Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 135 - Get to know your travel leads before the consultation
Transcript
- Rachel K: It's the Travel Agency New Year podcast, day 135. I'm your host Rachel K., travel agency owner, and I help all of you people who listen. I do thank you for tuning in, I guess, is the, God, I'm old. I thank you for listening. Always appreciate the listens. Today's episode is getting to know your consult leads before the call and we're gonna talk about how it's a little weird but it's helpful information. Not stalking. Don't be creepy. You should have an email and a phone number and at least some sort of a name. At least that on the initial consultation form, right? ⁓ But I'm not talking about full on stocking. Just like type in the area code. Like if you don't do local and you do a lot of social stuff, type in the area code to see where they're from. They may not live in that area now, but they have at some point when they got that phone. You know, you know. So you can be like, they're from the meth capital of the United States. That's where I'm from. That's where my phone area goes wrong. ⁓ questionable no But you could have an idea, like, ⁓ they're from a really rural part of the country, or they're from a metro, major metro area. And, like, for me, having that area code, if I saw, like, 972, I instantly knew it was, like, Plano, ⁓ Richardson, part of Dallas, DFW area. It's like, ⁓ yeah. Okay, so, they're probably, and I... was doing a lot of wedding consultations. So I'm like, okay, so majority of their guests are probably gonna be flying out of DFW. Good chance because they're family. Because I had brides, usually the bride would schedule, almost always the bride would schedule the consultation with me. So I'd be like, okay, brides family, 99 % sure they're all gonna be flying out of DFW or somewhere nearby, Oklahoma City, maybe down in Houston, something like that. And so that would give me kind of an idea about that person and if I got weirdo area codes I'd be like, ⁓ they're in BFE. No one in this group has ever traveled probably Like kind of give you an idea of how much hand-holding they're going to need and how aligned they are with your ICA Because your ICA you should have an idea of where they live Right. So if you see the area code and it pops up a major metro area if you search it You don't have to search their name or anything. But just having their area code and knowing where it's coming from, you have a pretty good idea of if their like deep, deep core values might be and like kind of a family background-ish. Like are they southern? Are they midwestern? Are they northern? Are they west coast, east coast, mountain? And also, are they metro or rural when they got this cell phone number? Because there's a high chance everyone, well not me because I'm older, but everyone ⁓ under a certain age when they get their cell phone, they just carry that number with them forever. ⁓ But that's like, if they're, I'm trying to think of the right age right now. I would say maybe 35 max. I don't know about anyone over 35. ⁓ that area code is probably tied to their childhood. Sneaky, sneaky. So you can get a lot of demographic information. And I know a lot of people who are older than that and their area code is tied to their hometown childhood where they grew up. But that's not necessarily always the case, but it can often be. All right. You're probably, I mean you could type in their name if you wanted to and do a Google search. Or you could do like a Facebook profile search. But if your clients lean younger, they probably won't have a Facebook profile. And if they do, they haven't touched it since they were in middle school or high school. So I don't know. You probably won't find a whole lot of public information. And if you do, there's so many people with similar names. You're just gonna be like, have no idea who this person is. It's not gonna help me. Then if you really wanted to, you could match it with the area code, but then even then, it might not be the right person, right? You might be able to get an idea of what their career is by searching their name and then the city of the area code. If it just happens to show up that this person still lives in that area and their LinkedIn just immediately pops up. UMMMM You can also possibly gauge if they are even like adults. I have had consultations for destination weddings, like just turned 18, barely 18. That is not my ideal client at all. And also I'm like, you're a baby, why are you getting married and traveling internationally at the same time? No. If you get them from social media, it's a lot easier to get information, like DMs instead of just scheduling a call right away, because you can just click on their profile and then be like, ⁓ okay, well, I have an idea of this background. and you can compare the basic demographic information with your ICA. Be like, does that at least line up? Because if that at least lines up, you're doing something right with your marketing, right? Which by the way, I talked about this a little bit in yesterday's episode, but marketing doesn't necessarily have to be scheduling posts all the time. It can just be highly engaging in online communities. Okay. With having this information, if you can find anything or if it's on their social media profile and it's just like open to the public what they do for a living, if you can find that information, it is super helpful to understand A, like with their area code, you can get an idea of like where they grew up probably. ⁓ B, ⁓ excuse me, if you have any knowledge on kind of what they do for a living. You can align it with your ICA, but you can also understand, this person's a nurse. They work crazy hours. They're gonna need a lot of help, and they're gonna need somebody who can just like almost psychically do it for them and lead them through the process. like for me, with nurses I've had book, like they're often very overworked. They're very, very, very tired. heart, shout out to anyone in healthcare and nursing, by the way. ⁓ They often need friendly reminders of like, hey, you pay for this trip. Like, final payment's coming up. What else? They don't want to have to worry about anything because they often worry about everything at work. But like anyone in healthcare is often in those shoes. A teacher, if you know the person as a teacher, you're like, ⁓ they're gonna wanna travel in the summer. You know what I mean? Like most likely they're going to want to travel in the summertime because that's when they have time off to do it, right? If they aren't like coaching sports stuff in the summer. And even if they do, they have a window of time most likely in the summer or at Christmas. And most teachers don't wanna take high season Christmas vacations because they're super expensive and they are teachers. You know what I mean? So yeah, you can gather a little bit of information based on like if you can find their social profile that's like, do this for a living. Or if you can find like a LinkedIn. And it really helps you prepare. So you're gonna know ahead of time and you're not gonna be like, by the way on the consultation, I totally stalked you. Usually what I'll say because I have over time. Working I've worked so many different jobs where I had to have like area codes for work like phone numbers and I I'm I'm Really good at remembering numbers and sequences of numbers and I tie them to names and I tie them to Cities as well like now especially with the area codes and I'll tell you story in a second about that Which I don't remember if I've told the story before or not, but I'm gonna tell it anyway again even if you've never heard it before. But I'm really, really good at area codes now to the point where I will see, oh, I think it's 305, and I'm like, who's calling me from Miami? Ignore. Like, just, it doesn't pop up on my phone like, this is from Miami. You know what I mean? Like, just, I'm like, oh, that's like Ohio, if I don't totally remember it. I'm like, that area code is like Ohio. Why is someone from Ohio calling me? And with wrapping up my destination weddings now, even though I have a strict schedule call with me, there's always a handful of guests who just are like, I want my money, it's my money and I need it now, like J.G. Wentworth style with me. And I'll be like, look down, I'm like, oh, Michigan area code? That's this wedding. And I'm like, I got meetings. I will return their call later. Sometimes I'll be a little like reinforcing my boundaries and I will find the associated email tied to that phone number on my guest list. And then I'll be like, hi, I saw that you called me. I haven't had a chance to check voicemail. Reply to this email. Email's best for communication. Anyway, so now the story, because I have all these notes, but the story about my weird number memory. So I used to work at this brewery and they had this thing called Mug Clubbers and you paid, I don't know, this is so long ago. So in today's dollars, I'd imagine it would be like 200 or 250 bucks a year to be a Mug Clubber. And you were assigned one specific mug and it had this special little plate on the handle of the mug that was like your special mug number. And it hung from the main bar downstairs, because this is like a two-story place. And they had to use those like shepherd's hooks to get them down. The bartenders would when you came in. So they had them on the bottom as well. And I didn't remember anyone's name. I didn't remember, I didn't even know their name. I never even asked their name. But the second, I was a server, and the second someone was like, I'm a mug glubber, and they're like, I'm a mug glubber 215, and then I'd write down their order, and their entire order would be associated with the number 215, which was their face. So when I saw their face, I'm like 215, and I often did breakfast and some dinner shows, but. I'd like, oh, they want the regular breakfast special with two eggs over easy. They want sausage links. But sometimes they like patties and I could just ramble it all off. then I would remember the type of beer or if they preferred a Bloody Mary. And people loved it because they were like, I don't even have to think. And they would bring in their little groups and be like, can we get Rachel? I even had one of the owners, there was like 15 owners for this brewery, it was ridiculous, that I served on New Year's Eve. And he was a mug clubber because he's one of the owners, right? And it was like him and his wife and another couple. And he was like, I hear you remember everyone's order. And I was like, only if you're a mug clubber. I didn't know he was one of the owners. And he was like, well I am and here's my number. And I was like, okay. And then he's like, I'm gonna have, was a, still, gosh this was, like 15 years ago and he had the pork tenderloin and had like a pineapple chutney. Entree. He came in four months later and requested to sit at my table and he's like, what did I have on New Year's Eve? And I was like, well, you're mug clubber number seven and you had better. He's like, that's, this is my, what is that movie? Ray man? This is my Ray man. Okay. I hope you found some entertainment in that. So what I'm saying is, that was a total tangent. If you kind of have an idea of like their area code, what is city or state or region, whatever it's tied to and the demographics surrounding that region, that can be helpful information. If you can, they DM you on socials, you're probably going to see what they do for a living very easily. And that's going to give you an idea of like what they're going to want and need before you even have the call. Now don't go super deep and like, try to do weird background checks online. ⁓ Don't go into that stuff. Just like, you know, type in the area code, where's the area code from, gives you an idea. You could do a quick search, like they've clearly searched you, just to see if they're real, and maybe gather some information before the call. Alright, that was day 135. I've got everything out of order. Tomorrow we're going to talk about the process and communications for consultations. We're doing a lot of consultation. This may slam my notebook. Work. ⁓ over the next few days. What was this last episode about? ⁓ okay. All right, well thank you for joining. And I know this went on a weird tangent. I hope you found it at least entertaining. Yeah, have a good day, bye.