Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 209: Marketing the Mission of your travel agency, Not Yourself
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome back to the Travel Agency in the Year Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel K. And I'm a travel agency owner helping travel agents like fully step into their full leadership and all that stuff. Because I know most of you did not, you weren't born entrepreneurs. None of us. I mean, some of us are born to be entrepreneurs, but we're never taught how, really. And so this podcast is a tool. There's plenty of other resources. courses all that fun stuff over at elevatewithrachelk.com today is day two zero nine marketing the mission not yourself we have been discussing since day two zero seven if you want to go back We have been discussing, are you the owner of your travel agency or are you a steward for your travel agency? So 207 was what's the difference? 208 was how this actually helps you. And I liken it to a Vegas nerve reset for your identity. Now we're going to expand upon it, upon it, upon it, in this episode. By Marketing the mission, not yourself. This is another reason why you may wish to consider I am a steward of this task of building this travel agency for a purpose I'm not fully aware of. That's been assigned to me from the divine. This is what's been handed to me. Okay. How that mindset changes the way you show up in your marketing because a lot of advisors are very afraid to show up face to face on camera. And I've never had that issue myself. I mean no. Like I don't care. I think maybe the first few times I posted on TikTok, I was like, I don't know, I should probably do a billion filters and makeup and perfect lighting, and I don't have any of that. Like I had a lot of those blocks. And then I was like, you know what? I'm either gonna be out there or I'm not. Like if I don't do this, no one's gonna find out who I am. my hives are coming back. Sorry. Anyway. So we spent the last few days working. like on the differences between owning and stewarding your business and how that shift erases a lot of stress. Today, let's connect it to something we've spent more time on earlier this year in the podcast. Your founder story, your brand story, putting yourself out there for the content. Okay. The huge amount of anxiety around marketing, the fear of being seen, the fear of judgment, the fear of someone taking what you've built comes from marketing as an owner, where every post feels like putting your actual self on display to be evaluated, copied, or rejected. I'm not saying be fake on your socials. You can still totally be yourself, but not Have that have that effect on you. Does that make sense? I re I repeated have that twice. It's not an audio error. When you market as a steward, your posture changes. You're not putting yourself in the fragile, identity-fused sense of my business or my career path is so heavily tied to me, I can't even show up on camera or I can't update my profile picture or whatever. But you aren't putting that out into the real world for approval. You're putting forward a mission that you have been entrusted with, sharing what you've been given to share in the service of the people you are meant to reach, because it was given to you to give away, not to hoard or protect out of fear. Ladies and gentlemen. I had a crazy, all right, for those of you don't who don't know, I am Catholic, but you do whatever you do. I had this crazy prayer session though the other day about how much I was using fear. What was it? Shoot. It was something like I was afraid to launch so I had this lead magnet I just launched like maybe a week or two ago called Know Your Numbers. I'll put that in the description. Let me write down this episode so I remember to put it in the description because I DIY all this. And I was like So scared to launch that. And then my travel agency, I've completely revamped my niches and I'm redoing it. I'm not gonna talk about it here. And I'm like praying because I'm like, Lord, I'm too scared. I'm so scared. I'm so scared. What if I fail? Da-da-da-da-da. And it's like what I was hearing. I know this if you are not Christian at all, you're gonna be like, hearing? What are you hearing? Anyway, what I was hearing was like, what if, and this was like when this was probably a month ago, actually. This was when I was like understood the concept of fully stepping into stewardship for my businesses and my body, like my entire life. Okay, full full tea. I was praying to my guardian angel because my guardian angel is my bestie. And was like I don't know to do. I don't I'm not feeling like any of this is right because I don't understand the purpose of any of this and da da da da da da. And I'm getting ready to relocate across the country. So the Guardian Angel, I just heard, why don't you start looking at houses for sale where you want to move? And I was like, What? He was like, Yeah, why don't you just do that? So I pulled up Zillow and I'm like, see, all these houses are tiny and they're not what I want, blah blah blah and he was like Why don't you not limit yourself to just this area that you want to live in and just like expand a few blocks out? I was like, there's more. Okay. Well, but they have these yards and I have to Gosh, I'm gonna have to mow all this yard. Or this one has a pool, and that's really cool and all, but also I have to take care of the pool and this one has higher square footage. And he was like, Okay, now your max for a mortgage, make that your new minimum. And I was like, I what? He was like, make it your new minimum. And I was like, Okay. And then he was showing I he was like, now just look at houses, don't look at the price tag. And he said, What if? You're supposed to be doing all of this and it's okay because I felt really guilty for like putting my I I was tying my identity to my businesses. I was like, Well it's it's all money for me and it's all things for me and I don't deserve this and da da da da da da. Some self-worth issues. It's fine, ladies and gentlemen. And he was like, What if God entrusted you with all of these tasks? so that you can make a lot of money, and then you can pay people really well to clean these houses or this yard mow this yard or clean this pool. And what if he wants you to make a lot of money so in your businesses you can pay people very, very well and provide, and then you can also give to the church too, and you can live comfortably and take care of yourself to continue growing everything. And I was like, my gosh. And he said to me. it may have been like another prayer session, so I was like hanging out with my guardian angel for like a week or two in the morning. I just pray the guardian angel prayer and be like, Alright, guardian angel, how do I deal with this? But he also pointed out how much fear I'm living in, and there's no reason for it, and the fear is actually From a Christian standpoint, the enemy trying to prevent you from doing like if when you are like paralyzed with fear to do something, and not awe, there's a difference. But when you're paralyzed with fear to do something, it's usually something that knows that it's in the divine's best interest for you to be doing and it's trying to put a stop to it. That's what I that's what I learned. Okay? And I was like, this is all crazy. Don't worry, guys. I've had a full psyche valve. I'm not on any medications and I don't do drugs. Okay. I am fine. But anyway, I learned from that that I was hoarding and protecting out of fear myself and what I have to offer, and so many things that instead of just being a steward of everything God's entrusted me with. and going and doing that. So that's what I'm doing now. I'm not good I'm not perfect at it. And it's been like a game changer with like any kind of stress or worry because as a travel advisor, you're gonna deal well, I do a lot of group travel and so I don't know all the groups. It's not like, hey girlies in my book club, let's all go somewhere together. Like that's not how I do groups. I have stranger dangers from the internet who find my socials, hire me and then the only people I really know are the group hosts and I barely know them and then I have however many guests they have and I don't know any of them so there's a lot of stress there even with all the automations and workflows you're gonna run into the occasional c guest or group guest group client whatever that just is only doing it because the group host likes you but they don't really like you. Okay, so there's almost always if you do a lot of weddings and that's how you get your business predominantly via social media and they're halfway across the country from you, there's almost always going to be one person in every group of like more than seventy five people, at least one, who's gonna be a little bit of a PETA. so it's always very like stressful and I'm like, gosh, it's me and myself No, it's no. Part of it can be my processes, could be refined. Like I've learned over the years, anytime I get negative feedback, I'm like, awesome. I needed to learn that because I want to do better. And I'm sorry I didn't do the my like the best that you were expecting, like for random guests. And now I'm gonna add this to my processes. Thank you. You know? Okay. Anyway, those little stresses would get to me. How like the vanity metrics on socials. Like I'm not on socials with my travel agency right now because I'm trying to like navigate my new niche and be like, where do I need to go? I'm not on socials here with Elevate except for my podcast and maybe a couple of shorts I've done because I'm trying to I'm still in the process of like finalizing all the details of this because I just created this LLC a year ago after TA Toolbox was dissolved. So I'm like, there's been a lot going on. On. And I have to be a steward of all of this stuff that's been handled handed to me rather than being like, I own all of this, but I was carrying a lot of fear and worry and stress for probably probably the last year, not even really knowing how much stress I was carrying with all these transitions. And that was holding me back, and it was creating a lot of fear because I was like. I wasn't really fused with the my businesses, but I also was like kinda still attached. Like there were some chains attached, you know? And once I stepped into I'm a steward of everything in my life, woof, a lot easier. And I'm far more disciplined. And it's such a subtle thing because it changes everything about how your content creation feels. Sorry, that was a digression. Posting from ownership asks, what will people think of me? How many likes am I gonna get? Am I gonna get any followers? Posting from stewardship asks, did I faithfully share what I was given to share today? Or, you know, whenever you batched your content. The first question is anxious and self-focused. We don't want to be focused on the self. It never fully resolves because there's always somebody who's not going to like it. The second question is peaceful and outward focused, kind of like there's an episode way back in the day: authenticity versus sincerity. Sincerity is outward focused, authenticity is inward focused. BT dubs, if you missed that episode. So when you were speaking to people and communicating with them, you need to speak. With sincerity, not authenticity. Okay? There's a difference. And authenticity's been thrown around way too much by people who don't understand what it means. So the second question is peaceful and outward focused and more focused on sincerity. And you can answer it honestly every single day, regardless of the response you get. So you could be like, did I actually share what I was supposed to be sharing? Did I actually do what I was supposed to be doing today with my content creation? It's either yes or no. It's not beat yourself up. It's not you're not worth anything. It's like gotta do better tomorrow. That's it. And this goes way back, I think, in episode like 204, 205. I don't remember. Hmm. Actually, I have the notes over here because I'm batching right now. 203. Nope. 200. Yep. Nope. Just a couple episodes ago, it connects directly back to the copying conversation when you have a beautiful lead magnet and you're like, travel advisors are taking it and using it. Which sucks. And also, please don't do that as a travel advisor. You can take it to be inspired and you can ask them, can I sign up for your lead magnet? This looks really cool. You know, like talk to them about it. Some advisors will say no, and that's okay. But any hoodles. If someone takes a piece of what you shared and makes a version of their own from a steward's perspective, that's simply evidence that the mission is spreading, even if it's imperfectly, even through someone else's hands. That could be the reason why you had to make that piece of content. That doesn't mean that you don't take reasonable steps to protect your original work. That was discussed in day two four. It means the sting of it loses its grip on your identity because it's not your identity. Your identity was never fused to the content in the first place. Okay, you are not your business. You are the steward of it. Let's reframe it. You are the steward of it. For this season that you have been given. The business could utterly and completely fail, and there's a reason behind all of it that you will may never comprehend, okay, in this lifetime. And that's okay too. Even if you like bust your butt and do everything, and it's still something happens. This is why I say everything's a blessing or a lesson. Anyway, so this is all like a mindset shift. Not just a one-time decision. So don't be surprised if you find yourself like needing to return to this episode or other episodes around here. When you're in the harder weeks, if you are a student in any of the elevate programs, you can also bring it up in the live QA's or the hot seat coachings, okay? And just be like, I'm having a hard time. How do I be a steward? All right, you have a great day. And I will see you tomorrow.