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Day 137 - The Travel Advisor's Consultation Framework · Travel Agency in a Year

• Rachel K: Consultation framework for travel advisors day 137 of the travel agency to your podcast Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm your host Rachel K with elevate with Rachel K calm I Side note would like to mention my voice might crack a few times because I'm not even gonna pause I'm gonna go through it I have like a drop of water left in my coffee And now it's So. ⁓ Are you struggling with closing your consultations? Bust out your template for your consultations. You should have one. and let's walk through together. There should be six phases of your call. Consultation should be 30 to 60 minute frame. It depends on the type of niche that you're in. For me with having wedding planning and destination wedding travel, my consultations were often an hour. So if you have more components to what you offer, it's gonna lean more towards an hour. I would recommend it. ⁓ At least 30 minutes, you know? All right, if you don't have a template, you better grab a notebook, because we're going to do a quick and dirty version of the six phases of consultation template right now. And you can fix it later. Sorry, sorry, not sorry. There's a reason literally every sales job ever, ever, ever has a sales script. And they have scripts for handling objections. Everything done. And this is like, So like telemarketing, I know when I worked in retail, had like, you didn't have them all the time like with telemarketing, but they would have them like at the register for like upselling stuff. And they had like handling objections at the register, which I thought was really weird. Every sales job I've ever had has always had like, you need to have a script and you need to have a way to handle objections. Okay. So phase one, let's get into it. Give me a notebook, I'm gonna lean. My knee is acting up. I also have been waking up. I've been falling asleep on my couch a lot lately at night. And I've been waking up and my bum knee feels like water on the knee and then instantly in my head I'm like, operation. Because I was brainwashed as a child apparently. All right, phase one, connection and rapport. This is the first part of the consultation, duh. Even have the notes, duh. Show interest in who they are as a person. Not in a creeper-magu. Like don't, this. Like be genuine about it, people. Don't listen to Andrew Tate and be like, that's how you do a consultation. Don't look him up if you don't know who he is either. ⁓ See if they at least align somewhat with your ICA. See what their energy is. Build the trust and be genuine. If they're really short with replies and acting really weird, something's going on where they don't really wanna talk to you right now. So then you need to ask them, like, is now still a good time? Or pick up on that energy. Or they could be really, really nervous. They could be like, I'm just so nervous I get to talk to you. I'm so excited for this trip. Well that's great, well you don't have to be so nervous, I'm here to help you. Okay? But some questions to consider if you're like, I don't know how to build rapport. That's fine. ⁓ gosh, I just hit my globe. That's fine, other than like. Well, how was your day? another case of the Mondays. What got them excited to book a call with you and to start planning this trip? Like if you specifically advertise like a very very niche down type of travel and they book a call with you, what got them excited to book their next or their first blah blah blah vacation and why do they reach out to you? Like what is it they're like they're gonna... ⁓ I got a high moon, our anniversary, family, kids graduating, we're empty nesters. There's a number of reasons. I got a promotion, I got divorced, thank God that person was a nightmare. All kinds of reasons. ⁓ So from there, you're gonna get... ⁓ you have this special occasion, like, ⁓ a birthday trip, or we just had our first grandkid, we wanna take all the kids on the trip, like a family trip. There's a number of reasons why people want this trip. Who is going on the trip with them? You know? When I did Destination Weddings, I'd be like, before we get started, I'm so excited to do this call. And I would say, is fiance on the call with you, most of the time, yes. I'd say, great, I really wanna hear your story. And I would just let them tell me their story. and I'd hear the craziest proposals and like how they met and some people would be like, oh, we met on Tinder. I'd be like, it's fine, man. You're not the only one. But I loved hearing that story and like they would talk about how long they've been together and you know, the proposal and how long they've been engaged. And then I would go into, so what made you decide that a destination wedding was best for two of you? And then, they would go in there. But I would like comment on their story. Like I was like eating the popcorn over the phone, be like, what? He did what? With who? Like. I'd just be excited for it and I'd be like, ⁓ wow, that's a really cool way to meet and then you guys moved, whatever their story was. It's really hard for me to say here. ⁓ But I would sort of interject with genuine feeling of excitement because they're building their lives together and I was like I'm very passionate about marriage. Okay? Anyway, so phase one build the rapport and build a connection by getting to know them. You are not talking about you. You are talking asking them questions about them. You might find out their occupation for real real ⁓ and that's going to help you understand how much time they have. Okay. Phase number two needs and goals assessment. ⁓ What are the most important aspects of the trip for them? What is the most important thing that they need to get from this trip? ⁓ What kind of feelings or is there something they need to accomplish from this trip? Is it work related? Is it family related? Is it a wedding? Is it a honeymoon so they gotta make a baby quick? What are the accomplishments? The accomplishments could just be like recharging before they go back to work, right? Have, has, or have this client, has this client? I'm imagining a couple because I did so many of these with weddings, so I instantly am like, hey, them, dah, dah, dah. Has that person ever been to whatever destination before or been on like a cruise or a safari or whatever the heck it is that you niche in? Have they done it before? Probably not a safari, but maybe a cruise, maybe the Caribbean. Mexico maybe Europe, you know, they've been there before ⁓ Do they have a budget range? I know I'm going to get some slack for this because I hear, you're not supposed to talk about budget. You tell them what the budget is. I hear that from a lot of my students. They can have a range because that's going to give you an idea of what can and cannot work with tweaking what they've got, right? Have they ever worked with a travel advisor before? Those are some questions. Consider asking in phase two. Phase three. I like the do you have a budget range question. Back up to that one quick. I had a client once who's fairly well off. Books like a family trip every single year. And one time they called me up and they're like, we want to do, we want to start planning our annual trip. I was like, okay man, budget range. And they're like, no budget. We don't have a budget, you know that. I was like, okay, so $250,000, that's what I'm gonna quote for you. I'm gonna find something in that range for you. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. I was like, 50? No, I don't wanna spend that much money. Say, I know, I know you don't want to an unlimited amount of money, and I don't wanna come tell you, because there have been times where this family in particular would be like, we really want this luxury da da trip. And I'd be like, okay. this is what you want and I never mention budget range to them. I'm like, this is what you want, it's gonna be $32,000. And they're like, what? Nevermind, we're not doing it, okay. But this is why I always ask for range. In phase two, and we'll talk about pricing in later phases, okay? Phase three, solution and value proposition. You should have picked up on their pain points in phase one and two. By building rapport, you have an idea of their personality. If you know what their occupation is and if they like their job, you have a stronger idea of their personality. Then, you know the most important parts of their trips, why do they want to work with an advisor, blah, blah, blah. So you can solve their specific pain points in this part, and this is where you paint the picture. So you can get real woo-woo if you want, like, woo-woo, if you want, and say something to them like, now, whether you're on the phone or on a meet or whatever. I'm not a fan of meats because I mean I like meats but I don't like to have the camera on. I don't care about reading body language. It's fine. But you can be like now I want you to close your eyes and let's based on this information here and you can paint the picture like I'm envisioning and that's where you don't say you go to this exact property and blah blah blah blah. Right. You say I'm envisioning you. Let me think of a cool property. Pulling up, I'm not, it's not cool property, but it's the first one came to my head. My head. Comment if you know what it is, if you're listening. Okay, imagine pulling up in a private transport to this resort. I can't remember the entrance. And you get through the gate and it's open air and the second you step through the lobby and get your clean face towels and your glass of champagne, you can already see the ocean just straight from the lobby. And then they lead you to the concierge, it's not even really a lobby, but like an area. And then they lead you to the concierge to be checked in. It takes like five seconds to check in and they give you tour of the grounds to your room. And as you're walking by, you see these zero entry pools all around you. And the resort has installed like sand right there. So you're not even at the ocean, but it's almost like you're in a little private lagoon. and they're just dotted throughout the properties. walk down, you pass by some restaurants and a coffee shop, you enter in to your hotel building and you're greeted again with yet another glass of champagne and a whole spread of snacky boos. That's not a good descriptive word, but snacky boos. Delicious, refreshing snacky boos. Relaxing music playing in the lobby, you're led up to your room. via a sweaty, no air conditioning elevator. And your bellhop drops off your bags. You have a view of the ocean from your patio. You're about three stories up. You can see all the pools, but you're so tucked away, no one can see you. you, like, just painting that picture, right? You don't have to go that crazy. But you can like take little bits of that. Not that, but you know what I mean, like the painting the picture moment. and sprinkle that in to this face. And then you would say, how does that sound? I would love to help create this for you. Would you like to know what needs to happen to start working with me? Like what the process is? And at that point, you've essentially, like you've gotten them on board, right? You've painted that picture well enough that they're like, this person's gonna give me what I want. So then they're like, yeah, I wanna hear you process. And then you say, oh, it's da da da da da. And you ask them, what questions do you have? This is where the objections are gonna come up, almost always. Either before of like, before you explain your process and they agree to it, or shortly after. This is the objections phase, okay? So you need to have common objections in that script. Gosh, this episode's gonna go over. ⁓ my gosh. It's fine. So you're ready to confidently answer them, okay? Now, when you explain your process, use as much we language as you can to communicate that we are a partnership, okay? You don't want to have liability issues by any means. And also, the first step in our process is I'm going to send you my terms and conditions to sign off on and my client intake form, whatever you call it. I just call it a personal information form. And if you have a fee, bon loa. So I usually ask them to provide that information before I even invoice them with a fee because I'm not going to take their money and have them ghost me, right? So I'll just say, hey, you need to sign off on these terms and conditions, provide personal information, then I'll send you an invoice for the fee, and then once that's paid, we can start planning your trip, okay? What's gonna happen is I will create a proposal that we can review together to make sure it fits exactly what you need. All right, ⁓ this is when you're sorry, I'm getting tired, sorry. Pricing, this is when you're be talking about pricing. For the all in experience and any fees that you have if applicable. Okay? So I like to have service packages, you do whatever you want, I don't care. And they have different levels of service available to the people. And my fees start from... whatever price for various services, right? So I will say a minor classic, premier and elite. Some people do ⁓ silver, gold, platinum. ⁓ Whatever you wanna do for that. But you wanna talk about your fees and the all-in pricing. So even if they say my budget range is three to five, I'd like to stay as close to three as possible. and you go through the whole getting all their needs and stuff, right? and you know for a fact to hit all of their points, it's gonna be more like five to seven, like in the seven range probably. This is when you would mention that. This is when you would say, okay, so based on all this information, If we were, if we, again, because we're a partnership, if we were to create this entire trip exactly how you've described it to me without making any, I don't want to say concessions, I can't think of the word, but you know, like cutbacks or whatever, there's a word, it's on the tip of my brain, it's fine, without making any adjustments to this, to hit every single one of these points, it's gonna be $7,000 or so. Your budget range is three to $5,000. I listen to you and I know the most important aspects of this trip are X, Y, Z. Like you need to have a swim up suite or rooftop terrace suite or beachfront, whatever it is. That's the most important aspect. And then you would say, now, if you want to get it closer to the three to five range, here's what we can do to kind of tweak it. And that's when you would say, you did mention you were kind of open when you would travel, and right now that $7,000 is coming from you wanting to go at the height of travel season in that destination. Are you willing to push it back about three months? The weather will still be good. It's not gonna be great, but it'll still be good. And we can hit all of your pain points that way, or all of your wants and needs that way. It's just a matter of restructuring the time. we can hit all of your pain points. Anyway, connect the price to the value. Okay, that's connecting the price to value. If you want to get all this stuff, it's going to cost you this much. If you still want this value and you're willing to be flexible on these aspects of the trip, then we can work on getting it closer to this. Okay, that's gonna help strongly prevent, like giving them realistic pricing is gonna help strongly prevent anyone from ghosting after you've done all this work, right? Phase five, objection, handling, and questions. So this is when they're gonna be like, especially if their budget's not realistic. Well, what can else can we do? Well, I don't know, I need to talk to my wife about this. I might need some time to think about this. Well, why do you need more time? You were very excited at the beginning of this call to get started on this. Is it the budget or is it the time of year? Because we can work with both. Right? Don't just write them off because you're not going to make a thousand bucks from them. So you should have general objection scripts examples. I need to think about it. I need to ask. That's too high. I'm interviewing other travel agents. I'm talking to other travel agents. I'm gonna see what they come up with. Now, I think I talked about this in yesterday's episode. It may have been this episode. Oh, batch content creation. You silly, silly beast. Rachel don't remember what she's talking about. But I talked about destination wedding consultations where people weren't a good fit because they didn't have realistic budgets for things and I would just be straight up with them. It was yesterday, was a fiduciary. That's it. And then they would come back to me and be like, you were the only one who was actually realistic. And thank you. So. Don't worry about being having... I'm interviewing other travel agents. They're gonna get me $5 off. They're so much better than you. Okay. Okay. You do that. ⁓ But I know with some niches, like when I was doing destination wedding planning, I absolutely, before they even had that objection, I built it into the script for the close. I'd be like, understand that you need some time to think about this. This is a very big investment for the most important day of your life. And I know you're not just talking to me. So I'm gonna go ahead and send you all the information and I'm gonna send you my contract. and I'm gonna follow up and I would pull up my calendar on my phone, I mean on my desktop. Let's say it is the 27th at the time of recording this, but I'd pull that up and I would be like, okay, I'm gonna send this to you tonight and I know you need time, so how about I follow up with you if I don't hear from you on the 5th? How does that sound? That gives you plenty of time to interview the other advisors, make an informed decision, and Many times those people would just sign like within 10 minutes and be like, don't need to talk to anybody else. Because you're real deal Holyfield. Okay? Okay. A good question. to rebuttal if you're struggling with objection handling, what would help you make that decision today? What would help you make that decision right now? Like I need to think about it. Well, what do you need to think about? What would help you make that decision? I'm interviewing other travel advisors. What would help you make that decision today? That's too high. We can work on that. And we can always change it later. It's fine. Fave six. Fave six, yep, I'm tired. I have one more episode. We're getting through this together. We. Buy my stuff now. We're partners, alright? Phase six, ⁓ gosh, phase six, the natural close. So, once you get through all of this, then you would say some kind of closing question like, I don't know, I can't even think of a close right now. like the one I just mentioned, I'm gonna give you a week, whatever. But how are you feeling with us partnering together for this trip? That's a good close question. Okay, are you ready to hear the next steps to working with me? And if they're ready, then you tell them on the call, here are the next steps, and then you give it to them. If they're like, well, I need more time. Send them the summary email. Send them the pricing you guys discussed, whatever. And then the next steps with specific follow updates. This is like total standard sales 101 stuff here. If you are brand new to sales and you hate sales, specific follow-up dates because you can put that in your little CRM as a reminder and then once it's done with the follow-up, then you don't have to worry about it anymore and you don't have to sit and dwell on it. If it's someone who's not a good fit for you, you aren't good for them. That's what you say. You know, I don't think I'm the best fit for you and here's why. And you tell them why and then but or and, because I don't like saying but, and here's an advisor that I know specializes in what you're looking for that I trust to recommend you to. Would you mind if I gave them your email or cc'd you all in an email to connect you all? That's for the bad fit. It should only be a bad fit like, If you get all the way to this and someone's being a complete asshat on the entire call and you're still on the phone, or the meet, what are you even doing? You should have ended that call a long time ago. Okay, so with that information, check your consultation templates. Here's what I like to do with mine. I created it in Google Drive. This is a long episode, I don't care. And it's just a simple doc. And I titled it Demo Wedding Consultation. Okay, and I went through all of the things that I wanted to remember to bring up to build rapport for each phase. All of the things that I wanted to remember for like the needs and goals assessment, the solution and value proposition. Investment stuff, discussion, objection handleings would be underneath and then I'd have the close because I would ask do you have any questions or what questions do you have for me? I used to ask do you have any questions for me and that's a close-ended question and they're just gonna be like no because they want to say no and that's another ⁓ my gosh there's so many sneaky sales tactics the more you can get someone to say no eventually they're gonna say yes. Especially on sales calls, by the way. I was taught that, oh gosh, so long ago. I know it was like a call center thing, but they're like, we want you to get them to say no. And it's not the thing I say where every no is one step closer to yes. It's these people don't want to talk to you, and they're trying to be nice, but they want to say no. So if you get them to say no, when they don't want to talk to you, eventually they'll like you and say yes. Because you're giving them what you want, what they want. Crazy guys, crazy. Anyway, had a lot of stuff in the Google document. And then I did so many practice rounds of this consultation. And I would have people critique me, not my confidence level, but more of like the flow of it and does it make sense and timing it and. Can I smoothly, the flow part was more of like, can I smoothly go from interviewing them and gathering all this data about their dream wedding day and transitioning straight into the close? And then, can I do this while I'm being disrupted? Because sometimes they would have like small children in the background or their dog and be like, ⁓ sorry, you know, or my life in the background. Practice, practice, practice. Practice preferably with someone who is an adult. Don't practice with your kids or your pets, people. and practice it until it feels natural. I hope this episode helped you today understanding your consultation templates and how important it is to have a template and to practice this even if you have zero consultations in the pipeline. Once you get one, you're gonna feel so good. Even if you don't get the sale, you're gonna be like, I did it. Okay. One more day, one more day in my batch session. We made it. This one's like the longest episode ever. Okay. Thank you again for joining and we'll see you tomorrow.