Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 221: Shiny Object Syndrome isn't just falling for the latest travel CRM
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome to the Travel Agency in the Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel K, travel agency owner helping travel advisors like you step into the CEO you are meant to be in your travel agency. Guys, 221 days. We are on day 221, and I still don't have a good like welcome to the show. It's fine. There's something there. I'm working on it. Maybe after a thousand episodes, I'll figure it out. if you don't know who I am, head on over to elevate with rachelk.com to see how I can help you. We offer courses, one-on-one coaching, and custom mentoring for your travel agency. All right, day two twenty-one. We're gonna talk a little bit more about shiny object syndrome and is this actually a good idea? So this coincides, I believe. Let me check. If you are a member of the success circle, this podcast kind of gosh, I don't even have the tab open. Skip. This is like week 32, week 33 of the success circle. If you don't know what the success circle is, it is a 12 month program with lessons dripped out every seven days, so you aren't overwhelmed. I it sounds overwhelming. I know. But it's like a twelve week program to really understand how to work on your business rather than in your business. And if you've ever had a genuinely exciting new idea for your agency, even at like 11:45 at night, and you're just like, nom, nom, nom, I'm almost ready for sleep, and then you're like, genius idea, and you felt it was absolutely certain it was the thing that was gonna save your travel business, and then felt a little less sure about it by the following week, this episode's gonna be for you. So Shiny Object Syndrome isn't just about having ideas. Having ideas is a great strength and not a flaw. And it's not just about being marketed to and bombarded and everyone being like, this is the latest and greatest thing. That is part of it, but we're gonna go into a different part of Shiny Object Str Syndrome. It's the pattern of chasing a new niche, a new offer, or a new brand direction every time something exciting crosses your radar before the last idea had a real chance to work. And this is why I'm always like test things for several months to see if you actually want to do it. Because a lot of the times, and we'll get into this further in this episode. You're gonna be like, well, this idea isn't working because we're so used to short-term gratification, thank you, social media, that you're like, and DoorDash and drive-throughs and this very convenient lifestyles we live. You think it should be instant, and it's not. It takes several weeks, if not a few months, to start to see the fruits of your labor. This is why sometimes I refer to gardening, because you can plant a seed in March, but you're not gonna get the fruits until July or August. Hmm. It takes some time. Anyway, the result over time, when you're chasing the shiny object syndrome, is a business that never really builds any real depth in anything because the attention keeps moving before momentum has had that chance to build. So back to the garden metaphor? Is that it? Is it a simile or a metaphor? We're gonna say it's a metaphor. You plant the seeds and you see the seedlings pop up and you haven't seen the true leaves come up yet. If you know anything about gardening, you gotta have true leaves, especially leaves, especially if you're starting plants indoors before you move them out to the garden. to start like it's a it's a thing. It's a thing, go look it up. Anyway. But you see the true leaves, but you're like, it's been four weeks and there's still no flowers representing the fruits coming in. So then you turn around and plant some other seeds and just let those seeds die and not even get them the opportunity to grow because you were just scrolling on socials probably, or maybe a neighbor told you, well, this is what I plant, and you're just like, well, I sh I better try that instead. Before you say yes to a new niche, a new offer, or branding shift, run it through a few honest questions. Question number one: like, because trust me, I am in your shoes too. I'm always like, this could be the greatest new thing. This could be the next new thing. And it's really hard to narrow down exactly what you're gonna do and stick to it. So ask yourself these questions. Does this build this new thing? Build on what I already know, or does it start me from zero? A new offer that draws on your experience or relationships that you already have is totally different and a completely different bet than one that requires you to become a beginner again in a completely unrelated area. Let me s okay, so I, as an example, I'm moving away from doing weddings so much and pivoting towards different types of groups. And I know that there has to be a Pied Piper, so I already know how to do group management, right? and it doesn't necessarily start me from zero completely because I still have all those relationships I've built with different resort brands and I can just market it in a different way. Okay. I'm not a complete beginner. I could go to, I don't know, like a real estate company and pitch the idea of an incentive of a corporate incentive retreat or an incentive trip for their top sales team. and still close it because I have all of that training. If I wanted to go to something completely different. Like custom FITs to Australia, I don't know crap about that and what's gonna happen. And I may be turned on by it, by the idea of it, because I'm seeing it's a trend in travel. And if there's a scarcity mindset and you see a trend in travel, you might lean towards that 'cause you're like, this will be easy money. It's not gonna be easy money ever, A. And B. I would instantly shut that idea down when it crosses my mind because I don't know anything about Australia. I don't know anything about custom trips to Australia, and that would put me back into having to do all of this extra training when it's like, why don't I just stick with what I already know? You know? Alright, is there real evidence of demand, or is it just my own excitement? Excitement is fine for a starting point, but it isn't true market research. Have people actually asked you, like your own leads, have they actually asked you for this type of travel or type of offer, mentioned wanting it or shown some real signal? Or is this just like a hunch? And again, so I remember a couple of years ago. safaris were like the thing everyone needs to learn and do trainings on for like a year straight. And so many agencies were like, I'm gonna learn about this. And some were like, I'm gonna go all in on it. And it's like, but wait. I did in my and during that time I had one honeymoon client request a safari. Their budget from the Midwest US was five thousand dollars for a thirteen day safari in flights. And I was like, You're dreaming. Everyone's dreaming because there's giraffes on social media popping into houses having breakfast with you. And so for me Yeah, there was a demand, but not from my client base and not from it wasn't realistic for people that were coming to me. and it was sad because I'd have to tell them like, You need three times as much money. And then they wanted to do things on a time frame that was like five months from now and it's like, no. So I could have spent all my time going all in on it. But it was more of a hunch, and I was like, I suspect this is more of a trend right now. Not that safari, like you can be listening to this and that's all you book. Like there are agencies that make a very good living, like the agency owners, only booking safaris. But that's what they've stuck with for years. Decades. Okay? And they had to build up that book of business. All right. Question number three. I don't know how to make number signs if you're watching this on YouTube. And yes, my office chair is still squeaking. I don't care. Can I commit to this for a real trial period? Not just for a few weeks. And I see this a lot with advisors who are struggling to get any bookings. They only commit for like two or three weeks. You've got to commit long term. But new offers, like we're gonna be talking about in the next few days on the podcast, they need a genuine runway before you can judge them fairly. And I rant and rave about this all the time. If your honest answer is I'd probably lose interest before that runway is. Even up, that's worth noticing now because that probably isn't something you should be leaning into. Alright, question number four. I'm a little congested today. What would I be pulling attention away from? Ooh. Ooh, every yes to something new is implicitly a no to giving full attention to what you're already building. So sometimes the trade-off is worth it. Sometimes it's how a business ends up with five half-finished directions instead of one strong one. It can also be a way for you to realize that your business isn't even what you want to do. So, as an example, yes, I have a travel agency, and yes, I focused on weddings. And a little story about me, in case you don't know. I started getting years ago, probably like twenty-one or twenty, twenty-two, just agents DMing me for help. And eventually somebody referred me to another agent who then became my partner at the former TA Toolbox. And I was, I was like, I'll guinea pig you for this course. I'd already guinea pigged one of my agents for this particular training because they wanted to niche down into wedding planning. And I was like, girl, I got you. So I spent a lot of time with her, and then this other agent, Janet, she's my former partner at TA Toolbox. I was like, Do you want to be the guinea pig for my course? And she provided me a lot of great feedback and it was originally called From Sign to I Do. but it was like the wedding process, and I was like, you know, attrition and da da da. And she's I don't even know how to do group travel. Why are you d and I was like, So then we kind of built how the courses should work for people. But I was also pulling attention away from my travel agency. I did have several agents under me. and I was still booking travel, but there was, I had to say no to 30 weddings a year and cap myself at 12 so that I could focus on this. And now I'm in a point, just so you know, I've had to revamp the travel agency because I want to I still love doing travel and groups and I've had to figure out how to do it a different way and I still love seeing travel agents that I help like message me and say, hey I'm I'm zeroing in on six figures and it just took a year of doing what you told me to do. It's mind-blowing. So I have to say no to some things and yes to some other things all the time, and you will too. So if you're doing really, really well with something, it's like you can do it in your sleep, you know it brings in good money. the profit margins are there for your travel agency to do whatever that niche is. And it's all fine and dandy and running smoothly, and you might just be a little bit bored and someone's like, Well, why don't you do this super complicated type of travel? And you're like, Ooh, I could a maybe I could add it as my services. I could commit to it because this over here is easy. And also eventually you're gonna have to say no to what is working just fine right now. in terms of scaling to bring in this new offer. So that's something else you need to focus on as well. And consider, ask yourself that question. So what I was saying is with both the travel agency and Elevate with Rachel K, is it's really, really hard to focus on both. And at some point I'm going to have to make a choice Of fully stepping out of one or the other, if that makes sense. Like I'm hoping my travel agency will be to a point where I can fully step out and focus more on elevate and not have to sell my travel agency or dissolve it. Cause I like travel, I don't know. Anyway. I'm not trying to talk you out of any new ideas. It's great to have ideas. It means your brain is working and you are a creative person. And genuine growth does require trying something new, even if you don't know how to do it. But the goal here is simply separating the ideas worth real investment from the ones that are just exciting, mostly because they're new, they're unfamiliar, not because they're actually a better use of your time or what's already working. Or from what's already working. So if an idea survives that filter. Because just like you, I get these ideas all the time. I'm like, I should do this, I should do this, I should do this. It does get boring, but the boring stuff brings success. The next question, if that idea survives the filter. How are you gonna actually test it without betting your entire business on it? Which is exactly what I'm gonna be covering tomorrow. The old soft blunch. This is day 221 of the Travel Agency Year podcast. We're done. You have a wonderful day. Bye.