Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 179: The Q2 Confidence Audit (Celebrating Invisible Wins)
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome back to the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel K. We are on day 179 of our journey together. And we are standing on a massive threshold. I mean, look at the calendar. Today is the final day of Q2. Tonight, the first half of the year, curtain drop, and you start with the clean slate of Q3. Now, if you're anything like myself or any other amazing independent travel advisors that I speak with on a weekly basis, you've probably already hopefully completed your quarterly review. You've looked at the spreadsheets, the bookings, the commissions, the booking values, the number of new clients, the number of repeat clients. Over the last three months, hopefully you know what your numbers look like, where your revenue stands, and you've probably mapped out your raw projections for Q4. And Q3. You've done your audit of the business. And today we're gonna pause. And I know I've done this on day 100 because I just wanted to celebrate all y'all. ⁓ but we're gonna do a different kind of audit, not just like celebrating the wins, but we're gonna conduct a confidence audit. Mm-hmm. Cause it's so easy to close out a quarter only looking at what the business did while completely ignoring. what you have done. A spreadsheet or CRM, whatever, can track your gross sales, but it can't measure the growth in your decision making and your clarity. email CRM type things, not vacation CRM test, not those, but I'm talking about like Flowdesk. They can track like active email opens, your other type of CRM like V CRM, Turn, Travel Joy, whatever. They can track your active traveler account, but they cannot calculate the executive authority that you've developed since January or even further back. And your emotional resilience, because we are officially six months all the way done. Technically, kind of. I'm calling it 180 is six months. We're in day 179. ⁓ revenue is always gonna fluctuate. We all know that, based on like wave season in general, conditions of the market, inventory, seasonality for your niche. So that financial data is a lagging indicator, especially if you're only like one or two years in and you're like, Woo, look at me booking all the stuff, but the money isn't quite there yet because the people haven't traveled yet. But your internal growth, your decision-making conviction. your evolving identity, like peeling the layers of the onion that is who you are, that is equity you get to keep forever, regardless of how this travel agency turns out. If you enter this third quarter evaluating your worth only by numbers, ⁓ you're leaving your professional confidence at the mercy of external factors. So today we're not going to look at your bank account. We're gonna audit Personal progress, the weight of decisions you've made, and exactly who you're becoming as a leader. So let's anchor that confidence into your internal whatever evolution so that you can command the next six months with unshakable and absolute authority. Fingers crossed. ⁓ don't worry, we're all still scared all the time. It doesn't matter how long you've been doing this, but you just kind of get used to it. So let's do ⁓ th we're gonna do three different like personal confidence audits today. I want you to think about all these things. Number one, the decision making conviction audit. To understand why this matters, and I've talked about like the importance of being able to make a decision and how a lot of very, very successful, successful entrepreneurs make decisions with only 60% of the information and go with confidence. And that is a skill that anyone can develop. You don't have to be like, well, I was scared last year, so I'm gonna be scared forever. Okay. So let's look at the anatomy of the struggle bus travel agency. A struggling TA Let's the market dictate his or her schedule, what he or she sells, and their own peace of mind, and their clients dictate all of that as well. these types of advisors operate in a perpetual state of reaction instead of responding. I hope you've been listening to this podcast, and this isn't the first episode, because we have talked about this in past episodes. A true TA CEO operates from a place of Clear intention, every boundary that you set in your business, every boundary that you enforce, every time you say no, that's a diagnostic metric of your growing executive authority. So if someone calls you, let's say you have no desire to do destination weddings, someone calls you and is like, I want to do a destination wedding. I'm sorry, that's not my scope of expertise, right? Or whatever niche that you don't want to even deal with. The ability to say no to that is great. Another example would be we've I've experienced and advisors like in the success circle and other courses over at Elevate with Rachel K in the live QA's. We've all been talking about there's been like a lot of very last minute bookings, but when is that hard line of like, no, I'm not taking this booking on for you and your business? That's another one that you can enforce. ⁓ So I want you to audit your calendar mentally over the last three months and think about specific moments where you had to make that hard choice where you were really tempted to take on that last minute booking or that booking in a niche where you have no desire or idea what you're doing because you're like, ⁓ that's money. ⁓ that's external factors, not what I actually want to be. Think about that. Think about Any time where you were tempted and you had to make that hard choice, do I stick with who I want who and what I want, like who I want to be and what I want this travel agency the travel agency to be, or do I cave in for a quick buck? And you can think about like the maybe you had a client who scheduled a consultation or a lead that came to you with this massive budget and so many red flags as well. The one who was like, what do you mean you don't have 247 access? ⁓ I don't I don't know how to fill out this form. Ugh. We all know that client. I'm just not good with the internet. Well you found me on freaking Instagram, ding dong. Type on your phone. That makes me so mad when people are like, I don't know how to type a form. I'm like, Don't lie to me. Or maybe just someone just subtly disrespected your time in one way or another. Like, I guarantee you we have all dealt with that. And old Rachel, just so you know, I'm I'll do the reflection with you right now. Old Rachel will be like, ⁓ you can't type your own name on a forum. Don't worry, I'll help you with that. It's ridiculous. Like you pay all your bills online, you can't fill out my form? That's a lie. Maybe you would have taken that on and been like, ⁓ I can help you with that, just like I used to. maybe you would have taken on, I've taken on some major red flag clients like from the consultation, and I'm like, it'll be fine. And it's never fine. So I'm like, ⁓ I I want the business. I w I took on a few ⁓ wedding couples when I was like, I'm gonna get all the weddings this year. And I knew I was like blaring red flags. If you ever are on any kind of like video social media, there's that red flag guy. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but the content is like these weird, horrible relationships, and it's like subtle displays of disrespect towards their partner and he's like, my guy, and he just runs across the field the red flag. Yeah, I had clients where he's like waving in the background like, do not take them on. And I'm like, but it's business. I won't do that anymore. but if you were like me at some point you would have ignored those gut reactions, maybe swallowed that anxiety, and spent all this extra time and energy chasing a commission that probably cost you a little bit of your sanity. And it was all rooted in a scarcity mindset, okay? So maybe that was last year, maybe that was at the beginning of this year. maybe you just started as a travel advisor like two months ago, and you're like, this has to stop, you know, sometime in the last three months. and maybe you had that happen one time and you're like, I'm never doing this again, I gotta stick it out, and you got another one in the last three months. And you looked at that misaligned, toxic AF lead. And you just were like, unfortunately, I don't have the capacity to take this trip on right now. Or I don't think my agency is the right fit for the style of trip execution you're looking for. That wasn't just a win for like your calendar. That was a massive deposit into your conviction account. You chose long term business integrity over short term financial gain. So you've decided that your agency's culture and your own mental band bandwidth is a non-negotiable non-negotiable asset. I'm sorry, I keep ⁓ like tripping up and I say bleh like I'm vomiting words out. Ignore that. So when you're like auditing your decisions this way, you realize something probably like profound. Let's get a little deep. That your business didn't just survive the last six months. Because of luck or room inventory or cabin availability. It survived because you have made the executive calls required to protect it. If you know me, you know I say building a business is kind of like raising a child. You gotta protect that child to a certain extent. Don't be a helicopter mom. You fired the band bad clients. You stood firm on any planning fees you decided to implement or maybe you increased them and you're like, This is it, bud Bud or ma'am, take it or leave it, bud. You chose to invest in your own education in stay instead of waiting for someone to give you all the answers. So as you cross the threshold into the new quota, kinda, I want you to carry that record of the decisive execution with you into this new quota. Keep it up, man or lady. You're no longer guessing your way through your operations, hopefully by this point. And now you might have a documented history of like making those tough and authoritative and as correct as you can be choices and own that data. ⁓ the next audit we're gonna do is the Invisible Progress audit. And I used to do this kind of stuff when I was a personal trainer too. Like I'm low-key. I don't know. I feel like I'm just like the personal trainer for travel agencies. It's I don't know. I've just always been like, let's keep going and do audits on everything. It can get a little out of hand though. Okay, in the travel industry, I'm going digressing. There's a huge difference between the visible progress, like the bookings on your dashboard and the commission checks in your bank account, or clients like leaving all these reviews on your whatever page you ask for reviews to be left on. And then there's invisible progress. Invisible progress is how you keep your shit together when it's like the sky is absolutely falling. And it's your capacity to absorb all the chaos without letting it destabilize your business or your nervous system. Because things will get to you and things will frustrate you. And how well can you manage that? So think back to the first time you had a major crisis. Maybe it was like a client's last-minute flight cancelling. Maybe it was like a flash sale that you were like, I can get you a deal, client, and they're like, sure thing. But the server crashed for the site and you couldn't get it booked, and you're like, this is my nightmare. And because you made that promise to that client that they're gonna get this deal. ⁓ maybe somebody missed a private transfer and it's somehow your fault. Or you had some last minute requests from your client and your supplier or wholesaler, whomever. would just kinda like ghosted you and was not answering the questions. Remember that initial first time this happened? The physical reaction. Your heart rate probably spiked. I used to get like the like you're like, whoa, I didn't have that problem, Rachel. Go to a cardiologist. But I used to get like this weird almost like electrical thing radiating from my heart. Like it sank into my chest but also was like going everywhere. Not a chest tightening, not a heart attack, just like panic, panic. And maybe you felt like an immediate wave of imposter syndrome, like I'm the worst person ever. And then you're like, this is it, I'm the worst. I'm not cut out to be a travel agent. Everyone's gonna hate me, my reputation's ruined, and I'm gonna get sued. We all go through this. All of my advisors on my team also. The first time this happens, they call me and they're like, My life is over. And I'm like, No, it's not. This is just the first time you've experienced this. And they're like, How are you so calm? And I'm like, I've had this happen way too many times. So you feel like that you're just like a random, like any kind of like random upset is like a personal indictment against who you are as a human being. And then you spend all this time frantic AF. Reacting with all the adrenaline instead of strategy, because it's the first time it's happened. So you're like, ⁓ no, my life is over. ⁓ how do you handle that today though? When that flight gets canceled today, you don't panic, you don't spiral, and you can't take it personally, you know that. So you take a breath, you send the emails, make the phone calls, open your portal, whatever it is that you need to do. It's not a catastrophe. It's just like a math problem waiting to be solved. And you're just like, okay, how can I do this? And you calmly TCB, baby. If you don't know what TCB means, Elvis, first of all. Secondly, taking care of business. You get that flight cancellation like rerouted. Client is fine. You let your on-site destination Team know, like, hey, they're coming in late, either a day late or whatever, so they aren't flagged as a no-show. ⁓ and then you let your client know everything's good. This is the update now. That's the invisible progress. Going from like absolute state of panic to just being like, ⁓ this is what I do now. The chaos didn't change. The flights were still canceled in both scenarios, and it airlines are still. unpredictable, they always will be. But what changed was your capacity to handle it. So you went from like emotionally volatile, reactive, anxious agent to calm, deeply anchored crisis manager. So you've developed that emotional skin that's required to operate at a premium level. And remember that's what people hire you for. what big reason a lot of advisors are hired is so they can manage the crisis so their clients don't have to. All right, so over the last three months, stop measuring your success only by the trips that went absolutely perfect. Think about the disasters that you quietly were able to neutralize behind the scenes. And think about even like I said, if you're newbie, your first one, you're gonna have a panic and come apart. The second time it happens, you're gonna be like, okay, I remember what to do. I'm a little nervous. But like look back at that progress that you've made. That invisible resilience is like the exact foundation that you need to continue scaling your travel agency. If you can hold that line during a storm, you can handle any amount of growth the rest of the year can throw at you, good or bad. Like it's all growth in my opinion. The third audit is the identity audit. Take a long hard look, honest look, at the person running your agency right now and ask yourself This is so silly. Who are you becoming? Please don't go into the toxus toxic like boss babe mentality. You are becoming a leader though. hopefully. To understand the scale of your growth, let's look back at your starting line. Think back just to January. Let's just go back to January. ⁓ Maybe you were still like in hobby mode playing travel agent. Maybe you were having a slump and you've been in it for a few years. And when a lead questioned like your planning fee, your heart would race, your stomach dropped, you would go into defensive justification mode. And maybe you would introduce yourself at networking events like almost apologetically, like, ⁓ I'm just starting into this or ⁓ I've just been in it for a you few years. And I know some of you are listening are very green agents and you like if you are a student, like I always ask when you guys join and I can hear Like I can tell even if you aren't new or not, like if you haven't said how long you've been doing something, I can tell by the way you introduce yourself, how long you've been doing this and where your confidence is. or I just help people book vacations on the side. Like you are minimizing your business, okay? You were a freelancer when you were speaking like that, waiting for permission to exist, and viewing every single client as your boss that you had to please at the expense possibly of your own boundaries. Today, final day of June. Why do I feel like it's not the final day of June? ⁓ 'cause it's not. Yeah, I'm I still got two more days. How is this hold on a second. Hold the phone. What day is Sorry, I need to Google this. Yeah. That's not. It's not. If it's a leap year, we're in the final nope, we're we're still always like June 28th. It's fine. Anyway. I started rambling about the final day in June. We're close to the end of June is my point here. You might be and hopefully are a completely different professional. And maybe you're not that maybe you're brand new, like I said, and you're like, wait, I get to be that someday. Look forward to it and see what small changes there are. Because your identity will shift as you grow your travel agency. So maybe back in January, you were still like, maybe you started niching into a completely new niche, or maybe you upped your fees. And so that lack of confidence wasn't quite there in January. But now. As you move into July, the same type of leads that come in for that service with that new higher fee, you're just like, it is what it is, bud. Like I that's just what I'm using today. Thanks, bud. This is how I do things, bud. You don't look for validation, you command the room, you control the sale in a nice way. There's a I talk about that in some other episodes, but anyhood. When someone pushes back on your fees, you don't stutter. You don't lower your price. You don't try to justify it. You just say, This is a thousand dollars. Are you ready to get started? Great. When a client maybe pushes back on anything else, like you just are like, No, this is this is how I do things. Like if they're like, ⁓ I tried calling you at ten thirty at night, yeah, I was asleep. I'm a human being, not a robot. ⁓ You don't view yourself anymore as an order taker. Or human booking engine slash robot. You recognize that you are a highly special s specialized consultant and your time, your expertise, the relationships you have been developing has immense market value. I have beat this into your head the last week of this podcast. At least. Like the last two weeks, I'm like, okay, well, let's do some mindset discussions until Day one hundred. So, this identity shift is like the single most important asset you and your agency possesses as you head towards the next half of this year. You cannot build a high-level, like authoritative business strategy if you are operating with a low-level, insecure self-image. And we can all get there. Like please do not be beating yourself up if you're still in that if you recognize that you're still in that position. Do not beat yourself up. Your strategy only scales as far as you allow your identity to go. So If you think in your head and you say out loud, nobody wants to spend money on a fee for me, nobody spends that much on a trip, nobody's wanting to book into the niche that I've decided to go into, you're putting that out, you're saying your identity is like nobody wants to work with me. And that's as far as your business is gonna go. And this is why it's kind of important to get a little delusional. If you want to make a hundred thousand in a year doing this for a living, you have to at least have the mindset of, okay, I know I need to book about a million in a a year and travel. I know that I want a niche in this. I know my average trips cost this in terms of booking value. So I know I need to book this many trips. So I know I need to market and reach this many people, because it's all just a numbers game. And again, if you're like, I wanna make a hundred thousand a year, your business, you might go a little bit over, you might go up to one fifty, you might hit two hundred and be like, ooh, that's nice. But if your identity is still there like I make a hundred thousand a year, that's you ⁓ you're gonna have good years, you're gonna have bad years, you're gonna average about a hundred thousand a year. Whew, if you still see yourself as like the desperate hobbyist, you will have a hobbyist strategy. If you see yourself as a hundred K a year, you will make a hundred K a year. Like if you truly believe that is your identity. If you are like Naudog, I wanna do a million in commissions, you your identity will have to shift to match it. This is gonna go on a crazy tangent here. I don't wanna get into like quantum energy 'cause that's not really my thing. But if you don't believe something, it's not capable for you. But if you want to believe, like I want to weigh, let's just use the weight loss example that I refer to a lot. Let's say you weigh 180, you're like, I want to weigh 150, your identity will have to make a shift to fully implement the changes to get to that weight loss. And that's gonna be an identity that prioritizes nutrition and exercise and managing stress, managing hydration, whatever the heck it is that you need to get to that weight loss goal or whatever fitness goal, you have to make an identity shift. And the same thing happens as you want to continue growing your business. If you have the identity of like I make a hundred thousand a year and you want to go to I make a million a year, huge identity shift. And you're gonna have to peel back some layers. It's not fun, but it's possible. So what back wrapping it all up, I went on a crazy tangent there. Look at yourself in the mirror today and acknowledge how much more decisive and how much more resilience you have evolved over the last 179 days. Your planning changes. You stop chasing all the low margin leads when you like step into this identity shift. You start targeting those premium, aligned, perfect for the niche that you want to offer with the brands that you want to to work with primarily. Because you finally believe really deep in your core being that you belong in that space. Once you get there, you have officially shed the skin of the freelancer and you have stepped into the posture of the CEO. And as I said, you continue growing and shifting your identity to match the scale of your business. So now we're nearing the end of today and I feel like it's gone way over ⁓ good, it has. I started putting everything in like Google Drive instead of my notebook so I'm not always looking down and but now I don't see the timer when I'm recording these. And I'm like, ⁓ all my episodes are way longer now. So basically the takeaway today is don't just look at the numbers on your spreadsheet. Some people are like, your numbers may not be exactly where you wanna be. I really want you to reflect on who you are also becoming. And real easy, what is a hard boundary that you actually enforced the last three months regarding your travel agency? And if you're brand newbie, just it maybe in your personal life. One operational mess like cancellation, wrong room category, whatever, that used to panic you, but what's something that you actually handled and went through? And maybe it was the first one, but you did it, even though you were like. The sky is falling, my life is over. You've made it through it. You're still alive. Congrats. And What is how would you describe yourself today compared to in January when it comes to your elevator pitch as a travel advisor? Do you still refer to yourself as like, ⁓ I just do this for fun? ⁓ I'm just doing it on the side. I'm just gonna see how it goes? Or are you gonna step into that identity of I'm building an agency that is going to Give my family more financial freedom. Whatever. I don't know what your goals are or like it will fund a non profit. I don't know where you're into. Let's do that identity shift so we can get started in July right. Okay? Have a lovely day. Episode went long, and I will see you tomorrow. Bye.