Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 256: Choose One Travel Agency Priority for the Next Quarter
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome to the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel K, Travel Agency Owner Helping Travel Advisors. Go to Ellevate with Rachel K dot com if you care. Today is day two hundred and fifty-six. Choosing the one priority for next quarter. Yeah, you've looked at the numbers, you've looked at the lessons, the wins, your pace, and who you've become, and if you have no clue what I'm talking about, go back to day two forty-seven and just start. Day two forty-seven, this is the CEO quarterly review. Okay? Now we're gonna look forward. And we narrow it down to one single priority for the quarter ahead for you. It's very tempting coming out of a thorough review to walk away the long to-do list of everything you want to fix or improve for next quarter. Even in the success circle, I try to limit it to like three priorities for each department, whatever, like marketing, operations, finances. But you should have one big priority. A long list of priorities, functions, and practice. Everything's competing for the same limited time and attention. Okay. And then you get sucked into shiny object syndrome because you're like, I'm overwhelmed, better buy all this stuff to help me, and then nothing gets done. There's a real cost to splitting your attention across all the priorities, and this is why you need to number your priorities at once. That goes beyond simple time management. it into task switching. A single sustained priority avoids that cost entirely. And we can reframe this like in past episodes we talked about the different seasons for like growing. There's planting, growing, harvesting, and recovery seasons in the farming land. So if you know you're going to be going into a growing season, you're still going to need to do your marketing, but that's not going to be your top priority, right? Building is like a lot of marketing. You can pull back a little bit on your marketing. You still need to be consistent, but you don't need to worry so much about that during the growing season. You need to worry that you are closing all the leads coming in and serving them well so that they produce a good harvest. Alright, anyway, you do need to be marketing constant constantly. I'm just saying like you don't need to come up with a new strategy every quarter for your marketing if you're in the growing season or the harvest seas harvesting season. It might be something to consider during recovery time, but that's fine. Alright, look back across everything. This quarterly review process has surfaced, which I know it's not October 1st yet. I like to do things a few weeks early. Are you persisting or pivoting with decisions? Are you sunk cost fallacy, gal pal of mine? Because that's where I'm at. Can you do the Z at delegation aud ugh the delegation audit? Can you work on your Zone of Genius? I'm sorry. I'm batching all these episodes, so I'm still stuck in the references I've made in prior day episodes. I'm referencing Anna Ferris's character from Just Friends, where she's like this weird pop star. That's what I think of when I think of Zone of Genius. And I don't know why. your personal growth reflection, all that, look at all that. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just listen to these episodes. They're actually fairly short in this series. I tried to keep them. Some of them are like 20 minutes, but most of them I'm finding are like 10 to 12 minutes. if I could only meaningfully move one thing forward this next quarter, based on whether or not it's building. sorry planting growing harvesting a recovery season which one would create the most real impact on the business and for me not the most urgent feeling thing not the one where people are like hurry up there's only two spots left you better invest in this thing that's an urgent feeling that's the FOMO you're being sold to it's okay calm down That might not be your top priority because that's not you speaking. That's not your business speaking. That's someone marketing to you. for each candidate priority, ask: if I make real progress on this, does it make several other things in this business in my life easier, or does it just solve one isolated problem? Priority that makes other things easier, finally building the delegation system, which frees up capacity for everything else tends to be a stronger choice than a priority that's valuable but still narrowly contained. That sounded like I was reading the news. Tonight at eleven. It's okay, everybody. Just stick with me. Say your quarterly review surfaced launching a new content batching system or rhythm, hiring your first contracted helper, revisiting your fees and pricing structure, or going deeper on your new niche. All four are legitimate, but the multiply and effect question. hiring your first contractor, if it were to go well, likely frees up time that could support the content rhythm, the time for you to study deeper in your niche, and even a more thoughtful pricing review. The other three are valuable on their own, but mostly isolated to the specific their specific area. Okay This doesn't mean that nothing else happens next quarter, it's just your priority. It's your biggest thing. If you get it done and you're good, the other things that you want to work on, add it in. But don't worry about all the other things right away, okay? So a priority is far more likely to actually happen if it has some form of external accountability attached. Like, you know, if you're in the success circle and you tell us about it, I'm gonna ask you, are you doing it? I'm gonna follow up and be like, Did you do this? or a mentor that you check in with. Which I also offer one-on-one mentoring. I'm not trying to sell my services, but what a weird coincidence. What a strange strange happenings are afoot. Sorry. Even just like a calendar reminder on your phone if you're like, no, I hate you. I just listened to this on my commute to my job that I also hate. Put it on your calendar as a reminder then. I don't care. Write it somewhere. Post a note. If you have a planner, dry erase board, anything so it stays. Honest filter for the decisions that you're making. What is the priority for the quarter? Okay. So you don't make any other decisions that are not aligned with that priority. Do it. Get your one priority, narrow it down. You can have the others on the back burner if you're like, I did it in like a week. Then throw the other ones on. Take your next most important priority and add it. Choose the one that has the biggest multiplier effect over one that's like valuable but super isolated. Write it somewhere you can see it. Have an accountability buddy. Something like that. Look at it during your monthly reviews. Make sure it's actually getting your attention, not just the intention. The attention. Okay? That was day two fifty-six of the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. Have a wonderful day. You got plenty of time to catch up, clearly, if you miss the other episodes.