Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 154 - How a Travel Advisor can get out of their own way
Transcript
- Rachel K: It's the Travel Agency New Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Kay. Thanks for coming back. As always, we are on day one fifty-four. ⁓ let's see. It looks like it in my handy dandy notebook. Okay. Today's episode is all about getting out of your own way. So yesterday I rambled on aimlessly about detaching from the outcome. I know I've done another episode in the past on this podcast regarding getting out of your own way. Not getting out of your own way, sorry, detaching from the outcome. And we're going to talk about getting out of your own way. So there's a lot of mindset stuff and a lot of fears, limiting beliefs. That are causing you to get in your own way. Yesterday we talked about detaching from the outcome because you don't have control over everything in the universe, right? So you cannot control every single aspect of your business. Yes. It is very important to have data points to understand. Is your conversion rate converting? ⁓ is your cash flow cash flowing? Like is this sustainable? Is this actually something that's working? Or is this something you either need to change or maybe give up? And that's okay. Failure's only feedback. Okay. So now we're gonna talk about getting out of your own way. And I know I did a whole series of episodes probably I think back in the 70s, not the 1970s, but like day 70 through I think it's like day 74 through day 84, 85. I talked about the top 10 fears travel advisors face. ⁓ many entrepreneurs face as well, but for travel advisors when you're building your travel agency. And if you're not sure, but the f if you're not sure which fears are yours, you can go listen. I think day seventy four lists all ten and then the next ten episodes are like one for each one. Okay. My voice is super duper dry. Sorry. So getting out of your own way. This is also has to do with the amount of control that you need to have. Okay. Let's do this in terms of TAs in your day to day. Okay. So we talked about detaching from the outcome yesterday again and getting out of your own way. I'm trying to think of the best examples 'cause I don't have a ton of notes on this episode written down. Let's talk about a time everyone has to deal with, which is the frustrating client. We're all gonna get it. Not especially when you scale to having a lot of clients that aren't like friends or family or friends of friends, or you know what I mean? Like eventually run into someone and you know you've made it when they're like, you're not cool, and you have to deal with that conflict. In order to properly resolve any conflict, you do have to get out of your own way because your ego is gonna step in, your need for validation, your need to be right, and your emotions are gonna enter the chat. Okay. We don't need them in there. ⁓ and but those are all the things that are getting in your own way for your own progress. When you face a kind of conflict, like someone's not following your policies, someone is changing how they do things and I see this like I'm secretly on Reddit quite not all the time, but I'm on there quite a bit. and I see a lot of posts of travel agents like, I really want to do this. Should I do this? And the answer is almost always no, because you're acting from an emotional reaction instead of a response. And I know I've talked about this in other episodes as well. So What I'm saying. When you are dealing with a frustrating client, you cannot let your emotions get the best of you. If you are frustrated and annoyed and you need some time, like take a break. Take a break from the situation. Just remove yourself from the situation. Get yourself out of your own way. Okay. When you are extremely frustrated. Or nervous, anxious, scared, whatever the heck it might be going on between you and your client or you and a supplier. I don't freaking know. You've got to calm yourself down. Go ahead and write the angry email. Go ahead and type it all out. Give yourself a ten minute break. Don't hit send. And then come back and reread it. And be like, well, that was a ridiculous response. This is not professional in any capacity. Nothing that we do. Is an emergency. Okay. ⁓ very I mean some flight issues, like that's an emergency, some travel issues, but when you're dealing with a client like before they've traveled, nothing is an emergency. Like, please understand you are not saving lives and you do not need to bend over backwards. So when you get an email or maybe a text message. ⁓ and this is also why I just like don't like to have any calls unless they're scheduled because I don't want to be caught off guard, you know, and then accidentally have a reaction. ⁓ that was something I had to work on myself. Not that I would like blow up at clients or anything, but I just like didn't know how to properly respond like at the drop of a hat. Okay. But it gives you some time if you have your boundaries in place with your communication to have that reaction and then come back and properly respond. And I know what you're thinking. I'll just plug it into chat GPT and say make it sound nice. That it might be working through the rest of 2026, but people are quickly picking up on how much is actually Chat GPT responses. Like it's really annoying to me. When I'm dealing with like group vendors, I'm losing my voice, it's fine. ⁓ When I'm dealing with vendors or DMCs in foreign countries, and it's like crystal clear they're using AI. And that's gonna eventually trickle down to your clients. And we don't need that look. Like you can have like all of your automated emails. Yeah, they're automated. That's one piece of copy. ⁓ but when you're actually responding to people, it's becoming very, very obvious that these are AI responses. Okay. So gosh, sorry. You wanna be sure that you can take any of the emotion out of interactions if things are heated with you and suppliers or DMCs or clients. Okay. Because we gotta be professional. We're all adults here. We don't need to be it it blows my mind to see someone in their forties acting like a ten year old, like especially in email and on social media. Like it blows my mind the lack of emotional maturity I see all over the internet. ⁓ and like I said, I I've seen this in like Reddit posts. I've had people share posts with me about certain people, like how they just act like they're a twelve year old throwing a tantrum, you know? And I'm just like, how are these people functioning in society? So back to like the travel agent sub type stuff. I see people talking all the time about how they're annoyed with this customer or client, sorry. ⁓ and they're just like, I just want to stop working for them. And it's like, you need to have a little bit of integrity. And if you agree to do certain things for them, regardless of How they're treating you to a certain extent, you should fulfill that. So if it's a case where someone is like, ⁓ well, I can do a better job than you, and I'm gonna book these components on my own, and you can have these components, you still continue to serve them. And then when their trip's a shit show because they booked half of it on their own, that's when you'd be like, I can't help you with that. You wanted to do that on your own. And like guide them towards like your dumbass kind of messaging in a nice way. Okay. Do what you say you're gonna do. It's part of the four agreements. ⁓ it's a much better phrase. Let me look it up here. What are the four agreements? I have the book. I have them written down. Be impeccable with your word. That's what it is. So you want to speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. That's how you need to be speaking in your business. Let's just go over the four agreements real quick. I've done this before too, but let's let's do a refresher. Do you speak with integrity? When you s when you are saying only what you mean and only doing what you say you're gonna do. And are you doing it in the direction of truth and r love? That is being impeccable with your word. When you ha you you have to be able to do this even with a frustrating client, and you don't want to be disrespectful to them. But that's one way of getting out of your own way. Don't take anything personally. Nothing's this is I'm just reading this from AI search results. Nothing others do is because of you. It is a projection of their own reality. By not taking things personally, you avoid needless suffering. Are you practicing that? When you have someone frustrating you, you're not getting what you want from them. If it's like a supplier or a DMC, or conversely, your your clients are doing what you asked them to do. I do hear that a lot, like, ⁓ so and so's not getting back to me in a timely manner, blah, blah, blah, da-da-da-da. This is not how I want things to run. Well, what's going on in their life? Because something's taken precedence over finalizing this trip with you. have you asked them if everything's okay? Or are you just assuming? Which leads me to the third agreement. Don't make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and express what you really want. Avoid making assumptions about others' intentions or what they think. This tactic of not making assumptions will tremendously help you in your business. This this episode took a weird left turn. Not really, but kind of. But this will really, really help you with like toxic personalities. I hate saying that. Difficult people to work with. Because if you don't assume anything, usually the people that are gonna like threaten chargebacks or like threaten to ruin your life with a one-star review. ⁓ my God. You're never gonna get business again. Those people, they want you to assume things so they can catch you off guard. So when you start asking for clarity and you aren't afraid to ask questions and express like here's how I do things, this is the policies that I have in place, you will weed those people out so fast And they'll still keep trying, trust me. But then they don't have a leg to stand on. And it's like, ⁓ you want to spend all of your money in an imaginary lawsuit? Okay. Okay. Have fun with that. I'm not afraid of you. Okay. always doing your best. You were not doing your best when you were acting out of emotional reaction and you're typing out hateful emails or hateful text messages or throwing people under the bus because they don't 100% agree with you. Like you're not doing your best. So this says your best will change from moment to moment. So it's about doing the best you can in any gives given situation without self-judgment. If you are over the age of eight and your best is not being able to control your emotions, that's Something that needs to be worked on very, very seriously needs to be worked on. Okay. there have been times for me where I'm just like very tired and I'm doing my best to communicate clearly and concisely and assertively. And I've had situations where I'm like feeling overworked, overtired, life is getting at me, and then I get a condescending message, and I'm like In my brain, I'm screaming, it's literally on your itinerary. Are you illiterate? Like I'm like cussing out this person in my head. We all get there. Okay, at some point. And I do my best at the time to like, yes, this was noted on your itinerary. You can refer to that. And also, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever the answer is to the question. Like I always answer it and I always reiterate. This information was provided to you weeks ago. You know what I mean? Like that is a huge frustration for me because I put all that time and effort into the itineraries. And then when people are traveling, they're like, sir, how do I do this? Well, you had three weeks to review all this information, but you don't like to read. So thanks for wasting my time. I have to get that me out of the way. ⁓ if I was working for someone else, I'll tell you a story here in a second that actually happened. If I was working for someone else, I would have like been like, do you F and read? Like, I don't care about this job anymore. But it's my business, okay? As an example, when I was like 19, 17 to 19, I worked a steak and shake. And I was a second shift. ⁓ what is it? Front of the house supervisor. I was a server supervisor and trainer. And I was so burnt out from that job. I was so sick of it. I made very good money at the time. I didn't think about it, but this was in like in the year 2000. Around there. And I was making like 40 a year working part time. And they offered me like a first ship's. First shift supervisor position at their new store they were opening in town. Great benefits, like 401k when you turn 21. I was like not old enough for it, but lots of paid time off. I got annual bonuses being like management. Anyway, I was so burnt out from that job. I remember I got my realtor's license and I was like, see a I think it's a movie half baked. Just go watch it. It's not as good as you thought it was if you've already seen it. but I think John Leguizamo I think it was him quitting his job and he's working like fast food and he goes, Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. You're cool. Fuck you, I'm out. That was my mentality at this place. And I was just like ready to go. And I remember I had this like 15 top after church on a Sunday, just driving me nuts, people. And Like the grandfather of the group was like, This patty's smaller than I remember it being and I don't like just complaining about everything. And I remember I just like stood next to him and like set down the water pitcher. I was like, You know, you could just make these burgers at home and you didn't have to waste anyone's time here. I don't think I got a tip on that one. I don't know how I didn't get fired, but that's kind of how I was because I couldn't get out of my own way because I was so frustrated. Right, there's a random weird story. So I know I've mentioned what is wrong with my voice today. I'm gonna have to take a break. I know I've mentioned the four agreements before. These are four simple things. Go get the book. It's a super short read. It's like one chapter is each of the agreements. There's like an intro and then four chapters and then a conclusion. It's such a good little short read. And it gets you out of your own way when you're responding to clients or suppliers or DMCs that are frustrating you because I've had all of that happen to me and it's so annoying. It's fine. anyway. another way you can get out of your own way is like other times that you were in your own way is when you're judging your own content. Just put it out there, just put it out there. Don't revise things. have it be terrible. People will like it or they won't, and that's fine. ⁓ another way that you are getting in your own way is constantly tinkering with your processes. I say this in the success circle a lot. This is kind of like a science experiment running your own business. You have your hypothesis and you need to test it consistently for. At least six to eight weeks, any new thing you're introducing. If you are tinkering every three to four weeks, you are never gonna make any progress, and you are getting in your own way. Okay. establishing boundaries, but not enforcing or reinforcing said boundaries, that is also an example of getting in your own way. Okay. All right. Well, this episode is now close to 20 minutes and I don't even want to post this. ⁓ my god. I look so bad on the camera. It's fine. It's going on YouTube. Right. Have a great day and I will see you tomorrow.