Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 216 - Building the Travel Agent's Story Bank
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome back to the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel K. Today's day 216. if you don't know who I am, I'm a travel agency owner helping travel advisors with my tangled-up headphone cord, no big deal, become the CEO of your travel business. So we spent some real time earlier this year on storytelling. A few weeks back, I think it was in the early 200s episodes. There's so many episodes in this podcast. One episode a day, 365 episodes. But we talked about Your founder's story and what that means. That's basically like what becomes the long form, your about me section. Then your brand story, which is the story of your entire agency's brand that anyone on your team in the future can kind of adhere to or live by, I guess, and how your stories can connect with clients. Today we're gonna bring that directly into the batching systems we've been talking about the last few days. Through something called a story bank. Sorry, I'm a little congested right now. A story bank. What is a story bank? It's like a running organized collection of story materials that you can pull from whenever you're in your content idea batching session rather than trying to remember or invent stories fresh every time you sit down. So instead of staring at a blank page or spreadsheet or whatever you use for your content calendar. Hoping inspiration just randomly strikes you. Maybe you do a little prayer. You're pulling from an existing well. So your founder story can be broken into pieces. Back in the founder story episode, which I believe, let me actually see. I've got all these notes now. I'm actually using a computer instead of a notebook. let me see if I can find which episode it is. It might be in the one hundred eighties, I'm sorry. Do D- Sorry, listen. I'm having a weird day. It's fine. I hope you're having a great day. Here we go. let's see, day one. 93, finding your founder's story. Okay, anyway, you can go download that episode and I go in. It's like a 15-minute episode about creating your founder's story. Anyway, once you have your founder story created, we like we've already discussed in 193 how to shape that. Don't just store the full version of your founder's story. Break it into individual moments. Like the turning point of Becoming a travel advisor, the doubt that you face from like potentially leaving a long-term career and going in on this full-time, the specific decision where you were like, I feel strongly called to do this, and the current payoff for you. Each piece is its own content idea. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And we got client stories: the good, the bad, and the ugly. So the good client stories. A lot of travel advisors don't like doing the bad or the ugly. They'll just talk about how great they are and amazing they are. and we're gonna talk about why you need to Have the bad and the ugly moments. So we're gonna start with the good, the trip that exceeded expectations for your client. That's a client good story. The moment a client cried happy tears over an itinerary or proposal because it's like you read their mind. the surprise that you put in place for your clients that landed perfectly. These are your trust building and aspirational content pieces. So this is like, this is what I strive for. This is what I aim to do with everyone I serve. Then there are the bad client stories. It could be like mismatched expectations, a detail that needed some fixing, a major delay, and how you handled it. The how you handled it is very important with these stories because. It's sh it's much more powerful than just a good story, like, my gland had a blast. Because it's showing that your actual what your actual value is in a moment that mattered, not just when things were all hunky dory. And I know, I know, I know. You're like, I'm scared to post any bad or ugly stories. Because you're afraid it's gonna make you look bad. You need to make sure you tell the story and how you resolve the situation and stepped up and actually demonstrate your value. Then there's the ugly stories. The really, really hard ones. Major crises during travel. Like if you were an advisor in 2020, like any of those stories, mm-hmm. A client who was difficult to manage, a mistake that had to be corrected. If you tell these very carefully and with appropriate discretion, like don't name names, don't name the resort, around identifying details, like have that discretion. These can be some of your most compelling content because they show your resilience and problem solving under real pressure, not just a polished highlight reel. So like I'll tell you a story right now. I'll tell you a story that I tell some of my clients. I don't tell it in the well, maybe I have told it in content I've created, but this story was fascinating. I had two weddings at the same property. One was booked and contracted the room block through the supplier. One was booked directly with the resort. Okay. The same group coordinator was assigned to both weddings. And They were like a month apart or something like that. This was several years ago. Couples were both great couples, okay? The one that was through the contracted room block, it was taking forever. Well, both of them were taking forever to get any deviation submitted to the block. And the reason why I did both the supplier and direct because the couple that had the direct booking, they were like Well, we really like the concessions offered, Booking Direct. And I was like, okay, I don't recommend this, but you're you're right, it is a better offer than what a wholesaler can offer in terms of concessions, so we'll try direct. So it was taking so long to get anyone to like answer any deviations or process payments, whether it was direct or through the supplier. And so I was like, what is going on here? All right. And I was doing the best I can. You know, I was following up direct and I was following up with my coordinator for the supplier. And one of the couples, the couple with the supplier. This is how I caught him because I highly suspected it was the resort brand itself. Like it was the group coordinator, but the group coordinator kept dodging everything at the resort, like the group manager at the resort. And so I finally caught him because the mother of the bride with the contracted wholesaler group. contacted the resort directly and went to the group coordinator directly and the group coordinator told her nothing was ever submitted. I'm not doing my job. They need to cancel the contract with the supplier and just move direct with them. And the mother of the bride put this in an email in writing and CC'd that group coordinator. And once I got that email, I was like, gotcha. So Because it was the same coordinator managing the contracted group, which that's like a huge violation when there's a supplier contract. They don't know who the agency is. They're not supposed to know who the agency is, and they're not supposed to give information out to anyone except that group coordinator with the supplier. So it was a major violation. And then it was the same coordinator managing the direct room block. And so I was like, aha ha! So I downloaded everything. I reached out to my group's BDM for the supplier and I was like, hey man, this is happening. And I said, Can you help me look into this? Because I can't figure out who's what's going on here, but it's not just this contract with you. It's multiple groups at this property. And I got a voicemail from that BDM that said, Of course it wouldn't be put in writing, but I got a voicemail from the BDM. And the voicemail said something like, You're right, your suspicions are correct. Here's a contact. So I forwarded everything for both groups, all of the emails, everything, over to like the top direct resort brand BDM or executive. I can't remember who it was. And all of a sudden, everything was all hunky-dory. In the meantime, both couples were convinced it was all my fault. And so I had to tell them, no, it was this crazy coordinator. and one of the couples was like, you know, it might just be better for us to work directly, but because the resort had messed up so badly, I sent that on to the executive, and the executive's like, You're still getting commission on this. It is not your fault, and we've ruined your reputation with that couple. the other one, they basically gave them anything they wanted to keep them happy. there were certain room categories that require five nights' day, and they're like, you want you only want two nights in that room? Great, we're gonna we're gonna honor all of this for you because it was either that or like potential big, big lawsuit, right? So that is a story of the ugly. I had two very cup like not happy with me couples. and I have told my clients this. Like, I'm like, I've I've done I've experienced everything. This isn't all hunky dory, perfect time. Okay. So that's just like a story of an example of a story that you could possibly tell to demonstrate problem solving under pressure because I had these two big groups that were bit both ready to drop me, both ready to spread all this hate, damage my reputation, and then I was like, nope, I solved the problem. And while one did say, you know, this is just so stressful, it might just be easier to work directly with the property, which was that group coordinator's plan, I think. And I I was like, I totally understand. I have no hard feelings, you know. Like it was amicable for the most part. However, it was just such a bumpy road. Okay. So when you're telling stories like that, like I'm not naming names, I'm not naming the resort, I'm not naming the suppliers. I that's just an example of something that's happened in my travel career doing destination weddings. and it's a story you can tell, not you, but like similar stories you can tell in your content. And you can just pick little bits and pieces out of it to demonstrate that you can solve problems and you can really work under pressure. And it's not just all about like the pretty pictures and video content. Okay? All right. How do you do this? Keep it really simple. I like notebooks. I like to write everything down in notebooks myself. You can have a running Google Doc, Google Spreadsheet, notes app on your phone. Like if you just had a welcome home phone call or something like that, put it in your notes app on your phone the second you get off the call. So you don't remember like you don't remember. So you don't forget all of the details. And you want to make sure it's something story-worthy, and you don't want to reconstruct it from a memory weeks later. During your weekly or monthly idea batching sessions, this is the very first place you can look. I know I've mentioned in past episodes when you're in contact bat content batching mode, I save a lot of stuff and I review the content. And I'll be like, How can I apply this to my business? Like, how can I I like how this formatting is and stuff like that? And what story can I tell? And you can pull from the story bank. Or do I want to make this an educational? Is this Whatever I've saved to my phone more of an educational type piece of content. And do I like the sound and all that stuff? but this is like the first place you look. If you don't have a lot of stories because you're a newer travel advisor, then definitely save not necessarily travel agencies content, but save content that like you believe would appeal to your ICA. the way the formatting is like this draws me in I really like this hook how can I apply this hook as a travel advisor anyway when you get your story bank made up pull one entry ask which format it fits best best it could be like a short video written post long form video section of a newsletter and let the batching system from earlier this week carry it the rest of the way Alright, so that closes out our stretch on systems and content. Wait, let me I just had an idea pop in my head. We're not done yet. If you're like, how can I tell stories? And I don't like to show up on camera, but I want it to be a short form story. I Have seen hairstylists creator content, bakers creator content, they do a lot of the storytelling, and those are both service-based businesses. Hair and makeup artists for like weddings, like brides, they have a lot of storytelling content. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Why are you not doing that as a travel advisor? when it's short form video, and they'll do like some of them do So like the bakers or cake decorators content I've seen, it'll just be like, you don't even see their face. They're just decorating a cake and they'll be like, hey, there's this one time I had to make this cake like 30 minutes from pickup and the order got lost and like whatever. It'll be a crazy story like that. And they're like, I did it and it looked great, or they were not happy, or whatever, whatever the outcome was. hairstylists, hair makeup artists ones that I've seen. they usually do like the role playing where they'll have like a towel on their head or something to represent I'm a different person. You know? So you could do something like that too. Which would be difficult. I think if you were going to do that as a travel advisor, you'd have to reenact the story via a phone call, right? And you'd have to do like the different characters, like grab an extra phone case and just be like, I'm on the phone and just change your outfit or change something about you so people know that it's different characters. but I know a lot of us do our work via email. So That might be difficult. So you could even have like B-roll of you on a trip or you just like cleaning up your office or just film yourself working from your computer. Not the computer screen showing, but like the opposite end. Just film yourself working in your office. I mean If you need content, like b-roll content, just film yourself working and then do a voiceover with captions on the screen. Anyway, that closes out the systems and content. Batching video workflows, repurposing, mindset, and now storytelling woven in woven directly into the process. By the way, if you record a lot of B-roll, that you can repurpose that B-roll. Anything that you're doing. Okay? So coming up. We're gonna be shifting towards something bigger. What kind of business do you actually want to build? I don't know. I don't know. That's tomorrow's episode. This is the Travel Agency in a Year podcast, day 216. Have a great day.