Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 203: Knowledge-Based Services & other Revenue Streams
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome back to the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Kay. If you don't know who I am, I am a travel agency owner who helps travel advisors get into the mindset and the mode of being the CEO of their travel business. If you have any questions about what I can do, how I can help you. Go to elevatewithrachelk.com. And I actually just launched soft launched last week. it's a know your numbers guide that helps you understand how to forecast your goals and like project your sales to hit your revenue and income goals, as well as do you even need to charge a fee? And if so, how much of a fee do you need to charge? That is called Know Your Numbers. I'm gonna link it in the descripciones of this episode. All right, day 203. We are all about the knowledge-based services, which could possibly be different revenue streams for you to consider. And I know I've touched, well, I didn't touch on, but I went pretty hard into lead magnets earlier in this podcast. There are 365 episodes. I don't have my notebook on me because I'm trying to use a teleprompter now and now I don't look at the camera half the time. So debating on how I'm gonna do this moving forward. But back to it. These can be lead magnets and these can be small paid offers that you can create in the next few episodes. We're gonna be talking about it. You can also tie it back to your lead magnet if you're like, I don't know where those lead magnet episodes are, Rachel. Great. You can listen to the next couple episodes to kind of get the ball rolling, rolling, or inspiration for your next lead magnet. but these are different ways you could potentially have your business bring in additional revenue. And I'm gonna open this up with a disclaimer. Because I don't want this episode to send you off building a course, like a mini course tonight. It's way more work than you think it is. Everything we're covering today is something to consider, not something to implement right away. This is like a file it away for when it makes sense episode, not drop everything and start this today. So Like I said, past episodes I talked about lead magnets, and I did mention you can offer a small, like ask for a small fee or price point for lead magnets. but those are typically like free guides, checklists, downloads that bring people into your world and hopefully into a funnel. Today's gonna be a little bit different. We are talking about knowledge-based services, things that you already know, packaged in a way that someone pays for directly, separate from even booking a trip through you. So, what's this is the big difference? A lead magnet is in the hopes that they book trips with you. This is an option. Possibly, we'll get into that. This is an option if you're like I'd like to bring in some additional revenue without requiring people to book a trip with me. Very quick but important note before I get into all of this. Please check with your host agency's contract, like the contract you have with your host. Some hosts have specific policies around outside income streams. And especially if you are an employed travel advisor, very like definitely check your employer, employee contract. But there are some hosts that may not allow you to have paid content or paid courses. So this is like a confirm before you build after you consider situation, not a given. If you are completely on your own and you aren't hosted, this is definitely something you can look into. If you are hosted, you probably have a high likelihood of being able to do something, but you don't want to go too crazy with it because you don't want to end up getting banned by your host on accident. You know? Okay, with that said, here is the honest on the honesty of what I'm gonna be getting into. These revenue streams are and should be generally lower revenue than your core booking business. They're not going to replace commission income. I mean, there's a small chance it could, and then your career could go in a completely different direction. But don't expect that. They can be at a minimum. A meaningful additional stream. And just as importantly, several of them double as lead generation, bringing those people not only to pay for your lower like low-ticket offer, but also they're like, Well, this advisor really knows their stuff. Maybe I should book a trip with them. And they've already given you a small amount of money, so therefore they might be more likely to trust you to book a trip, or they might refer you. So With that being said, some people will say, you should charge a fee to cover expenses. And it's an additional revenue stream. That the no, that is not what charging a fee is for. Charging a fee is all about operating your business to make a profit. And if you are doing a well above and beyond what a typical travel advisor does, you should consider charging a fee because you are working more hours, not because you want something to pay for your CRM for the year quick. This could be something more like that where you're like, I made an extra $50 from these little guides I'm selling. I could use that to pay for something this month in my travel agency. Or treat yourself, I don't care. Do whatever you want. Okay, here are some examples that you could consider. They're not every possible example, but let's get the creative ball rolling. Evergreen mini courses on a destination that you are highly specialized in. If you have like, and it doesn't even matter if it's not something that you sell. Like, I know many travel advisors I work with might know like super deep random stuff like the Great Lakes, because that's where they always vacation when they were kids, and that's where like their family lives in the area, like up there. And they've been to all of them and they've done all the things growing up and it's still one of their favorite trips to take, but that doesn't make sense monetarily for them to book a bunch of Great Lakes trips, so they specialize in something else. But they still have all that knowledge. It could also be for like Italy or Disney, safaris, something that you really, really know inside and out. You could create an Evergreen mini course. Now, hold that thought. Evergreen means forever. you wanna like keep an eye on any changes for that destination so you can update that course if need be. But it could be like, planning your first trip to Disney. What to know before you book. And that does sound like a lead magnet, and you can offer it for like five dollars. because you're gonna want to provide more value than a typical lead magnet that's gonna be like, get your genie pass. I don't know anything about Disney. Why did I put Disney as the example there? I know there's a genie pass involved, maybe still, I don't know. Anyway, but it's something that you can generally resell the bubba sell repeatedly with very little ongoing effort to serving it once it's built. It's not meant to replace working with you. If anything, a well-built course often makes someone realize how much there is to get right and brings them back to you to actually book the trip. Okay? Then there's digital downloads. I've seen a lot of travel advisors do this and not only offer it for their client base, but open it up to other travel advisors. So this is a possibility for you. And now I do say a lot, it is very saturated. but it's an option, you know. So destination guides, customized packing lists, budget planning templates. Budget planning templates would probably be the way to go if you're going to do a digital download and you really understand how to create and set a budget for a specific destination versus the destination guides that a lot of people put out or packing lists. they're lighter than doing a full course. You just do a quick overview with some it's you can do a PDF of instructions. Instructions on how to do it. You can link a video inside the PDF, and you could just make it a budget planning template. They're gonna be also lower priced. So the courses you're probably gonna be able to get away with like 20 bucks, maybe 50, just depends on how much. These are gonna be like the low, low ticket, like five to ten dollars, you know. And they can also serve double duty as both small income. Depending how you position them and has set up a funnel afterwards, they could also be a lead magnet. That's a paid one rather than a free one. and we'll touch on the paid versus free lead magnets here in a minute, too. This one I like and I did two years ago. and I like the idea of it. Paid strategy stu paid strategy sessions or trip planning audits. This one is very interesting for advisors because it serves a public audience, the DIY travelers who don't want full service advisor. They put it all into Chat GPT, travel planning AI, and they're still not They still don't know what we're talking about. And then they post it to like a subreddit called travel planning AI or AI travel planning. And everyone else is like, I don't know, man. And then there's that one rando travel advisor's like, you should book with a travel advisor. Yeah, they should have, but they seem to think that my gosh, we're not gonna get started on LLMs. Anyway, they need expert eyes and they want expert eyes on what they've already planned. A thirty minute paid session reviewing someone's self-built itinerary, flagging any gaps, suggesting adjustments, catching a mistake before it becomes an expensive one for them is a service some travelers will happily pay for, even if they never book the trip with you. And this is actually how I also leverage charging peas up front when I first started. What is is there something like weird in my throat? Hold on. It's like froggy weirdness. Anyway, I would tell my leads on the phone, like, I have this fee up front, and the good news is you can book with whomever you want. I'm just gonna create this trip itinerary. You can book with me or you can book elsewhere. This is my fee is for this time to make sure it's a good trip for you. Okay. Alright. So Rachel. The budget planning templates, the packing lists, the destination guides. Why why would I charge a fee for that? That should just be a free lead magnet. Yes, and you could also charge a very nominal nominal? Nominal. Nominal. I'm spelling it in my brain right now. Nominal. Abominable. Okay. I w You could charge a small fee, is what I was trying to say, and I got stuck. My tongue is twisted today. Alright. Let's get direct about something. These are not shortcuts to replacing your commission income. I said this in the beginning of the episode, reiterating it now. Treating these items this way will lead to disappointment. Where these little like paid things or strategy sessions, strategy sh sessions you can make almost as much as like a fee up front. Not for like well, not for weddings or like groups or anything like the higher fees. You could charge one to two hundred dollars and review someone's trip and catch some things. Or like a strategy session to create their trip. Actually, I'm gonna sidebar for a second. I was looking into a service. When was this? I think last year. And it caught my attention. It I was looking for a CPA, that's what it was. Because I dropped my CPA back in 24. I was like, I need some time to readjust everything in my life. And so I was looking for one and one local to me all the ones local to me were like, just called, see if we can take you on, except this one. And they had on their website, you have to pay to set up your consultation with me. And it was $185. And it said the $185 will go towards services we do. If you don't work with us, it covers our time. If you cancel, it's non-refundable. And I was like That's interesting. So if you are doing like a paid strategy session, you could potentially set it up like that and charge like $150 for up to 60 minutes, right? Okay. Anyway, that was just my little ramble. Alright. These strategy sessions though, you can't no, you're not gonna be working full-time doing that. You're not gonna be able to get that many people, most likely. evergreen courses, digital downloads. They're smaller, often just like a passive sort of income stream layered on top of your core business. You can occasionally promote them, unless you want them to be a lead magnet, then you do need to like have a content strategy and marketing strategy for the lead magnet, because obviously you want specific types of people booking and maybe getting that lead magnet. But anyway. You're not gonna be constantly promoting all of these services. It's just gonna be something when they do like a Google search and they're like, I need help planning my trip. And if your website plops up with a page that's like, I do paid strategy sessions, you do not have to work with me. You can book everything on on your own with your own credit card points or travel. like American Advantage number, whatever, the Sky Miles. you can book every all the components on your own. I just help you strategize. You don't want to be marketing that all the time because you don't have the scalability to cover all that, you know? And you also want to consider the liability make them have your s sign your T and C's anyway, you know, that's you're not responsible for anything, you know? Alright, anyway. Some cases it can also be a s filter that brings in serious engaged travelers. closer to booking with you directly. So they may love the paid strategy session. They may love the little mini course you put together or like a little live webinar they pay five bucks to join. Or maybe you just have like a random Patreon set up and you're like, hey, if you want more custom questions, you can join me live on like join our Patreon and then you can come live with me on whatever Tuesdays at six PM my time. And submit your questions and I'll answer them and then you get the recording. Man, that's that just came to my brain. That's a somebody do that. I'm actually toying with doing that with Elevate myself. Like, hey. Anyway. Alright, this is worth building if you you already have a genuinely differentiated area of expertise. If you're brand newbie and you're like, I don't even know what I want to niche into yet, hold the phone on this, okay? also when you have some bandwidth beyond your core client work, so if you're like Past newbie phase, but you're in that I'm not quite ready to hire, or I didn't realize I was ready to hire yet, and I gotta get through the storm so I can take some time to hire. Probably not doing this right now. And make sure if you are hosted or have any kind of contracts with the travel agency you're working with, that it's confirmed okay for you to do. It's not worth building this all out because it sounds like a cool thing other TAs are doing. but build it because it fits your specific strengths, your specific business, and not because it's on a list of top ten things travel advisors can do, okay? Don't fall for that trap. I am sidebar again, and also I'm saying sidebar in 2026. I'm old, it's fine. The d s I'm not g I don't know who these people are. Somebody just a few days ago was like talking about gosh, who was it? Somebody like a week ago actually was speaking to me and they were like, all these advisor coaches are saying to go on TikTok. And I disagree wholeheartedly. That was, you know, five years ago. I mean, just because you all discovered it after the people who did something different and went to TikTok five years ago, doesn't mean everyone needs to swamp TikTok. Your ideal client might be on TikTok. I'm not saying don't go on TikTok. However Hearing the advice of like only go on these platforms is ridiculous to me. And that's just my rant of the day. And I'm hearing it. And it's a little frustrating. Okay. Anyway, tomorrow we're gonna be covering something I've heard from some of my I don't want to call you guys students, but I feel like I have no other term. Mentees, coaches. Coachies. Coachies? That sounds bad. But the people that I work with who are travel advisors, it's come up once or twice. once you start creating this original content and these amazing products and awesome lead magnets, what happens? Like maybe another travel advisor decides to sign up for said product, takes what you built and makes it their own. That happens. They also I have had some travel advisors contact me for consultation. shade to them, but I've had them contact me for consultation to just try to manage like book someone else's trip and query that they got. Please don't be those people. Alright, that was day two three. If you're doing all of that stuff now, please stop. And tomorrow we will talk about all that. All right. Bye.