Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 199: The Travel advisor's guide to building service packages
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome back to the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. I am your host Rachel K. I almost said the wrong last name. Rachel K. and also anyone new, thanks for joining. Hit that subscribe-a-rooney button so you can get daily notifications because episodes are dropped daily. All right, if you missed yesterday, I was talking about the service packages for travel advisors charging fees and even if you don't charge fees, just consider this. If you're like, maybe I should charge fees. It makes your life so much easier. All right. We talked about why tiered packages mattered yesterday. I referred to MIT and Harvard studies because I like to cite sources. It's not just some crazy person making up stuff. Please don't think I'm just some weird wackadoo. Today we're going to build these packages if you don't have them already. If you do, you can always review your packages and be like, hmm, should I tweak these? I do recommend that. I talk about the quarterly reviews, the monthly reviews, and the annual reviews. I will review and revise my packages if needed during my annual review. So at the end of the year, if you don't know, I do my annual review week 48. which is like the beginning of December basically. Because that's like a deep focus for me and I'm wrapping everything up for the year. I don't take any clients traveling past like December 20th and nobody travels again for me until at least like January 5th. So I have the holiday kind of off. And if I don't get the annual stuff all done, I have that downtime where I can just do that on one of my days the office is closed for travel. And I'll just be like, OK, let's refine these packages or whatever. Or I adjust the pricing, whatever. So yesterday, we talked about all that. This is what I've been doing since like 2020 when I went out on my own. And I've been teaching other advisors this unofficially probably. I would say like mid 2020. No end of 2020 is when I did all this into 21. That COVID really messed up with my timeline or maybe I'm just too old. I don't know. But I know in like 21 I started teaching advisors you have to have service packages. It doesn't make sense to just throw arbitrary fees. OK. ⁓ and then formally have been teaching this for over a year now. So I recommend three service packages. Three is a magic number for so many reasons and off the top of my head because I had a billion different majors in college. It took me 13, 14 years to get a bachelor's degree because I was like, I'm gonna do this and now I'm gonna do this. And then life circumstances is like, ⁓ well can't do this for a career. Anyway. One of my majors was interior design at the Art Institute of Dallas. And I dropped out of that program because I did not want to pay 70 grand for a bachelor's degree back in the early 2000s. And I was told unless you psychotically network, you're not going to do anything more, not me personally, but like blanket statement to our entire class was. you're gonna end up working in Home Depot or Lowe's in the kitchen and bathroom design departments for 14 bucks an hour. And I was like, this is not a good ROI, okay? But I learned a lot about design, color psychology, CAD, ⁓ manually drawing floor plans is pretty cool. Drawing, I learned so much more about drawing in one class. This is just totally digressing, it's fine. I had an English teacher tell me that Ted Bundy would have murdered me out of everyone in the classroom. I was like, ⁓ cool. ⁓ She was like, it was crazy. I feel like she was in her 80s somehow teaching still. And my memory of her was she was very tiny, like under five feet tall. And something involving ladybugs, like she had a little ladybug pin or brooch that Shelly's wore. And I feel like she had like a, ⁓ she did, she had a red blazer with black polka dots that she would wear and she drove a ladybug, not a ladybug, she drove a VW Beetle that had the eyelashes for the headlights. Yeah, she was real interesting. But yeah, one day in class she got on this topic about Ted Bundy. And how he. murdered a bunch of college girls and then she looked at me and she pointed at me and she's like you if he's murdering anybody in this class it would be you and I was like I don't know what that means anyway that was my experience ⁓ also at the Art Institute of Dallas I my freshman orientation teacher there even though I wasn't a freshman but it was like the orientation class you know because I just transferred there He was really cool. I feel like his last name was Ortiz. And he was like, everyone needs to read Rich Dad Poor Dad. Everyone needs to save 10%, invest 10%, blow 10%, whatever you want, and live on 70 % of whatever you make, period, the end. I'm not teaching you where to find the various departments in this institution. I'm teaching you how to be an adult. And that was like a really cool class. He was like, look at Robert Kiyosaki immediately. All right. I don't know how I got off on that tangent and I'm sorry. I hope it was at least mildly entertaining. Alright, ⁓ yes, three. Three is a magic number. In interior design school, we would talk about how odd numbers, three and five, sets of three and sets of five, but three is the best, is the most appealing to the eye. And this is why so many companies have three tiered packages. We talked yesterday about CRMs and different softwares like Slack or whatever, different things. You can get the growth starter or the pro plan, right? or the starter growth pro. And it's generally three. Not two. I mean five's a little too much. That's too overwhelming. It's decision overwhelmed. This is why I do max three proposals. Three is the magic number. ⁓ I'm not even gonna get into Tesla and three, six, and nine. I don't know enough about it, but it is pretty crazy. So. Two options, put your leads into the binary yes or no, cheaper, expensive comparison trap, which tends to push people towards the cheaper choice by default. This is why you want three, okay? Five options, like I said, decision fatigue. There's too many variables to compare, and someone who is already probably an overwhelmed lead because they're trying to plan whatever trips you specialize in, and that's a lot. ⁓ But then you throw five options at them, same with proposals. You throw five options at them, that's a lead who goes quiet. Now, comparing it, if you don't charge fees, let's talk about the proposals. You send one or two, you send one proposal, you're not giving them any other choice. So you're kind of like forcing them into a box. And I feel like that's like a higher liability. ⁓ things go wrong because you don't give them any other options and they don't have the ability to make a choice and Then again, if you only give them two options, they're gonna go with the cheaper booking if you give them five options That's too much information So three is a nice number for proposals in my experience even if I have like destination wedding couple that is like we only want this property period the end I still quote the estimated costs for their ceremonies using up to three packages even if that property has like five or six packages I pick the best three for them and then I estimate all the costs for their events based on how many guests were imagining they're gonna come and then I'm like, here, here's all the perks, here's how this package is gonna put you way over budget, even though it looks nice. Like I had this happen, a couple contacted me and they're like, oh, this package is only like 11.3 or 11.4 or whatever. And I was like, yeah. And they're like, our budget for events is 20 to 25. We could go up to 25. And I was like, okay, well, I'll try to get it close to 20. And that package ended up being like 27, I think, when I quoted everything that they wanted. I was like, look, and I told them on the consultation, I'm like, you're gonna go over budget. They're like, but it's only 11,000. I'm like, yeah, but there's so many add-ons that you need to have. Anyway, I always try to do three. Sometimes people are like, we don't wanna see anything else, this is perfect, great. But I factor that in my fee pricing. I'm not gonna factor it into my fee pricing. and then not deliver what I've already planned is gonna take up my time, right? All right, anyway, three. is creating the structure that we talked about yesterday. A clear entry point, the middle option that feels like the obvious, super easy choice, and then the top tier option that anchors the value of everything below it. ⁓ Most of your bookings will land in that middle tier and that's by design, not by accident. And also, we're gonna talk about pricing, I think. Let me look at my show notes. Mm-mm-mm. Yep, tomorrow we're gonna talk about pricing and how you can switch it around, which I talk about so much. I think I talk about in the success circle. And I feel like I've just talked about it a lot. This whole, maybe in the live Q &As. Anyway. Okay, tiers shouldn't be differentiated. Your tiered service packages shouldn't be differentiated by description or like destination or trip type. They should be differentiated by the depth of your services offered. So think about what changes as you do more services. How much communication will you offer? How many Proposals and revisions to proposals are included. Are you doing the full logistics, like down to dining reservations ⁓ and day to day thorough itineraries? Or are you doing a lighter touch to it, giving them more freedom? Whether, like, are you going to offer them priority support during the trip itself or during planning? ⁓ Something like that. So. Your entry package should be super streamlined, standard support, the core logistics, and solid planning. Examples of this would be the standard support travel advisors have, which you can opt at this point for like ⁓ Just the suppliers 24-7 customer service number if Okay, we're gonna talk about this for different niches to like Like I use classic vacations a lot and they've got a 24 7 email and support number That is part of my standard support. They get that 24 7 they can also whatsapp me, right? Core logistics is going to be like assistance with flight planning, ⁓ submitting any honeymoon or anniversary things, whatever, you know, maybe not. But like, you know, the core logistics, travel insurance, that kind of stuff, and solid planning. Okay? Your middle package can add layers that make the trip feel just a little more truly custom. So you might add more touch points now. I backtracked on the honeymoon just now because I'm like, mean you could do this for your middle package. ⁓ Like more touch points, more detail to the bookings, maybe some added extras thrown in. And your top package is the full white glove experience which is like, if you, okay, it can be like the dining reservations for like an FIT ⁓ in Europe. It can be like, I swear to goodness. I just talked about this on podcast. I feel like I'm repeating myself as I'm recording this, but that's neither here nor there. ⁓ Like concierge level support, ⁓ as much as you can handle, you will handle. So if you are moving into the luxury sphere and you currently book like more budget type, what is going on with the weather? It is like weirdly dark all of sudden. It's like three in the afternoon at the time of recording this and it looks like sunset and there's like the sun's out anyway. You're doing more like budget stuff now having these service packages and the budget stuff you can be like there's no fee for this, you know for the three packages, but you want to like get more of those luxury clients having that fee and having that differentiated for that white glove. Yeah, it's like weird anyway experience. ⁓ will help you get into that luxury space over time too. Because your free clients, or like your low fee clients at your base service package, They're getting like the taste of what you're capable of. And if you want to come back, you should have your clients repeating and coming back to you. They might want to like take a little sample poo of your mid tier and then go all in on the luxury tier. And then if you charge fees every single time they come back, you're getting that luxury tier and then they refer you. Okay. All right. So the fees for each, like I said, your lowest one, if it's really, really standard support, you can have it be a zero fee. And that's a good option too. If you are a fee free travel advisor, and you're just like, want to charge fees, but I don't feel comfortable with it, look at what your current services are, and maybe, Pair down a few of the ones where you're like, is a lot of work for what I'm doing for free. I mean, you get your commission, right? ⁓ But this is like a little too much work. Put that in your middle package and then just your current clients when they come back, be like, hey, I have service packages now. Don't worry. Everything but dinner reservations or whatever, I don't know what you do, is still free for me to do. If you want to upgrade to the next service tier, it's everything that's free plus the things that I took out that I do in this middle package and I added these services, right? Okay. It's never gonna be about your gut feeling about a specific client. And this is where, like your fees, this is where a lot of TAs get stuck because nobody's teaching, by the way, how to actually calculate a fee based on your own business. Like your time, your costs, and your goals. Rather than just like, people are just like, oh you should just charge this number because this is what I charge. Like what? ⁓ that's exactly why I've built the Know Your Numbers tool. So instead of telling you what to charge, it walks you through figuring out your fees based on your actual business, your time investment, your costs, your income goals, your average commission, your average booking value. So the numbers that you land on are yours and not a rumor you heard in a Facebook group. It blows my mind, sorry. If you want like the fuller, build out of like creating the service packages. It is. touched on in the Sweet Spot to Success circle. What? No, the Sweet Spot to Success. Sorry, Success Circle's a different program. But Sweet Spot to Success is $47. It goes deeper into that. The Success Circle, if you really wanna get in it to win it, that's a 12-month program, 35 bucks a month. And we touch on this framework several different times throughout the year, so you can always review and tweak as you're building your travel agency. Alright, so on to the service packages with multiple niches. Well, but I book honeymoons and I book family vacations and I do groups. Do I need totally separate package structures for each niche? No. This is one of the most useful parts of this method. Your three tier structure, entry mid top. can apply across every niche you serve. So what changes is the specific inclusions inside of each tier for that niche, not the overall framework. So like, okay, back to when I was talking about like, honeymoons, like the honeymoon, like arranging the couples dinner on the beach and that kind of stuff that come with honeymoon packages, you could... Say that's part of your basic services now, but you could put that in your mid-tier and your basic services can be free. And the next time you get a honeymoon or anniversary client, you can say, you know what, I think, let's see, let's just call them the same packages that I call mine. So your base package is classic and then there's premier and then there's the top tier is the elite. So doing the consultation, you could ask them, how do you feel about... ⁓ Honeymoon packages and arranging honeymoon services and if they're like, ⁓ that sounds really great. Can you help me with that? I certainly can go through the consultation when you get to the end instead of just straight-up closing you can say hey based on my service packages The premier is gonna be the best fit for you because that includes the honeymoon amenities like confirmation and planning That fee is $250 up front and it is non-refundable and it includes my other travel services and whatever the else heck you got in that mid-tier package. And then you say, how does that sound? And they'll say, sounds great. Or they'll be like, ⁓ I didn't know. I didn't want to pay that much of a fee. Okay, well, we can start with the base classic package. Here's the inclusions of that and here's my fee for that. Or you could be like, it's totally free. Don't worry about it. ⁓ and then they can make the decision from there. Is it worth 250 bucks for you to advise them to remember to bring their marriage certificate, wedding invitation, all that fun stuff. So when you are creating these packages to put them on your site and you're like, ⁓ that's a great idea, Rachel. I know, I got a bunch of good ideas. Anyway, ⁓ you could just have a bullet point, like additional special event service amenities, honeymoon, anniversary planning, proposal planning. If you do that in your niche, it don't matter. ⁓ And then for groups, can do, I would do a separate one for groups because group travel management, like kind of tweak the services, like change the wording for those packages to apply to groups instead of just across the board. I think that's how I would do it. Like, because for me, I don't get crazy custom FIT stuff. I get, Hey, we want to go to this resort or we want to go on this cruise. So I just am like, okay, well, here's my fee for that. And I'm like, this is what it covers. ⁓ But I do specialize in groups myself. So I went all in on the group specialization for the service packages. ⁓ All right. What I'm saying is a honeymooner. and a multi-gen family can both choose from your classic premier lead or like your essential signature or elevated packages or diamond, sapphire, ruby or silver gold, platinum or bronze, silver, gold, however you want to word it. ⁓ The names in the tier logic stays consistent while the details inside. should also apply to what they need. But I do think if you do groups and FITs, maybe duplicate that section on your webpage and just tweak the wording just a little bit for your groups. This keeps your business super simple to explain and simple to run even as you serve different types of travelers. Why? Because they choose a service package so they know what they're getting when they sign up for it. and you know what you're doing for them. Okay? And they can't be like, well, can you do this now? It's not in this package. Do you want to upgrade to the next package, dear? Like you clearly outline exactly what you will and will not do. Okay? Alright, so tomorrow we're gonna take these packages out into the real world and how you can communicate them. just touched on the website. Across your website, your socials, your email funnels. how to guide a lead towards the right package during a consultation instead of leaving them to guess. And that's a really easy way to close as well because you just kind of guide them through and say, based on the information, da da da da da da. We'll talk about tomorrow. This is day 199 of the Travel Agency in a Year podcast.