Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 166 - Why TAs need a BORING Business
Transcript
- Rachel K: Thanks for coming back to the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Kay. If you're brand new, hit the subscribe button. You'll get episodes every single day as they are dropped. 365 episodes of podcasting, all about travel advisors, for travel advisors, developing the CEO mindset and just business tips, tricks, tactics, like all areas of business. And we touch a lot on personal growth. Yesterday's episode was, ⁓ my gosh, this was like two pages of notes. The horizon effect explained for travel advisors. We're expanding on that today. Day 166 is why travel advisors need to make their business boring. Boring businesses are so good. And I understand the glamour to becoming a travel advisor. I see it a lot with people, and I had people presume that I was in it for the glamour, which is you get to go on fam trips, you get discounted travel, ⁓ you can go see the world, and you can post it on your Instagram. That's not why I was doing it. ⁓ but a lot of people get into this industry thinking it's easy money and they get to see the world. In fact, it's kind of sad, but a lot of Places that hire travel advisors promote that. And it's not the reality of the situation. So why do you need to make your business boring? Boring businesses work. Boring businesses work. Even if you're looking at like UGC content creators, influencers, behind the scenes, it is very boring. Yeah, they might be funny and entertaining. Same thing with like film production, television shows, pr like the successful shows and films. Like they're pretty standard, boring, normal, routine stuff. Is it exciting at first when you get into an exciting industry? Yes. And also. Boring businesses work is what I'm saying. Passion gets everyone started in the travel industry. Not just the glamorous side of it, but also every advisor that I talk to. Why did you get into this? Well, I really, really have a passion for travel. I have a passion for Disney. I have a passion for weddings. I have a passion for Europe. It's always I have a passion. Passion is an unstable fuel source for businesses and it will cause your travel advisory, travel agency to burn out very quickly. It is not gonna maintain your business. So yes, you can have that passion, and you also need to be able to make it boring because that passion will fade, just like in any relationship, the first year or two, whatever, you're like, ⁓ this person is so perfect and we're never gonna have any problems and it's gonna be amazing. And then two years later you're like, Stop breathing that way. It's the passion is gone, and passion does not maintain anything. Mm. So today we're going to talk about transitioning from the passionate founder to the stable business operator. Founders run on straight raw adrenaline and the creativity. That's the passion. That's the sparks, like, ⁓ I'm so meant for this career and I get to do all these things and I'm going to help so many people. And you run full steam ahead because you're like, I can do this. And that's a great thing to have. But it doesn't last forever. It does create a massive rush to your system to go for it and do it. Like we need that passion to create a sense of drive, to establish and start towards our goals. And it's really good for like short-term goals, not so good for longer term. Why is my Operators manage on predictability. So yesterday I mentioned I think let me look at the five billion pages of notes. ⁓ no I didn't. Operators manage the predictability. They maintain the relationship. I'm going to use romantic relationships as a metaphor for this today. The operators maintain the marriage, maintain the boring day-to-day monotony, the routines that need to be in place to keep things from falling apart. This is all a core component of the success circle, by the way, teaching you how to jump out of that. passion driven, ⁓ shiny object syndrome, all that fun stuff into just becoming a steady operator and do your own thing. What's the success circle? Great question. Go to elevate with Rachel K dot com. You can scroll to the courses offered and check it out. It's thirty five bucks a month. It's a lot. It ain't easy. It ain't for the week. It is a year long program, but it's only thirty five bucks a month. Okay. If your travel agency requires constant high stakes, creative problem solving on the daily, ⁓ you aren't building a business. You're building a stressful freelancing gig. This is why so many people perceive travel advisors as just being a side hustle. And like when host agencies are like, ⁓ yeah, you could totally have a you could be a travel agent as a side hustle. Like they're basically telling you This is gonna be very high stress, and we're not gonna help you create the right systems to make it nice and boring. But we'll take your money. So let's talk about the dopamine detox of scaling. Why you need to make it boring. Why you need to make your business boring. In the beginning, again, you're the founder. You get that first booking. You get that first you put that first post out. You get your first share, your comment on that post. You get your first DM from that post that says, I want a trip. You get your first DM in general, you get your first consultation, you get your first fee, your first commission. All of these firsts come in and you're like, this is the greatest thing ever. And when you go from like one booking a month to five bookings a month, get that's a new first. ⁓ I'm averaging five bookings a month, no big deal. And then from like five to fifty, ⁓ I have fifty people traveling a month, no big deal. And then you get into the thousands of people that you're serving. Like it's that dopamine is always a little bit there. But it doesn't get you the same reaction as that first consultation did. Like your two hundredth consultation is just gonna be like Can I take your order? I'm on the if you're not watching this on YouTube, I have a little millennial slash Gen X phone in my hands hand symbol. ⁓ Versus that first one we were like, I'm super excited. Okay, it is so good because it does maintain your drive when you have fear, which we all have fears, and it's really good to maintain that drive when you're like, ⁓ I'm starting something new. This is scary, I could fail. So when you get that hit of like, no, somebody likes you, somebody wants to work with you, great. But you can't use that validation forever, and your body gets used to that validation, your brain, and then it's like more, more, more, more, more. And that's very dangerous territory to be in. Why did I put C B A? I used to know what C B A meant when I wrote this. You can get addicted to the building. The building part. And this can really start to affect you once things get boring. ⁓ when it's the same shit, different day. You have less stress as you learn how to manage stressful situations like flight cancellations, flight delays, someone's room isn't like their requests weren't honored and you have to manage that. ⁓ Whatever travel stuff happens. Like you hear me saying this and I'm like, it happens all the time. It's out of your control and you I've already got all my systems in place. Like here's how you fix this and here's how I help you. So none of that worries me. But like my first few groups years ago, I would stay up and I wouldn't sleep at night until I knew everyone safely got on the plane. Because I wasn't used to thirty people getting on the same flight or like flying the same day and having seventeen different flights or something. And it terrified me and I would just have this sense of dread. But then when I got that first commission I was like, I could totally do this again. So you get less stressful as you learn to manage the stresses. Like, duh, you roll with the punches, you learn how to manage them, you learn how to defend yourself from them. And over time, it starts to get boring. It starts to get a little bit boring, even though you're making more money. and then your dopamine might go to other things like fighting on social media with people. Or ⁓ Doom scrolling in general or shopping excessively, deciding you need to redecorate your office, ⁓ deciding you need to enroll in all these courses and trainings, maybe switching niches. And that's self-sabotage. You're sabotaging the business. Lots of travel advisors at this point assume that the lack of highs, like the emotional drama and like the high of like, ⁓ I beat last year's bookings, I beat last quarter's bookings, I'm so great, I won another award. Which trust me, that gets old really fast unless you've got issues. ⁓ But a lot of travel advisors assume at this point. The lack of those highs means you're a failure or things are stagnant. ⁓ and again, leads to you, not you, hopefully not you, leads to them breaking their own systems for a new quote unquote fire to put out. An uneventful, predictable day is the ultimate victory as a small business owner. ⁓ getting to your desk, whether revenue is currently high or low. Doing all the daily boring stuff, creating the content regardless of how much bookings you have right now, maintaining that consistency. ⁓ serving your clients still exactly how you would if you had 3,000 people traveling or three people traveling, maintaining that consistency and doing all the boring stuff. That is the goal. That is the goal you should strive for. And it doesn't matter if you're like, I want to work eight hours a day or four hours a day. That is the goal you should be striving for in your daily stuff. Like, no worries when someone comes into your inbox and is stressful or scared. A, that's a communication gap. We're going to talk about that later. ⁓ and you need to address it. But over time, like that should be. Something you can manage very easily rather than being like, This is a fire I have to put out. You don't need all the fires, you don't need to be the hero. When it's boring and it's just the same shit different day, that is you've built systems well enough in place that you now have the ability to train someone else to fit into that position. So if you want to maintain that dopamine hit, you can hire someone to do all of that for you and then get the dopamine from expanding further. Okay? And still maintain everything, but just Grow in a different way. And that's when you're stepping into full entrepreneurship, full CEO time, when you can just give it to someone else to do. Why is this so hard? Okay, because we need to be the firefighter hero that swoops in and saves the day. We all love the rush and the validation earned from like, don't worry, I got you, don't worry, I got you. And when things are working, you're gonna be questioning, no, well, am I even valuable? Nobody needs me. I don't need to put out any fires. What am I gonna do with my life? And this is kind of like when you raise your kids, if you've ever, if you have children or raised children, we all go through that where it's like, I gotta take care of business. And then they start getting that independence, and you're like, Do they even like me? And then they go through that teenage phase where like I hate you, mom. And then you're like, I'm not valuable, but then they grow up a little bit more and then they're like, I was a jerk face. Like that's that's a lot of child rearing in a nutshell. And your business is gonna go through the same thing. You're gonna start questioning, am I valuable? Like, do I need to do more? You don't necessarily need to do more. But you are so much more valuable when you get to the boring business day because you've created the opportunity to hire someone else and provide a job for somebody else. Like that is so much more valuable than some rando who may never book a trip with you again, may or may not. We don't know what's gonna happen to them. Being like, Thanks for saving the day because I don't know how to get to the airport on time. You know what mean? Like, it's gonna be so much more valuable if you can maintain consistency and you can afford to pay somebody. This was something I actually struggled with personally, because this episode's almost over, so now I'm gonna ramble a little bit. ⁓ this was something that I struggled with. I am actually currently working on this as this episode is being recorded. I thought that being valuable was like giving myself and also sidebar, please don't think that I'm projecting myself onto you in this episode. This is just like a weird coincidence. But I did find myself ⁓ seeking like I've dealt with all the boundaries and things over the years. And very, very recently I'm looking at making a big change in my personal life. And I was like Can I do it? I'm kind of scared, right? And so I'm looking at big vi big investments, and there's a variety of cost in these investments. And I remember I was trying to stay small and I was like, well, just do what's like easily affordable. And I would be drawn to it's housing, by the way. I'd be drawn to like these very beautiful homes. And I'd instantly go like, Well, that's too expensive for me. Well, I don't wanna ⁓ that's too much land. I don't wanna mow that. Like, I don't wanna clean all that house. I don't wanna clean that pool, but this is a really pretty house and I'd love to live here, but I don't wanna do all of that other stuff. And I was shutting out that possibility and then I was thinking about it, and it's like, wait a minute. I am a business owner and I can generate enough revenue to where I could easily afford that and not only afford that house, but also provide jobs. to other business owners for like helping me to maintain the house. Like I can give back that way rather than focusing on the little tiny things with my current clients and like bending over backwards too much. I don't really do that anymore with my clients, but like it was a big revelation I had. So when you are boring, because my business is boring. And so I was like, can I do this? ⁓ my gosh, I can. And I can actually do just a little bit more marketing and do a little bit more networking and I can easily afford all of that. And I can provide and like contribute to the local economy that way. Like think of it that way. So what do you need to do? You need to go from hero of your travel agency and for your clients to steward. Heroes fight for the systems and they come in and save the day and they're always going for the rush. They're jumping off the cliffs just I don't know why they're jumping off a cliff, but they're jumping off the cliffs to save the cat. Somehow they land on their feet. It's fine. ⁓ ⁓ or they're rescuing the princess because now I've got Mario in my head. And they have to jump over fireballs and things like that. or like the firefighter's a good example. They're putting out all these fires to save the day. ⁓ stewards protect the stillness and the peace that has been built. Okay. So let's focus on becoming the steward of your business rather than the hero for your clients. ⁓ and you can expand that stewardship not only in your business, but into your family and your household. Like how can I protect this peace? that we've created. Alright, that was d day one sixty six and sorry my phone alarm just went off. It's fine. That weird dee deep sounds just like it. I also want to leave you with this one last note. Stewards lead by managing capacity. Okay? Tomorrow we're going to talk about the high performance framework that you can build to fully step in and go from hustle to actual business owner. We have a lot of episodes like this. Just know there's a lot of different ways you can do this. ⁓ and kind of go from hero to steward. Have a wonderful day. If you know someone that's riding the struggle bus, feel free to share this episode, especially if they're like, ⁓ this is so boring. I'm so sick of this. ⁓ stick with it. It will be very rewarding. All right, have a good day. Bye.