Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 104 - Why Discipline is Freedom for Travel Advisors
Transcript
- Rachel K: Welcome back to the travel agency near podcast. got to turn this mic down. We are on day one ⁓ four. I'm Rachel K. If you don't know me and I am with elevate with rachel K.com. I'm a travel advisor, travel agency owner, helping travel advisors like you get where you need to be. Okay. So this is a full year podcast, one episode a day. Episodes are dropped every day. I think for Thank you so much for stopping by and please subscribe if you want little 15 to 20 minute episodes every day to help build the business that builds you up. This is all about business practices in regards to travel advisors building their travel agency and I'm keeping it casual. No mic stand. So today's episode discipline is freedom. Now. The whole purpose of this podcast, like I said before, and elevate with Rachel K is to really understand how much discipline produces freedom. And this is why I do everything in baby steps with a lot of my courses and programs, because you have to really work that discipline muscle. You can't just start with no discipline and be like, I'm there. And six and eight week programs can be helpful, but it's just maintaining after those courses and programs are over, right? Um, so if you don't know about, just going to talk about elevate with Rachel K just for a few minutes, the courses and programs, if they are over a $100 investment for a course, you have unlimited access to lifetime live Q and A's. are typically almost every Monday with exception to, know, if I'm traveling, like if I'm on an airplane, I can't be on the live Q and A. If it's a major holiday, let's all take a break. But there are live Q and A's available every Monday. You can hop on, hop off. are two hours long now because we have enough people coming to them that we have to extend them. And I might have to open up more days down the road. But that really helps you maintain accountability, even if it's just like a course that you can finish in a matter of two or three weeks. We have another special program that's 52 weeks long. It is very intensive. It's only $35 a month. And this podcast kind of coincides with that program. It's called the success circle. And it's all about just everything I've learned from my educational background, my life as an entrepreneur as well, like different businesses I've been involved in, ignore my phone going off. And, really helps you because I found a lot of travel advisors who are newer to the industry typically come from like. a corporate background or an employee background and don't really have the foundations to actually build business. So back to my point about discipline is freedom. I really want you to understand how much discipline produces freedom in your life. And you're like, what does that know? I'm a slave to everything because I have to be so disciplined. No, no, no, you are misunderstanding. Let's get into it. So many people believe that discipline leads to more like a slave state because you're like, I can only eat this. I can only do this. And I can only like, I have to spend my time doing this and this and this. That is true if you are being disciplined from a mindset of you are trying to live someone else's life. You are not stepping into your full purpose and you are not really living how you should be living. And I don't mean should be like you should be doing this and you're wrong. I mean everybody is a little bit different and it's awesome. Individualism is fantastic. So that also means not everyone's going to have the exact same hobbies or tastes or values. so discipline provides freedom because it's just really strong boundaries. Like I'm not going to do that, or I'm going to commit to this to build my business. That's what this episode is about today. so if you are not aligned with your own values, you will end up feeling like a slave, right? So what does this mean? You don't have to 100 % follow another person's recommendations, but you can if you're like, this is exactly what I want. You can at least test it out. And if you're like, ⁓ this isn't, I thought this was exactly what I wanted, but this really isn't aligned with what I want or need, then you can always revise it later. But it's good to develop the habit and habits typically take three weeks to really get established just so you know. So. As an example, you want to do a million dollars in sales over the next 12 months. That is your goal, okay? You probably shouldn't be listening to someone who's never even been self-employed to begin with, right? They're probably not gonna give you the best recommendations on how to get there. But based like, let's ask some questions. Like, let's pretend that that is your goal. Let's ask some questions and then build the discipline in from the answers to your questions. Question number one, what will that take for you to get a million dollars in sales? That is really based on your niche and your average sale. Now, if you're brand new to the travel industry, you're just going to have to do a little bit of research and like do some fake trips, like you've never even booked a trip, you're going to have to do some fake trips and just kind of get proposals and like figure out high season pricing versus low season pricing and what, ⁓ your clients will actually typically be booking. So you can get the average sale. Do you add flights in? Do you not add flights? There's so many factors. Everyone's business is different, but if you're brand new, that's a good way to get the average sale. Like you could just quote, ⁓ a handful of resorts or cruise lines, different sailings, different times of the year to get an idea of what your average sale would be. If you are seasoned, you should have this data in your travel CRM and you can just simply run a report and find the average sale. Okay. And from there, then you're going to know if my average sales $5,000, let me bust out my old handy dandy phone. If my average sale is $5,000. And I want to do a million dollars in sales. let's do 1 million. There we go divided by 5,000. You need 200 bookings. Okay. If your average sale is $10,000, then you only need a hundred bookings. That's about two a week, two to four week booked and traveling, which can sound very intimidating, but you could also get some groups in like smaller groups or contracted groups to help boost that average sale. Okay, so based on that 100 to 200 trips in this example, what do you need to do? What needs to be done? You're probably going to need to ramp up marketing in one way or another, whether it's social media or in-person networking and relationship building. there's also time. How much time do you spend on an average booking? Is there a way that you can reduce the time spent on booking so you can hit that goal without feeling overwhelmed? your workflows, automations and operations in place to make that possible for you? We've got to be realistic. Okay. And if you have to block off time to create those workflows and automations, that's going to help you build your discipline. Like you will have to say no to things like. brunch with friends or taking a vacation or maybe going on a fam trip even if it's not related to your niche and it's going to take time away from you to set these systems up in place. I'm not dogging fam trips. I'm just saying like you don't have to go on all of them. Okay. What do you say no to so you can focus on your goals? Like I said, this could be fam trips. This could be webinars, if it has nothing to do with your niche and some BDM sends you an email and was like, you could win something if you attend this webinar. Well, I could spend that hour setting up my workflows or I could spend that hour creating content. ⁓ there could be really helpful webinars. Like you could find a social media management company is hosting a free webinar on hooks and marketing or like some kind of lead magnet style thing. You could definitely join that because that's going to help you with your marketing to get those one to 200. bookings you need for the next year to achieve your million dollars in sales. But you also might have to say no to your friends and family. And this is really hard because they're gonna be like, why do you have to work all the time? Why do you have to do this all the time? That's going to be the hardest part of developing this discipline muscle is being able to say, no, I can't, I can't do this with you right now. Or you're going to have to be faster what you're doing. So you can make that time for your friends and family. And it could be saying no to binging something on a streaming service on TV. It could be saying no to doom scrolling on the old social media. could be saying no to, ⁓ what else? getting lost in a fiction novel, like you're going to have to set some time limits. It could be saying no to participating in hobbies with friends or family that you don't even really have an interest in that just stresses you out even further. So you got to think about this like developing discipline is kind of like when you're going on a new diet and exercise regimen. It's very, very similar to your personal health, the health of your business. You've got to have that like, I got to eat so many calories. Like don't be super crazy strict and be like, I can't eat any food. I can only have a cracker. Like that's a little too much. However, with your personal goals, you do have to set time aside. for like your exercise, maybe some meal prepping, maybe you have to plan the grocery things so you have the meals ready to go so you aren't tempted to go get fast food, right? And the same thing needs to happen in your business. So you need to set aside time for the health of your business is what I'm saying. Like you need to set aside time to really put in the marketing, the content strategy, ⁓ the networking, the following up, the building your automations, so on and so forth. And I say this because physical, mental and emotional health requires you to be disciplined. Like you can't be reactive emotionally if you are emotionally healthy and have emotional maturity, right? Same thing in your business. Like you don't react, you respond. Once it's all practiced and you're in full alignment with you. So you don't have to be perfect is what I'm saying. Like you could be like, I want to do a million dollars in sales and I want to be a top agent. Like your first few years, that's great. And I know a lot of agents either stay like they kind of like separate into two different paths from there. They either want to stay top dogs or they want to just have more time for other things that they value. So they're disciplined in a way where they limit how much business they take on because they want that freedom for other aspects of their life. I'm losing my voice guys. It's fine. You don't have to feel obligated to be everything to everyone when you have discipline in your business because you're like, that's not me. As an example, for my travel agency, I'm trying to think I'm completely switching niches and I have been working on this over the last year slowly, but surely, right? So I don't have to say yes to my former niche because that's not what I want to do anymore. That's not what I want to support anymore. and I only focus on the future and what I want it to look like. Now, four or five years ago, if you said to me, this is gonna happen in your travel agency, I'd be like, no way, no way, I'm gonna be a millionaire, I'm gonna stay top dog or like up there, know, like a high earning agent. But that's not really what I feel in like my heart with my values anymore. It's completely changed is what I'm saying. And I don't have to be everything to everyone. I don't have to take on the type of travel I used to take on. I don't have to take on every single trip given to me. My goals are no longer like revenue or sales. It's more of ⁓ alignment with my personal values. So I want you to know like either way that you go, if you really want to be revenue focused, great. If you really want to be values focused, great. If you really want to just kind of keep this a little bit on the smaller side and have more time for your friends and family, also great. You don't have to be everything to everyone. You don't have to be everywhere in social media either. When you were disciplined and you were like niche down and you know exactly what you're going to be doing with your business and how you want this to look. You don't have to be all over reels and like Facebook groups and Tik Tok and YouTube and Reddit and discords and blogs. And you just pick like three. You just really only need three max. Okay. So you won't feel that pressure. You build your business. And your life for you and therefore you'll make wiser investment decisions in both your life and your business. Cause you can just say, is this aligned with what I want? Is this aligned with the discipline structure I have set up for my business? This is why I like way, way back in the beginning of this podcast. And it's like week two of the success circle program. I talk about the importance of time blocking. Literally everything in your life. put everything in my life is on my work calendar. Lunch break, work calendar. Work out, work calendar. When I go to church or do any appointments, work calendar. Anytime I want off, work calendar. It's all there, it's all blocked off. It is very simple to do and it is not easy to maintain. It's so simple, but as an example, I did do a sub stack post on this as well. And the sub stack is called, but mom, I am a rich man. And it's just titled discipline is freedom. If you want to go read that. this was inspired by, ⁓ a priest named father Mike Schmitz. And he talks about, he hates golf. I love golf, but he hates golf. And he used to go golfing to please other people. And now he's like, no, I don't like golf. I can say no. And you can apply this to your business. Like, I don't want to book cruises. I don't want to book flights. I don't want to book all inclusive resorts. I don't want to book certain destinations or types of travel. You can do that. And if you stick to that discipline, like I'm not doing this, that's going to give you true freedom. So that is day 104 of the travel agency in your podcast. And I hope this helps you. understand that you don't have to be everything to everyone. You don't have to be everywhere all at once. You can build this business your way. If you liked this episode, please subscribe. Like I said in the beginning or share it with someone who's like maybe new in the industry. And they're like, I have to do all these things. Now you don't know you don't. You have to establish discipline in your business. And we're going to be working on that throughout this podcast. Alright, thank you so much for listening and have a great day and we will, I don't know, I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.