Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 279: Getting Involved With Your Local Community
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome to the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel K, Travel Agency Owner. Free podcast for you to just binge on. I don't care. Short daily episodes, 365 episodes, helping you to build an actual business and not just another side hustle, because we need real careers, people. Alright, today's day 279. Before I get into the episode, if you don't know who I am, head over to elevatewithraachelk.com. I have ways to help you other than this podcast. Free, paid, custom, whatever. There's different options. Check it out. you can follow me on the TikTok or the Instagrams, or here on YouTube. You can hit that subscribe button because I'm still pretty sure something like 60 to 70% of listeners, at least on YouTube, are not subscribing. So do it. Stop trying to figure out which episode is next. Day 279 is getting involved with your local community. You're like, I know how to do this. Alright, so we've touched on local visibility back on day 229 of the podcast. Today we're going to go a little bit deeper. How can you, as a travel advisor, build genuine, meaningful involvement in your local community, not just a marketing presence? Because there are a lot of people that will like join the chamber. Or like sponsor random things, but there's the no like and trust. We and this is brought up so much in marketing, no like and trust. Just because you pay to sponsor something, that's the no. There is no like and trust there. So why don't we go a little bit deeper? Local community involvement builds something that your online content, no matter how good it is, can't really replace, which is real in-person trust built through repeated face-to-face presence in a specific community over time. So this is super valuable for a business built on the kind of personal relationship and trust that we've been discussing throughout the year. It's very valuable for service-based business owners, period. It why? Why? Because it reaches people who may never have encountered you online at all. It builds credibility through different complementary channels than your digital marketing. And also it also it always feels really good to give back. Why not do it? So, how to get involved, the local business networking groups, chambers, any kind of entrepreneur meetups, industry-specific networking groups. Can put you in regular content with contact with other local business owners, some of whom can become genuine referral partners for you over time. And that's kind of ties back to the vendor partnership from day 229 of this podcast. Now, you actually have to be involved in it. There's a lot of mixed reviews about the chambers, the local networking groups, entrepreneurial meetups. Because people don't want to take the time to develop the relationships. And you want to be able to give back to your community through your chamber or like entrepreneurial meetups, whatever, as well. Remember, this is always about everyone else but you. You are the guide and the sage. You were not the hero of the story. you're like, what? I was talking about this. The client, the challenge, and the covenant. And the covenant is you coming in as Yoda to your client who is Luke Skywalker to get him to can't the Death Star. I can't think of anything else in Star Wars. I almost said Enron. I was think I was like, what? the what's the planet with the ewoks on it? Anyway, and you should treat the chamber and any kind of like networking style group or entrepreneur meetups the same way. Like how can you help everyone else not what's in it for me? Okay, second option. You can sponsor or participate in any kind of local events. This can be like a community or church festival, a school fundraiser, a local charity event of any kind. You can do sponsorship, and you might get involved in a little more hands-on participation by doing some volunteering. But that puts your name in front of a genuinely local audience in a context of goodwill rather than a sales pitch. So if you just sponsor things and never show up to them, that might not look best if you are sponsoring things and you have like an in-person booth and you do this regularly. Remember, consistency is key. This is part of your marketing strategy, but you're also giving back to the community. school fundraisers, things like that, show up. Talk to the parents if it's a school thing, talk to parishioners or members of your church if it's a church thing. And trust me, the agents I know who implement this strategy do very well with it. It works. But they're actually showing up too, so keep that in mind. Option number three, speaking or teaching locally. I almost have done this with a community college. I was asked to teach about a travel agent career option. And I can't remember what happened. I think what happened I don't remember. This was five years ago, maybe. No, four years ago. Maybe three. Somewhere in that time frame. but Sometimes if you network with or if you have in your client base like community college instructors or professors, you can reach out to them, especially if they teach any curriculum regarding business or marketing, and you can teach about it. Like you can teach about being a travel agent. And that's going to help solidify your credibility and the importance of why people need to use a travel advisor. You could also do like a workshop at a local library. you could do talks at a community center based on travel planning. Same thing with the local library. you could do a session at a local wedding expo. I've done this before where I spoke on like best ways to plan your honeymoon and how to narrow down your destination and really n hone in on what type of travel is best for you as a couple. I did like a I can't remember if it was 15 or 30 minutes, but at a bridal expo, I did a presentation on here's how to plant a honeymoon. but these position you as the local expert in in person in a way that a social post rarely ever achieves with the same credibility. you could also maybe capture some photos of you doing those workshops and then post and be like, hey, by the way, I do this workshop once a month at the library and it's all about travel planning basics. Next month is how to plan your trip to Ireland. And depending on your niche, whatever. People who attend the workshop, even if they never brook book with you, the next time they know someone, if they were impressed by how you presented the information and was easily able to communicate to them how easy it is for you to give these tips to make their lives easier with trip planning. A, they're gonna share that knowledge like it was their own to anyone, and then B, they're gonna be like, you know, if you need more help, you need to go to XYZ travel. If you haven't been listening. To this podcast, my imaginary travel agency for you all is XYZ travel. Not ABC, XYZ, Xavier, whatever Y is, Z. and then they're supporting other local small businesses, genuinely patronizing them and promoting other local businesses, not just going in there. And being like, hey, will you work with me? Like, go have lunch there once a week. Go have dinner every other weekend there. Like become friends with the owner owner or friendly with the owner. With the staff. The Bart tip really well at a restaurant. I don't know why I'm going restaurant route. Don't just go in there and be like, Hey, I have this idea. Do you want to partner together? Like, you have got to be a patron. If it's like if you want to get into wellness retreats and you want to partner with a specific yoga instructor, start taking their classes so you have a thorough understanding of how they teach. and patronize their business. Not just doing a vendor partnership directly relevant to travel, but doing this this way, it builds community goodwill and often gets reciprocated in ways pure transactional marketing never does. Back to my cleaning business days, there was a restaurant I absolutely loved. And I would go all the time, like once a week, even if I didn't want a full like table dining experience, I just sit at the bar, order some apps, talk to the bartenders, I became friends with the bartenders. I became friendly with the owner and the GM. most of the staff knew me, right? And before I got super friendly with them and I was just like that regular there, I remember seeing one of my cleaning clients there while I was there. And they were also really good friends. And then they were speaking with the owner, and then the owner came up and I was like, hey, that guy, that person's one of my cleaning clients, you know? And then they were like, really? we got like four clients, and then I found out the GM's sister was married to another. She was like one of my cleaning clients. And once we all got to know how we're so interconnected, so many people working at that restaurant were hiring my cleaning business to clean their houses. Isn't that crazy? And I was there and got like I would get the credit card notifications. I tipped so dang well. My credit card would be like, did you mean to leave a 350% tip? And I'd be like, Yup. I'm that person, I always tip minimum 20%. Like you have to be a really bad server to not get 20%. anyway. So the same consistency principle, again, that's run through this entire year, applies to the community involvement as well. Buy from other local small business owners, get to know them, sh refer them as well, like be reciprocal. Yeah. And it doesn't, like I said, that example with the cleaning business and the restaurant owners and the staff, it was probably a year and a half, two years in of they knew I had a cleaning business, but it was a year and a half, two years in of me having my cleaning business. And I think they knew me before that then a little bit too. before they started realizing I can totally trust her and her staff because we've got in-laws that have hired her and we've got other good friends. friends that we didn't even know that knew her, and we already like her anyway. So the no like trust was there. Like they knew I did it, they liked me, but then they could easily trust me far more for me to manage my staff and make sure that their service was rendered as promised because of the amount of people they knew that were already my clients. And I wasn't pushing it on them to be like, you should totally have your place cleaned by my company. I just let it go. Alright, so be consistent. Showing up once at a single event and expecting significant results rarely works. Showing up to an event just for the food and not talking to anyone and then not following through if you do talk to anyone isn't going to work either. That's going to kill your trust. Real community trust builds through repeated genuine presence over time and becoming a recognized familiar face at the same handful of local events or groups rather than trying to be everywhere at once. I've also seen this on a toxic Way as well with other small business owners, and I'm not a fan of it. Please, if you like the number of people, I don't want to offend anyone here because I don't think anyone listening to this podcast is in this boat. But the number of people, not at my church that I attend, but other churches I have been to in the past. There are people who literally only go there to gladhand everybody and to be seen there, and they are nowhere near Christian at all. And they do it for the business. And please don't be that person if you go to church. Please like have real faith. Sorry, that just I I what I'm saying is I get it if you're like, I was raised Christian and I don't want to come back to any church right now because you probably saw a lot of that in your own church or your own parish. and it is super common and it's really sad. And I don't want anyone thinking, well, if I join a church, then I'm suddenly going to get all this business either. Like you can't use you can integrate your spirituality and your faith with your business, but using your spirituality and faith to gain more business is bad news bears in my opinion. It also when you are dealing with local involvement, sorry, I go I'm I don't know what's going on anymore, but these episodes I'm just gonna go on tangents. Local involvement also becomes like Really good, genuine content and story bank material, like a talk you may have given at the local library or the community center, a local event that you sponsored, a relationship that you built with another small business owner. That kind of content tends to feel especially authentic because it is and it reflects a real lived community presence rather than just pure online personas. Especially I feel like with the advent of AI and AI bots on social media. Ooh. It's hard for them to fake that they were at charity events or whatever volunteering. Like AI is not visible. So can't be like, just went to this charity event. Anyway, we're near the end of the episode, so the quick recap, let's build in real. in-person community presence through your networking groups, your events sponsors sponsorship or participation, local speaking opportunities, genuine support of other local businesses, and just be consistent. Keep coming back. Don't just do a single one off and be like, well, I didn't get any business. Just because everyone can sniff on you, you don't give two rips about them and you're desperate for business. No one's gonna trust you. Let this genuine local involvement feed naturally back into your content, your story bake, and your business. Okay? Now, before I close out, quick thing, but Rachel, what if I live in the middle of nowhere? I have been in your shoes and it's difficult. So if you can, man, it was tough. I joined a wedding association. The meetings were once a month, and it was like an hour drive each way just for me to get to a two-hour meeting. and I did form some really good relationships with other small business owners from joining that membership program. But if you are highly, highly rural area. It's it might be difficult for you to start your own sort of group and you might have to consider if you really want to do some sort of local involvement expanding what local is to like 30 minutes to an hour drive away. It just d I d I don't know where you are in the US, but That was the closest organization that I could find that had like-minded entrepreneurs and in the similar niche that I was offering for my travel agency. All right, that was day two seventy-nine. Tomorrow I'm going expand on the generosity aspect, giving more than you take. You should always, as a service-based business owner, as a steward of your business, give more than you take. Today was day 279 of the Travel Agency New Year Podcast. Have a wonderful day.