Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / DAY 297 | What Unconventional Business Systems Can Teach Travel Advisors
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome to the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel K, and I'm also a travel agency owner. If you're trying to build something up to be a lasting legacy, you've come to the right place. 365 episodes. Today is day 297. Let's get into it. It is all about entrepreneurs who broke the rules on systems. So, as a small business owner, myself. I'm also a travel agency owner, if you don't know me. I see often like you have to do things this way, do things this way, do things and s like with social media marketing, with how you need to treat your clients, with what CRMs, website, servers or hosts, whatever, to use, all that kind of stuff. It's like do this, do this, do this this way, because it Just because it worked for one person does not mean it's necessarily going to work for you. So I think we have, let me look at my notes. I think this is the only episode, but we're gonna go into a series about like neurodivergence and how that can be an asset, not a liability, as an entrepreneur. So today we're gonna talk about unconventional systems from entrepreneurs in other industries. So you can consider what can I borrow? Like, don't copy. Remember, but you can borrow and you can be inspired by. You don't have to necessarily follow the status quo. Especially here's my beef. In the travel indust industry, why are we all doing the status quo if the majority of travel advisors can't make sixty K? What? What are we doing here? Anyway. And I feel like there's a lot of travel advisors out there where if they did things their way and like really understood business concepts and business organization, they could really take off and you don't have to. Have to where was I going with that? Well, it's fine. Never mind. I forgot, brain fart. so if you've ever felt like the standard advice for running a travel agency doesn't fit how you actually think or even just business in general. So I talk a lot about general business concepts, organizational charts, management layers, conventional hierarchies. And if you're like Rachel, that doesn't even fit with me either. That's fine. you can build the similar organizational charts your own way. It's gonna look very similar, but the way you create your foundation is what makes the difference. And foundation is very important if you're building something that's going to last. So think of this as like the three little pigs and the houses. So there's the straw house, there's the wooden house and there's the brick house. If your travel agency was a business, are you using the straw house foundation, the the wooden house foundation, or the brick house foundation? And the brick house, yes, it's gonna take a lot longer to ensure it's gonna withstand the big bad wolf. But also it's going to withstand the big bad wolf. Okay. All right. The first boss-free structure. So in the success circle, we talk about leadership styles, and this I'll talk about that and how this is a different type of leadership. So this is all about Valve Corporation, which is a video game company, if you aren't familiar. They've done the game like Half-Life. They haven't had formal managers or traditional hierarchies since the beginning. Employees will choose which projects to work on, and decisions are driven by self-organization rather than top-down direction. So it's a like that is not conventional management in any sense of the word. It's functioned for decades this way, though it has drawn criticism from former employees. Who have described that the informal, like unofficial power structures existing beneath the surface, even though it appears to be flat, so there's always going to be a hierarchy. And so I talk a lot about, I'm going a little digression here. Hold on, stupid ad popped up from randomly. Do you guys have that on your laptops? Anyway. where was I going? Sorry. Unofficial power structures. yes. So marketing is all about psychology. It is I joke that it's kind of like you're implementing a PSYOP because you are convincing people to trust you and work with you. Now hopefully all of that is true. There are many people who market, and this is like the snake oil salesman, where they can project that they are very true and honest and real, only to realize that it's all a scam. Please don't be that kind of trap advisor. but then if you want to get into sociology, that is where the power structures normally just find themselves. So, yes, you can promote yourself as like, we are a fully democratic company, but power structures will emerge naturally because we are very tribal people, and tribes can't have ever everyone be on equal footing. There's gonna be like the overall leader of the tribe, but then there might be one, and I'm just thinking of just like general tribes, not business, but there might be a someone in the hierarchy that everyone turns to when they need protection or they need to go like offense or defense with their tribe. And then there's going to be the person that's going to be like the healer and the one that they go to for spiritual, mental, and physical healing. And so those hierarchies will naturally form. And oof, if you want to get into biology, I believe now I'm not a scientific so don't quote me on this. But I believe I read somewhere in recent months that humans are the only mammals where the women go into menopause and they can no longer bear children. And that is a sociological evolution because grandmothers are like vital to helping the mothers in the community. So the grandmothers in like a tribal setting. They had to not be able to bear children because women were in competition for the best male suitor to produce the best children. And then the children needed help being raised. so that is why we have evolved to not have children forever. I think I think that's why we're one of the few species who actually goes through menopause, fun fact. so if you have like I'm not gonna talk about that. I'm not gonna be like, if you have any fertility issues, I'm not gonna talk about that. But isn't that fascinating because women are constantly competing for the best resources and the best and the men provide the resources right from like old like caveman time, right? We had to biologically adapt To not constantly pursue and be in competition with each other. Isn't that crazy? But power structures still exist. So, like the grandmothers were like the wiser women of the tribe, and they could help take care of the children, and they could help the mothers through like birthing the children and breastfeeding and just like all of those things. And they would have no desire to try to usurp their. daughters or like other younger women's suitors. Anyway, that was a weird rambling right there. What I'm saying is you can try to be like 100% democratic in your business operations, and also you need to understand that there will always be hierarchy. if you were were to do this model, which is an unconventional model, as the leader. Even if you wanna be like everything's even Stevens, like you are still the leader in times of crisis, people will look to you. If you build a large team, eventually other people will spot like sprout up in the hierarchy as well. Okay. Ray Dalio, is that how you pronounce that? Okay, yes. Built the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates around what he calls radical transparency. Nearly all meetings are recorded and accessible to their employees. People are expected to avoid disagreement immediately, regardless of the seniority, and decisions are weighed by what Dalio calls idea meritocracy. If you don't want if you don't know what meritocracy is. It is like ruling based on the efforts you've put in, kind of thing. If that makes sense. So The content of your character rather than the color of your skin is a phrase that comes to my mind. Like you shouldn't be judged based on the color of your skin, but by the content of your character. That's kind of meritocracy. But idea meritocracy is where a person's track record of being right in spite of their title determines how much their input counts. So Bridgewater grew into one of the largest heads funds in the world using this system. And it's also worth noting. That this intensity has both been relinked to real employee turnover challenges. not necessarily a comfortable culture to work inside. So I'm trying to give you the positives and the negatives of unconventional. So if you were to go this way and be like, it doesn't matter what your title is, you title. It just matters if you're right, that can cause feelings of a lack of confidence in maybe some people with like. seniority titles, but they don't necessarily demonstrate their right all the time when there's someone new. Again, power structures, sociology. Study it. this is a huge why I so my degree was organizational development and leadership studies, which had a major, major focus not only on business concepts, but a lot of sociology and psychology, because you are essentially building your own little tribe or kingdom when you are building an organization. And I I I feel you, even though this is like pre-recorded. I feel you listening to that and being like, well, fine, I just won't have a hierarchy. I'll just be a lone wolf. Look at the lone wolf in society. Okay. Now we're gonna go into another crazy tangent. That can lead to, for certain personalities, it elevated cortisol levels because you feel like you don't belong in a tribe. And it's like deep in our brains to belong. Which is why FOMO is such a thing. All right, okay. Then there's Buffer, which is a social media scheduling company. They became known for publishing its employees' salaries openly, along with its own revenue and any major decision-making processes, which was a level of transparency that's almost unheard of in standard business practice. Usually You're only worried about profit margins once you grow to a point where you can have investors. So the company described this as central to building trust. but they've had to revise their salary formula over time as the company grew. and they had to revise their system completely because the original system wasn't working well at a larger scale. So this is something that you could be fully transparent. In your business with a lot of things, but you're going to have to pull back if you want it to be big, big, big, as in 10, 20, 30 million dollars a year. So none of these are direct template to copy. It's not a copypasta business method. Each does come with trade-offs that the companies themselves had to navigate. So if you were like, I'm gonna do things differently, great, and also. Look to the long term is what I'm saying. And if you need to do something differently in the beginning while you like gain your footing as a travel advisor, that's awesome. And know that you will always need to be adaptable. So conventional structure isn't the only path to success or a well-run business. If a standard approach, like a rigid hierarchy or like the conventional nine to five. the typical management reporting layers, if that doesn't fit you naturally or how you think or operate, which I can almost guarantee you it doesn't, because there's a reason why you're going all in on the travel agency. If you're like me, like I I okay. For me, I have hypermobile EDS POTS MCAS that is very hard to like get disability diagnosis for. And I wouldn't do that anyway because I feel like I am a capable functioning human and I can contribute to society. And also it makes it very hard for me to follow because of my genes, like a standard nine to five sit-in-a-desk structure. My joints, I can't sit for too long, I can't stand for too long, and I can't work in any kind of like manufacturing because I can't lift very much anymore. Like I'm very limited because I could like pop my joints out of place and then I'm out of work for a week anyway. And there's a whole bunch of other qu comorbidities that I have to deal with with this diagnosis. So being able to be self-employed, this is why I've been been self-employed for very long time. Anyway. And you might be in a similar position. but anyway, if it doesn't fit how you naturally think or operate, these examples are proof that building something intentionally different can still work as long as it's built thoughtfully rather than chaotically. So something about businesses, like how businesses are supposed to run, or how a travel agency is supposed to market, or how a travel agency is supposed to do whatever, if that doesn't quite fit you when you see that messaging predominantly on social media. Consider which sp I I know this is social media as well, but consider which specific piece of convention is actually causing you friction and experiment with an alternative on a small small scale first, which many of us are just ourselves, so you can do that. much like the soft launch principle that we talked in day 222, when you're gonna launch new s something new, new service, new niche, whatever, do a soft launch. Do a soft launch of testing unconventional business operation styles. You don't have to fit the full flat structure valve. You don't have to do be full radical transparency. You might just need one little specific deliberate departure from the standard playbook that actually fits how you and your business should genuinely look. Genu la la la la genuinely look. Okay, the lesson don't copy pasta, no copy paste. conventional structure isn't the only path to success. Be open to experimenting. I've said this many a time in various episodes where this is basically a third grade science experiment we're all doing here. You have your hypothesis, your control, your variables, you test, you analyze and collect data for three months, and then you come to your conclusion. Is this working or is this a terrible idea? And what can I change? So tomorrow we're gonna talk about maintaining your flow as you scale and protecting what actually works for your brain. And we're gonna touch more on the neurospicy side of travel advisors because I found probably myself, I haven't officially been tested, but if you know me, you're like, yep, you're one of the weird ones. Everyone's a little bit on the neurodivergence scale. And I found many travel advisors that I work with are like, I have. ADD, ADHD, and other diagnoses that affects normal, like I would I don't want to say ha not having a normal brain, but their executive function functioning is a little bit different. And that can be a good thing. This was day 297 of the travel agency in the year podcast. Have a wonderful day. I'll see tomorrow.