Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 84 - The fear of growing your travel business too much
Transcript
- Rachel K: It's day 84 of the Travel Agency New Year podcast. We're closing out on the end of the first quarter. So if you are just finding this episode or whatever, I'm gonna do each quarter of a business like a fiscal year as a season. So season one will wind down on day 90 and season two will start up on day 91. I haven't decided yet the time of recording this if I'm going to just start season two episode one. Maybe I'll do it that way. I don't know. Or I'll just do day 91. Who knows? Who knows? Okay. Today's day 84. We're on all the fears. We are on the fear of scaling to higher. Oh, this is the last one. We're at the last sphere. No more scaries. So scaling to hire the fear is very similar to the fear of success because if you watched or listened to that episode, great power comes great responsibility per Spider-Man. Scaling to hire, you will have more responsibility, okay? So they're very similar to one another. But on top of the success, you're also creating jobs. And so now it's like... I'm responsible for people's livelihoods now. People that I may not have ever known. And now I have to interact with these people and I have to tell them what to do and so on and so forth. So what if you, the fear, the questions that come about when it's time for you to consider scaling to hire, which everyone does it at their own pace and at their own revenue goals. But what if you do a horrible job of recruiting the right talent? Chances are when you first start out, you will. It doesn't matter how how many books you read or how much training you do. You're probably going to do that. It's fine. It just happens. When you're new at anything, you're not going to be amazing at it. And you have to understand the first person you hire may not be with you for the rest of your career. May not be with you for another week. But that doesn't mean that you're bad at this and then you should stop trying to scale to hire. you're learning a new skill. Which now, congratulations, you're putting on like the HR hat, essentially. Like, can I understand if these are gonna be good, these recruits are gonna be the talent that I need? So. It's also terrifying because again, you are creating jobs and you have to make sure that sales are maintained so that you can afford to pay and provide for these jobs because this is someone else's livelihood is now dependent on you. So it's like. I don't know how to relate this to a brain child. often say your business is like a brain child. And I'm trying to figure out how to relate it. Like a child doesn't just like spawn. It's very intimidating. It's almost like, I don't want to liken it to grandchildren, because most people don't have families in their homes helping with grandchildren. I can't think of a good metaphor. but you're responsible for a whole other household and their kids. And that's terrifying. You're like, yeah, why are you talking about this? You may or may not be ready for that level of leadership. And if you are growing your business, there's going to come a point where you do have to consider this and just take the leap anyway. I'm reading my notes, sorry. So there is a program out there I think I've mentioned several times ⁓ called Assistance That Work that can help you at least determine what type of outsourcing, delegating, hiring you need to do. They've got some basic interview questions that you can use as a template, what to look for when you are hiring and how to train and get them set up for success. I think it's a pretty all-encompassing program. and there are many different ways that you can choose to scale your business. I'm not going to tell you how to do that because that's none of my business. Just know, even if you take a course like that, and I'm not saying don't make the investment because it is very valuable learning skills, you do need to do some studying on leadership and management and ATW is a good place to start, okay? Everyone faces these fears at some point in their career, especially on the journey to entrepreneurship. It's never going to go away quite, especially if you're like, I'm going to do this despite the fear that I have. And then you have a major hiccup. Then you're like, ⁓ that fear must be right. No, it's not necessarily right. You're just allowing it to take over. And you have to understand that it's your brain being the crabs in the bucket, pulling you back to what you're used to. You are taking big, big steps in just starting a travel agency that, again, many, many people are terrified to even step out and do on their own. And actually, I mentioned this in a live Q &A a few weeks ago, maybe? No? I don't remember. It's fine. Would you rather be on your deathbed saying, ⁓ man, I'm so glad I didn't take that risk so I didn't have to fail so I could stay in my comfy little bucket-o'-crabs that is my brain and totally regret what could have been? Or be like, well, I did it. Maybe I failed. Maybe I succeeded. I can't say what the future holds for you. But it's just like also when you learned how to ride a bike, it was super scary. I hope if you're listening to this, you know how to ride a bike. I plead that your parents did like if they didn't like you need to learn how to ride a bike. But I distinctly remember learning how to ride a bike. It was scary, especially when I got the bike with no training wheels. I'm like, what do you mean? I don't have something to fall back on. What do you mean? It's just me and two wheels balancing on the road. And I'm of a certain age where helmets, knee pads, and elbow pads were not a thing. It was like, don't fall because you'll die. You'll bust your head open. Figure it out. So you could fall and hurt yourself. And there's so many times, even after I learned how to ride a bike, that I would fall and scrape my leg. And all right, I'm going tell an embarrassing story. I think I was like seven. and was riding my brother's little red, like wannabe BMX bike, because he was too big for it now, he was too cool for it. But I thought it was way cooler than my pink and purple bike. And we had this big hill on the street when I was growing up, and our house is at the bottom of the hill, and I love to just ride the bike up the hill, and then like coast down and be like, woo, I'm so fast. Anyway. I had my little sister with me and she had a big wheel that was white and purple and she was like four, three or four years old and she had a really bad, she always had ear infections so she couldn't pronounce like R's very well. She was one of those kids. So I was wait-o. And I was like, screw you little four year old sister, I'm so much faster than you. And I remember something happened up at the top of the hill and it was like a little pinch that I could feel in my leg. ⁓ And I was like, ⁓ whatever. It doesn't hurt. And she's following me down the hill in her little big wheel. And she's like, wait, Joe. Wait, Joe. And I was like, what? And I stopped as we're at the bottom of the hill. And she was like. You bleeding, you bleeding. And I was like, I'm not bleeding. And then I looked down and my right calf is just like oozing blood. And I was like, ah, I just threw the bike in the neighbor's yard across the street and ran inside and abandoned my four year old sister. It's fine. It was the 80s. But I still rode my bike like I still got up and rode the bike. And so what I'm saying is with this terrible metaphor. I hope that you had silly stories like that where you're like, ⁓ I'm dying from this cut on my leg. It was the stupidest thing. But I still rode my bike. And the same thing's going to happen as you build your travel agency. Like, you're going to feel like, ⁓ this is the end of the world. I got someone unhappy with me. Or, ⁓ there was a travel delay, and I have to deal with that. The first time that happens, it's going to be like, this is the end of the world. But you just get back on your bike and keep going. I don't know if I could ride a bike today. I haven't ridden a bike in a while. So who knows? Anyway, if you do these things, if you keep going with your travel agency, what I'm saying is the fear that you have develop will lessen over time and it just becomes like whatever you were so afraid of just becomes the norm. And you can apply that to any kind of like childhood fears like, there's monsters under my bed. No, there's not. Or, ⁓ it's scary and dark. I need a nightlight. Eventually you don't need a nightlight, right? because you embrace that this is in my head, this is not reality, and I have to carry this in my head, and it's okay, and that is what builds confidence. So, that was our final episode on all the fears. ⁓ I feel like we needed another one. All right. Day 74 starts with the fears, like the top 10 fears real quick. And then each day up until day 84 is each fear more in depth. I hope you found this episode to be helpful. If not, a little enjoyable thinking of little seven-year-old Rachel just abandoning her sister on the side of the road. fine. All right. I hope you have a wonderful day, and see you tomorrow.