Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / DAY 283 | Put Travel Client Appreciation and Giving on Your Calendar
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome back to the Travel Agency in the Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Kay, travel agency owner. Also offer mentoring services. Also, we are in the middle of, no well, the very beginning stages of the Q4 success circle. So if you'd like to sign up, you're gonna have to sign up for January 1st. But that's fine. You can also apply for one-on-one mentoring. Elevate with Rachel AK.com for more info and other links depending on where you are listening to me are available in my bio. Whew! More giving back, putting your appreciation and your giving on your calendar. Okay, so today is day 283. My goodness, 283 episodes. Cheers to everyone who's listened to every episode. I really appreciate it. If your current approach to client appreciation, though, and community giving is writing a check in December or sending the same canned Christmas card to everyone. Today is all about turning it into an actual deliberate rhythm throughout the year. And I know what you're saying. Rachel, you make us do too much. No, I don't. You don't have to do any of this. You don't have to do any of this. And also, the next time you were doing the doomy scrollies, think to yourself: could I be adding this to my calendar? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Any of these things I talk about in this podcast, the next time you do me scrollly and it's more than like 10, 15 minutes, ask yourself, could I be doing something that's gonna help my business, myself, and my community instead? Because Doomy Scrollies ain't helping ya. Do me scrollies get you to spend more money. Or not, but you know what I mean. Like Doomie Scrollies, you're sp you're wasting your time. You're spending more money, most likely, because there's a lot of marketing out there. So get back. No, I'm kidding. Not really. Alright. If you give and like All your giving is crushed into like something at the beginning of the school year for PTA or booster clubs and then the holiday time and like I don't know client appreciation month. Just like one or t once or twice a year. And if it's gonna be reactive, it's gonna be a little more generic, it's gonna be disconnected from the actual moments throughout the year when appreciation or support would have meant the most. So this goes back to the personal touch episode, day two hundred and thirty-three. There are so many freaking episodes. I need like an AI chatbot tied to my podcast so you guys could be like this topic, and it would be like mentioned in these episodes. sorry. I because back in the day Like up to about a hundred and eighty days I could pretty well remember roughly where the episodes were. And now I'm like I have no freaking clue. I've no freaking clue where you're gonna find that. if you are in the Success Circle Q4 group, this podcast every single week it'll be like these are the episodes for this week. And I the OG Success Circle Sec blah blah blah success circlers. I feel like that's a weird name. The success circle jerk. What is gonna be our name? The OGs. I am adding it to your program as well. So you can reference them. And that was a suggestion from an amazing travel advisor. And I was like, that's what I wanted to do. And thank you for telling me that I need to do it. Anyway. Why did I go on that? day 233. Specificity. We talked about that extensively in a few episodes back, probably somewhere in the 230s. Timing matters. A single once-a-year check doesn't allow for either. It's like canned. You know what mean? So building it into your entire existing calendar system. Days 265 and 266, we talked about campaign promotion calendar work. Doing your marketing strategy for the entire year and then quarterly campaigns, and then you can revisit and revise as needed. But if you have a general plan, and I'll tie this real quick to like a fitness program. If you have a general plan on how you want to go, you can tweak it a little bit, but you're like, okay, I should be able to get here in the next 12 weeks, and then 12 weeks from then. And you're just doing working in little 12 week segments, which is freaking convenient. Because if you aren't doing that, you're like, the entire year. You get overwhelmed and you're like, that's impossible. And then you doom scroll and probably go buy some templates or something. And then you're like, this isn't even my branding. anyway, so creating this calendar and just Focusing on one thing about every month or twelve weeks in general. Like you're building out a personal training program, a fitness program. Let's compare the two. Because that was like probably not the first step for me in entrepreneurship self-employment land, but it was an early step for me. And I learned a lot on my own journey there. how much f everything like discipline in general is tied to fitness. So anyway, you develop this program and you might go a year out and be like, okay, in one year I'll be able to do 10 pull-ups and then you work backwards. And so you're like, okay, in twelve weeks, I have to be able to hang for 30 seconds on the bar, right? And there's like progressive steps over time. And if you can't hang for 30 seconds or 60 seconds from the pull-up bar itself, then it's like, okay, so first the first 12 weeks I gotta do this workout program. And that's why you hire a personal trainer because you're like, I don't freaking know what I'm doing. That's why I mentor travel advisors, because you're all like, how do I do this? Anyway. So you map out across the full year where your client appreciation touch points and your giving commitments actually belong. Like quarterly past client check-ins, trip anniversary messages that aren't the canned automated emails, nonprofit volunteer days once a month, or donation amounts or once a quarter. And it's tied to a specific quarter rather than only at the end of the year because you're like, I need some write-offs quick or something. A recurring line item in your quarterly review. We talked about back on day two forty-seven, checking whether appreciation and giving happened the way you intended. I don't have that on the quarterly review in the success circle because it's your business your way, but you can add it. So how do you build the structure to work from for this? Well, first of all, you gotta make sure you have a good nonprofit you want to support. But you can block this into a very light quarterly ribb rhythm. One quarter with a focus on past client appreciation touch points, one with community or nonprofit commitments, one with team or collaboration appreciation, like inviting your clients to come to this event you're volunteering for. Or like there's so many like 5k, 10k. type fitness things that you could be doing and just reach out to your clients and be like, hey, I'm doing this for this non for this nonprofit. There's one, I can't remember the name of it, but they have signs around my neighborhood last fall. And you just run a 5K and you just ask for people to pledge, you know, five or ten cents per mile, whatever. And you run your 5K, you complete it. and that money goes to children who need shoes. So you could do something like that and put it in your newsletter. I've signed up for this. It's gonna be this quarter, whatever the heck day that is. And if you would like to sign up to pledge so much per mile, you can do so here. And just have that in your thing, in your email, in your thing, in your email newsletter, every single time you send out a newsletter that quarter until that event goes over. And then once that event's over, then you would put in there, thank you so much to all the clients who helped pledge. Because of your donation, I was able to raise X amount of dollars for this nonprofit marathon, half marathon, 5K, whatever. So you could do that like that too. So that's a what I I'm explaining all this because that's a collaborator appreciation if you do not have a team. If you collaborate and network and promote it, cross-promote any nonprofit things that you're doing with another small business owner who may be a member of the same nonprofit, then you can mention that in your content and your newsletters as well. But you can just put it on your calendar as well. So we're going to talk about this for the next few episodes and one wrapping the year with both review and whatever larger intentional gesture feels right for you in that season of your life. But if you set it up this way, where you just have like this this quarter, this this quarter, this this quarter, this this quarter, and like divvy it up between client appreciation, collaboration, and supporting your nonprofit that you wish to support, once you get there, remember, full cup first. This is gonna give you like meaningful giving across the entire year, which is gonna help you with your well-be-being, rather than compressing it all at the end of the year with a generic effort. to like feel like you feel good for giving back. Like, okay, I'll give you an example. A big thing in that I've noticed in the travel industry at least A big marketing thing. And if you're brand new to the travel industry, guess what, chicken butt? Someone's gonna ask you $50 to $100 to be like, get my exact frameworks for the social media content grid. And it's like thankful, like being thankful in November. And it's not just in the travel industry, it's in many different industries, like what I'm thankful for in November. And some people like to do daily single posts. Day one of November. I'm thankful for this. Day two and they go through every single post to be grateful and thankful. And that's like one of the few times of the year they're actually showing gratitude. And for me doing that, because I was like, okay, well everyone else is doing this, so I'll do this too. I was like, ugh, this is like so generic and canned. Like I'm so thankful for my pets. I'm so thankful for my family. I'm so thankful for my car. Like, I don't know. Like, why aren't you just doing that intermittently throughout the year? so that's what I mean by like the gratitude, the giving back thing, just being like, it's the end of the year, I gotta act like I have I'm full of gratitude and grateful. Like you can do that, don't get me wrong. Some people do that sincerely, not authentically, there's a difference, but sincerely communicate all of the gratitude that they have. during the month of November. For me, that's not me. I'd rather just randomly like I've randomly sent email newsletters when I'm like, thank you so much for all of you who just opened my emails. That's it. Bye. Anyway, and that's not even necessarily giving back, but you know what I mean. Like when you do that and you're like, I'm doing this because everyone else is doing this, and this is the trend that's gonna get me more business, and it's not sincere. And you feel the pressure to do it because then you feel guilty because if you don't do it, some other travel advisor in your town is doing it, and that makes you look so selfish. When it's like, no, if you were consistently giving back to your community and giving back to your clients and showing appreciation to your clients throughout the year, the travel advisors that are like, Day seven, I'm so thankful for my the sun today. The sun was shining so bright, and that's all they do in terms Of their giving back in gratitude and appreciation, who looks better in the long term? The person with 30 posts in one month thinking silly things? Because they run out of ideas. Because there's a lot to be grateful for, but when you feel that pressure, you're gonna be like, thanks for my meal. I don't know what to do right now. versus someone who's continuously like, hey, we've done this for this organization. We're partnering up with this organization. I'm really passionate about this. This is what we're doing. Da-da-da-da-da. Like throughout the year, because that's part of who you are. Okay, anyway, sorry. Also you don't have to give back at all. Like I said, fill your cup first. If giving involves your time, talent or treasure. Specifically your treasure, build it into your financial planning system. If you so if you're like, I'm gonna donate 10% of proceeds, you need to be able to figure out proceeds. So that is the amount of profit, essentially, that you don't need to acquire new clients and to pay yourself, and to pay all your operational expenses, and to pay your taxes and legal fees. And then 10% of what's remaining, or you do 50%, I don't care, whatever. 10% is the safe number. put that into your financial planning. Set up in your reserve accounts donating if you want to. Figure that up, figure out how much you can give, and make that your donating. Because if you have a specific planned percentage or amount that's decided in advance in every commission check that comes in, you're like, okay, this much. This percentage of the total commission goes in. Even if it's only one percent, folks. Why did I feel like Dave Ramsey when I said that? Even if it's only one percent, folks, just do it. That's my impression of him. Anyway. But if you have that decided in advance, then it's gonna be more sustainable for you. And it's gonna be more honest, like if you do like the profit first method as an example, but you set up an additional reserve and let's say you figure up ten percent of the proceeds is five percent of your total earnings. So when you get a commission check for five or for a thousand dollars, I don't know, five percent of that, that would be like fifty bucks instantly put in, and then at the end of the quarter, you take whatever's in that account and donate it to the nonprofits, church, whatever that you wanna support. And then you don't feel like that would be a really easy way if you're like I can only do small, small amounts right now. That would be a really easy way to be able to do it and not feel like you're pressured to do it because it's what you can reasonably give after your cup is full. That's an example of that. So spread your appreciation, what I'm saying, and your giving across the entire year rather than trying to compress it in the last couple months of the year because everyone else is doing that. Build it directly into your existing campaigns. And like your financial review calendar stuff, quarterly reviews. How much did I donate? Who did I donate to? Do I like add it? If you're in the success circle and you're like, Rachel, you didn't put this in here. It's because I'm not in charge of your business. Like, I'm just giving you the general, general outlines, and I teach you how you can make it your own way. Okay. Alright, and then make sure you budget for any financial planning, like financial giving, as a line item, not a leftover. Ooh, that's a good little line. All right. And I know some of you travel agents really, really, really want to give back that are in the success circle. By the way. What you're like, you'll come to me in six months, be like, finally listen to that episode. But I know some of you want to give back, so these are like solid strategies for you. and if you're like, I don't even know how to give back, I don't have the capacity to do it, that's even if you only give one cent, it's better than nothing. Even if you only give fifteen minutes of your time, even if you only have thirty minutes to help volunteers serving a dinner at a homeless shelter, that's so much more than doing nothing, right? But make sure your cup's full first. Alright, we're gonna expand on this tomorrow. Appreciating everyone who contributes to your business, not just your clients. This was day 283 of the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. Have a wonderful day.