mentioned that. I was like, I once I saw Michael Scott being excited to go to Sandals, I was like, never going to Sandals. And they were like, us two. So anyway. I don't like to book sandals. I will I mean I've had people like insist on it, but that's something like what you don't do, okay? What you don't do. If you don't want to specialize in all-inclusive resorts, then say we're not gonna throw you into some Americanized ⁓ resort with cheeseburgers and a Route 66 nachos stand for your honeymoon in whatever desk Costa Rica or whatever. We are gonna focus on creating a one-of-a-kind luxury experience for your honeymoon or anniversary or whatever. You know? And that tells them you're not gonna throw them in an all-inclusive. And here's another thing: if you do get into destination weddings, all-inclusives are so convenient because they're guests. And so I used to point this out to a lot of people, like that couple. ⁓ their guests experience. They don't know how well traveled everyone is. I don't specifically, but they may not know that either. And so it might be a good idea to have something a little more Americanized for their comfort level in a completely different destination. Okay. That was a long rant. All right. Where else does your brand story show up? In client testimonials that you choose to feature, like on your website, not every happy client story reflects your brand equally. Like some people could just leave five stars and that's it. But feature the ones where the client's experiences specifically illustrates your point of view. The family who got to slow down and loved it more because I'm going on the slow and immersive travel binge over these last few days. ⁓ the couple who trusted your one strong recommendation over the menu of five options, if that's how your brand story is. Like I've said before, your founder story, that is the past, that is what actually happened. Do not change your founder story. Your brand story can change, it's not fixed forever. As your agency evolves, maybe you specialize deeper and further into a specific niche. Maybe you discovered a completely different point of view through your own experience. Revisit that. Paragraph probably maybe like during your quarterly reviews or maybe twice a year. And if it still feels true to you, just read it. That's all it's n it's three to five sentences, people. If it still feels true to you. Fan freaking task tastic. If it's starting to feel like it's describing an older version or an earlier version of your business, that's a sign that you need to consider rewire rewriting it. Because now you're in the process of re-like modifying your branding, right? Don't go crazy with changing all the colors and the fonts. I I I I know I've been ranting about that for the last few episodes. Like, don't do it. You don't need to do it. Because I do see a lot of advisors spending way too much time and/or money constantly rebranding. And that's not really necessary until you really start booking travel, honestly. Like you can just keep your logo as it is. If you're like, this doesn't match my brand story, that's fine. Change the copy on your website. And once you've booked enough to where you're making a reasonable living, then maybe consider redoing your branding. But until then, just keep it how it is. I've seen so many advisors who make Not very much money. Like just constantly rebranding. And I'm like, maybe if you marketed, instead of worrying about what colors everything is. Anyway, I'm just saying that because ⁓ I don't want you to fall into that trap. Alright, so last few days have all been about the brand store. And now we're gonna bring, I think, if you've come excuse me. If you showed up to this podcast today, thanks so much. If this is your first day, thanks for listening. And also, if you're like, wait a minute, I want to know more because I've been compounding. Go back to day 191. This is where it all starts with like the storytelling aspect. And it starts with the founder story and builds on that. And then the last few days have been the branding story. And tomorrow is gonna be Storytelling in general connects people to your business at every stage. True, yep, I do this all the time. From the very first, like the consultation all the way through the trip. Okay, this is Travel Agency in a Year, day 196. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful day.