Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 77: Are you afraid your marketing sucks as a TA? You're not alone
Transcript
- Rachel K: for travel advisors building up their business and it kind of is a supplement to our success circle program if you're interested in checking that out. Head over to elevatewithrachelk.com. It is $35 a month for 12 months. So just a little over a dollar a day can help you become the CEO of your travel agency. We are doing a whole series on fears entrepreneurs face and how they can ... fine. It's fine. And sometimes it isn't good enough. if you don't have that fear, then you're not going to have the ability to kind of analyze and scrutinize your content. So it's not a bad fear to have, but it can also really keep you frozen and stuck from even putting yourself out there in the first place, which is denying yourself the opportunity. to get business from anyone in the United States, Canada, whatever country you're a travel advisor in. All right, number one, to get over your fear of inadequate marketing. Man, this one's gonna be not that long. There's only seven points. What do I mean by inadequate marketing? You aren't posting enough according to somebody. Or you aren't posting on the right platforms according to somebody. Or ... your content just doesn't perform well enough. ⁓ dependent on a lot of factors. It's more, I would say, and I mentioned this in a previous episode, don't worry about vanity metrics, especially if you're just a one-man band running this show. Don't worry about going viral. Don't worry about getting tens and hundreds of thousands of followers because you don't really have the capacity to serve the proper number of conversion from those followers and leads that you would be getting if your content was really converting, right? ⁓ So there's that to think about. But also you do need to look if you have short form video content and people are falling off within the first few seconds then there's something in the hook that's not appealing. And you do need to have some idea and some study of what marketing, especially social media marketing is like. So, let's talk about how you can get over this fear of inadequate marketing. Number one, do you have your unique value proposition, not someone else's? The inadequate marketing feeling can come from like ... an imposter syndrome, right? And a lot of people get stuck with imposter syndrome because they're told, I'll sell you a solution. You just do things my way. And then they do things that person's way or whatever and they're like, this isn't me. This isn't aligned with who I am or how I want to run my business. And you may not have an understanding of what your unique value proposition is. We all are in this industry. We are all different niches. We all serve different clientele or client types in every niche. And what is your unique value proposition? Maybe sit and think about that because that's going to help you feel more confident to put yourself out there, especially if you're doing social media marketing. Speaking of confidence, you need to understand because you are unique. This is like Tide. This is number two, by the way. because you are unique and you have your own value proposition and you may have a very, very similar business model because the actual structure of businesses, it works. There's a reason. Here's my drive-through restaurant. reference that I always use. There's a reason that McDonald's, Wendy's, Chick-fil-A, Burger King, Arby's, they all have a very similar model of how they serve their clients. Driving around, order at some speaker, pay at the first window, pick up at the next window. They're all like that, but they all have a unique value proposition. All of these restaurants were confident that they are different and how they are unique and who they serve gave them the confidence decades ago to start this up and be like, yeah, I'm another fast food drive through restaurant, but also here's what I do differently from everybody else. So you need to think of yourself as like, like we all have very, very similar business models, very, very similar processes in how we serve our clients. there are thousands of other agents with the same niche as you and hundreds if not thousands of other agents who serve the exact same kind of ideal client avatar. But there are millions of households in the US alone that like to travel. So it's a pretty even playing field. Don't think about that. think about how you uniquely serve your ideal client. And that's going to give you more confidence to show up because there are people out there looking for someone exactly like you to help them with their trip. Number three, again, stop watching the vanity metrics of your social media accounts and the vanity metrics of your competition. I highly recommend understanding who your biggest competitors are and seeing this is how you can also, if you're stuck on a unique value proposition, look at your biggest competitor. Just kind of see what they're doing and then see this is how you create your unique value proposition. There's going to be a gap that you will be able to sense and ⁓ infer from looking at how they serve people and what they do and what products they offer and be like, well, I do this. I have this additional service or I do this slightly differently. And then that's going to help you create your unique value competition. But if you go follow them on social media and you're like, why do they have 5,000 followers or 100,000 followers and I only have 300. Followers do not mean conversions to sales. Views do not mean conversions to sales. I would argue that people who go viral, and I'm not saying this is in general, but I would argue. or even leads that are aligned with what you do and who you serve, okay? But it can be very discouraging to see that someone else has much higher engagement or someone else has so many more followers ⁓ and you're just like, gosh, they don't even do that good of a job. Like, I'm doing so much better, but I can't get the leads. Don't think of it like that, okay? Think of, you can be inspired by your competition to do what your gap is that you're feeling that they aren't doing, okay? That's all you need to think of it as. And you can watch their content or check out what their process is and be like, that's a good idea or ⁓ they aren't doing this and I do this, okay. You can be inspired by them is what I'm saying. I like to think of it, I think it's Rocky IV. I think maybe all the Rockies, but I remember Rocky IV the best. Or he's, no, it's probably the original Rocky. Anyway, now I'm thinking of a Simpsons episode where Bart is in a mini golf tournament against ⁓ Todd Flanders. And they're doing a ⁓ Rocky... montage and he's got a little picture of Todd in his dresser mirror and he's just like, argh. Like, you can think of your competition as that and be inspired to do better than them or to become their equal and like actually have them recognize, you're now competition and it should be friendly. Don't like hate or no shade to your competition. But you can use your competition as like inspiration. That was a really long rambling. All right, point four. Don't, you don't have to be everywhere. You do not have to be on every single platform. I've heard advisors say, I need to be here, I need to be here, I need to be here. No, no, no. Your strategy is dependent on your strengths. Are you good on camera? Are you good at speaking? Are you good at writing? Or are you good just talking to people in person? Where's your strength in terms of your marketing? your ideal client avatar slash ICA and where they show up. There is no point in being on a platform that is geared towards 50 plus for the most part demographically when your ICA is 25. They're not going to want to be on there and they're not going to actively go there to find you. So why are you posting on that platform? I would recommend no more than three platforms. Okay, so I, okay I wrote this down. I ditched Facebook marketing in 2020. I my audience elsewhere. I don't know why I wrote this down. So I tried the Facebook marketing because everyone like way back in the teens was like Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, Facebook ads and Google My Business ads. also understand that you may have to pivot platforms over time and that's okay too. All right, invest in marketing education. It doesn't have to be industry specific. It's just marketing is marketing is marketing. There's no magic formula that's different for travel advisors than it is for realtors or any service-based industry, honestly. Like, there's no difference except you're saying I'm a travel advisor instead of I'm a realtor. You know what I'm saying? Or I'm a hairstylist or I'm trying to think of like other service industries. Okay. Here's some books. Here's a bunch of books I've written down here. Number one is Expert Secrets, and I know I mentioned this in a live Q &A, and it's by Russell Brunson, I believe is the name of the author. And that is a book all about how you can ⁓ refine webinar presentations. If you decide to have webinars as a lead magnet, that book can really help you understand how to tweak them and use the replays of webinars as just like free-leave magnets down the road. It's amazing. It's an amazing, insightful book with ⁓ unique strategies that could be applied to travel advisors. ⁓ Pre-Swaizen. I don't remember who wrote that book. I feel like it's a hostage negotiator. It's a really good book. I read it like three years ago, but it's about... ⁓ The 48 Laws of Power is not even allowed in federal prisons because it's by Robert Green and it's a thick book. use it as like more of a reference. I would never read the whole thing. It can, if you were to read it cover to cover, it probably would teach you how to become a straight up psychopath. But it is the 48 Laws of Power and how to... take control of a lot of situations and a lot of marketing is psychological and you can use this not only, I'm not saying use this to be like nefarious, to like I'm gonna get all the clients now, I'm manipulating them all. ⁓ But you can kind of reflect on maybe where you might be a little weak, just read the chat, like the table of contents and be like that's an interesting, and just go to that chapter. But you can also use it to understand when you're being marketed to in a manipulative way and that's when you need to be very, very, very wary of what's being sold to you because why are they playing your emotions and your fears like that? Okay. There are so many free resources as well. Diary of the CEO has so many episodes tied to confidence and marketing. Vanessa Van Edwards is a great ... She talks a lot about body language and how to ... I think I've done previous episodes referencing some of her tips. There's so many free resources out there too. Diary of a CEO also helps you understand making wise investments and see how much you are marketed to. Not Diary of a CEO, sorry. These are my terrible notes, scratches. Just a general understanding marketing. It's gonna make you understand, ⁓ I'm being bamboozled. This person is just a joke and they want thousands of dollars? No thanks. And it's just like any industry. Anything you buy in the future, you'll be like, wait, hold up. All right. Tip number six, free resources. If you need help with digital marketing, Google Digital Garage, SEMrush Academy. That's, think, tied to AI. I think actually a lot of these are tied to like AI. Not necessarily just using AI, but like tied to like what's coming down the pipeline and how to maximize ⁓ or leverage different platforms. Meta Blueprint. Udemy. U is in umbrella. D-Dog, E-Edward, M-Mary, Y. Allison for Internet Marketing and the Trade Desk. Those are all free resources to really get an understanding of marketing. So the fear of inadequate marketing usually comes from I don't know how to market. I didn't realize I was going to have to market this much. And almost every fear is just like a lack of knowledge in that. area right that's why exposure therapy is so great because you're like if you have a fear of dogs they'll be like alright let's put you in a room with dogs slowly over time getting closer and closer same thing same thing I'm doing here at these episodes Keep doing what you're doing in your business like day to day. Keep doing your marketing. Let it be sucky if you're like, have inadequate marketing. Just keep putting yourself out there and give yourself one to two hours a week for a study in your marketing and being confident in your business so that you can have that confidence when you are marketing your services. What was I going to say? I flipped the notebook over. Yeah, so. and have a great day.