Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 139 - The TA’s guide to quick decision-making
Transcript
- Rachel K: Welcome back to the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. I'm your host Rachel K and thank you for joining. If you don't know anything about the Travel Agency in a Year podcast, this is 365 episodes to help travel advisors build their businesses, become the CEO of their business, all that fun stuff. Lots of different concepts explored in each episode. I try to keep episodes under 20 minutes. I have a couple that have gone to 30 minutes. It's fine. And if you want to know more about who I am, if you're like, who's this Rachel K bitch? ⁓ go to elevate with rachelk.com. I am a travel agency owner and I also have like courses and like coaching, mentoring programs for travel advisors. Cause I want us all to be successful, right? All right. Today's episode is the TA's guide to quick decision-making. I have done some episodes in recent weeks. back in the past about understanding the difference between immediate and future actions. And I'm sure I've touched on this, like you have to be able to make decisions quickly if you really want to avoid getting burnt out in your business, first of all. And secondly, if you really want to scale, scale, scale, it's important to be able to make decisions quickly. How did I learn this? Great question, Rachel. I used to be a butler before. for... I started working in travel and I worked for... shuffle my papers here. worked for a vacation estate for a billionaire. And I had had businesses in the past. And I've never really myself had too much of an issue with decision making. However, I got to tell you this story because I had to work side by side with an estate manager who I don't even know how this person got the job. It's fine. But the estate manager, I would do reports my job if I wasn't doing events and hosting people or serving when the principal was at the vacation estate. My primary job was, essentially inspecting and creating reports and budget forecasting for the four, ⁓ cabins on the property, cabins, quote unquote. These smaller ones were like 1500 square feet and the two larger ones were the four to five thousand square foot range. Cabins. These are not cabins. Homes. So I would have to regularly, since we didn't have a lot of visitors very often, especially in the winter time where this estate was located, I'd have to do things like flush the toilets, run the taps to make sure. You know, the pipes were still good. Check the plumbing underneath the sinks. Every cabin had a full kitchen. So I had to like make sure are the temps in the fridge working? Like all those little things. Check the fire extinguishers. When are they going out of date? When do they need to be re-inspected? Check the seals on the windows if they're going bad. Just all the little home maintenance type stuff. And then I would write out these reports and submit it to the estate manager. Now... When I first started, I was not given a job description. And I was just like, well, I guess I'll just go through and inspect all these homes, like the cabins, whatever. And I made a list of things. And one of the things was the oven was not temping properly. Like it was running way too cold. And the oven in the, this was in like the main principal's preferred cabin. the, the principal came, this is where he stayed. and only he and his wife stayed in this cabin. All the other guests went in other cabins. All right. So I was like, Hey dude, this oven, I have it set to 350 for like an hour and it will not warm up to 350. It's like 180 at best. And first of all, he didn't want to deal with it. The oven was the original wall oven installed in 1984, 85. So there's no way I could get replacement parts and try and figure out myself. He didn't want to spend money. It's a long story. It would take this estate manager months if not years Well, I didn't work there long enough to count it years But like months if not over a year to make a decision on something to even present it to the principal in many cases With the case of the oven unfortunately the principal decided to host some people at the vacation estate and he requested lasagna for dinner and I was like, better hope this oven works. And when I pulled it out after it was in the oven for four hours, it was like 80 degrees, temping. So it was not done. It was not even close to being ready to be served. And that was horribly embarrassing to him, because this is a billionaire who has an oven that doesn't work. What are we talking about here? OK. And he immediately was like, you go get an oven. I don't care what it costs. You send the bill to the estate manager. So what I'm saying is, now that was just like a weird story, but in general, with any decisions, if I reported anything, the estate manager would pour over and like mull over and was like, I don't know who to contact for estimates. And eventually I was just like, I'm just gonna go get estimates. Then when the principal would, He came down about once a quarter to check on things because this was his property. This was like an asset kind of. It was more of a liability really, but it should have been an asset. Check on everything. And then we would have a meeting after lunch typically in the dining room. we would present everything to him, the estate manager would always come to me and be like, I don't know how to present this. I'm like, just give him the numbers, give him the information. If he asks questions, you better have answers. He'd review two or three estimates. He'd glance at the numbers, the features or benefits of whatever it was, if it was like upgrading the internet or whatever, like so many different things. It'd take him like five minutes and it would take the estate manager months. to even be like, should I bring this up to him? Fast decision making gets results. The estate manager didn't even have a way to retire. He was like rollercoastering in this position and he was like, I gotta hope my wife saves enough money up for retirement. The principal we worked for could have retired four decades prior and he just really, it was a labor of love. So he never really fully retired. He didn't understand that concept. He could make quick decisions. There's so many more stories about him in my experience that I've heard through other people that worked for him that were just like quick decisions and not only did it help him but it changed their lives as well. Alright, I know I say this so many times make decisions quickly go go go go go count to five if it's not a yes it's a no kind of thing and I know that's hard for people to practice and develop because you were presented with so much information. ⁓ In general, most successful people are fine with not making perfect decisions. So please get that in your mind. This doesn't have to be perfect. This doesn't have to be guaranteed perfectly perfect. ⁓ Stupid gnats. You have to make a decision accepting that failure is probably a possibility. You can always ⁓ correct your course and also know it could just be a big blunder. Many successful people, including the man that I worked with, dealt with numerous failures. You have to be able to dust yourself off, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again. Be okay with it. Keep going down the path. Okay? So, I want to share with you, I cannot remember what article I found this from. It may have been Forbes or something. But these are like tips from very, very successful entrepreneurs on how they make decisions. And then I've got a couple little bonuses down towards the end of this. Yeah. Okay. Towards the end of this episode. So number one, and you might not like these people. We don't have to like these people. You don't have to agree with their personal values. Just consider their process. So number one, Jeff Bezos has the 10, 10, 10 rule. How are you going to feel about this decision in 10 minutes? 10 months? or 10 years. So if it's like ⁓ you have to be stern in an email reply or if it's ⁓ like updating your CRM. Like, are you even gonna remember what CRM you were using 10 years ago? Okay, it's not so urgent, it's not, I gotta sit and think about this kind of thing. And it's also, if it is something where you have to write a stern reply and then like reinforce your boundaries, you're not gonna remember the name of that client in 10 years. So why are you sitting here worrying about how I should write it? Trust me, I was in that boat. There were many times before I really understood how important it was to have strict boundaries where it would take me like two hours to reply to an email if there was like any kind of mild conflicts. It was so sad and I'd be like, I'm so scared to hit send. And then once I realized I'm not even going to remember that person in 10 years, what does this matter? Okay, number two is from Richard Branson for all you Virgin Voyages peoples. Trust your gut. It's your first reaction is often the correct one. Okay. And you have to do it with fear. No excuses. So you got to trust your gut. I'm going to go into this niche and there's going to like, here's perfect example. I still don't know how this is going to turn out. I used to do a but ton of destination weddings. That was my niche. And I wasn't as scared of that because I knew that that was gonna have a good ROI and I knew that was gonna bring in revenue, right? It's a popular niche for a reason. This year I am transitioning completely in my niche to something that is not super popular and I have no definitive... research to back up that this decision is going to be like a good one. But it's my gut reaction. This is what I feel called to do and I am very, scared of how this could affect my business because it will be a huge revenue dip in my travel agency and I have to just go with it. I have to be like, okay, it's fine. ⁓ I could never make the kind of money that I was making doing destination weddings ever again, and that's okay. But that was one of my personal fears, was like financial insecurity. And I can't use that as an excuse. Well, I might as well take this wedding on because I can at least guarantee the money. You know what I mean? Or I know how much I'm gonna make from this. Okay, Arianna Huffington, she always asks before making a decision, is this aligned with my values? Is this aligned with my values? Which I've talked about this in a few episodes, like make sure everything's aligned with your personal values. That's a huge way to prevent burnout or resentment. That's all I got on that one. I just wrote down like their questions and I'm like, okay, well expand on this. Mark Cuban, this is another one of my favorites, like make the decisions quickly. ⁓ If you can make the decision in less than two minutes, then just decide to do it immediately. So combine that with Richard Branson and a common theme I see. with travel advisors is tech is typically like technology upgrades and they might sit on things for a while. They might jump into it. but I'd see many of them are like, well, I'm going to wait back and see what someone else says. That's totally fine. If that's your decision, like make it in two minutes and then don't think about it ever again. Like, why are you wasting your time and energy? Like, well, what about this? What about that? Okay. Sheryl Sandberg, I'm a 60 percenter, she says 70 percent. If you have 70 percent of the information and you're 70 percent sure it could work out, then do it. Just go do it. 100 percent certainty is just you waiting around to miss the boat. So let's take like you want to switch niches example. You understand how the niche is going to work. You understand how you want to have it set up. You understand how it can feasibly work for you with how you want it and the reality of that niche. You may not have all the education on every single destination in the niche or everything like you may not have all that info, but if you just sit around and be like, well, if I do all this extensive training, then you miss the boat and someone else is going to jump in and do it without all the knowledge. but with the fortitude and grit to implement and take action. And then they're going to be the ones that are like the go-to in that niche. Whereas you had the idea first and like, don't get mad at them. that's like, if you're like, I had the idea first, you can't get mad at them for them taking that advantage of that opportunity. Like you just have to accept like, yep, I need to take more risks. Okay. Bonus, you can reverse all of your decisions. Guess what? You're in charge of the show. If you don't like it, you can change it back. It's fine. If feedback, if client feedback is like, sucks, okay, you can change it. Not a big deal. All right? Calm down about that. ⁓ If you focus on higher impact decisions instead of low impact decisions on your business, you will reduce decision fatigue. your products slash what you offer to sell. Like I wrote down your products. I'm like the McDonald's CEO. This is a delicious product. Like everything you sell is a product, okay? But your products, because I don't know what you niche in, I'm just gonna refer to them as products. Your clients, your overall service aligned with your values. Those are the high impact decisions. Technology, templates, copy on your website, logos, those are lower impact that leads you to all this decision fatigue. And I wonder sometimes now that I'm thinking about it. Like what if that's like pressure put like I'm a conspirator by the way. What if that's like pressure being put on people to stagnate their growth to like focus on these things that I mean copy does need to be tweaked but it's not like a high impact long term decision. It will always need to evolve but you don't you can't sit there mole over it. You just kind of do it. But anyway. You can focus on those things after you have your high impact items sorted out. So don't worry about the name of your business and your logo if you don't even know what you're offering, who you want to serve, and how you're going to do it. Those are the high impact. Nobody cares if your logo is pretty and on trend if you don't know what you're offering because they're not going to get the message. either, right? And don't think that that is gonna help your, I mean, I've had some really sucky logos, nobody cares. Like, it's nice to have a nice website, it's nice to look professional, don't get me wrong. And also, it's not nearly as important if you don't know what you're even doing. You know what I mean? Like, it's just a webpage. It's not you. Once a decision is made, you do not need to collect more information. or data, you're done. So like, I made a decision on the CRM I want to use, people come to me, well have you heard this new one? It's so much better, da-da-da-da-da. And I was like, I already made my decision. Until I get mad at it and frustrated with it, I don't need to make this decision again. I don't need this information. You know what I mean? My website is, it's fine, it's fine. Well, you should look into this and this and this. I already made my decision. I'm not gonna look at anything until I get frustrated with it and feel that I get enough feedback from my clients that my CRM or my website is a problem. If no one's complaining about it, I don't care about changing it or learning about any new products. Please, once you make that decision, don't fall in that trap because it ends up, again, going back to decision fatigue. It's more low impact stuff. And I also think it's a conspiracy theory to keep people smaller from the competition because like very, very high producing agencies don't update their technology every six months. They have a system that works for them. Okay. Okay, also know your decisions are reversible as discussed and treat it as a permanent decision once you make that decision to help prevent the optimization trap that we've discussed. So notice I'm willing to change my website or change my CRM. if it makes sense to do so based on my client feedback and if it's still working for me and aligned with my values and my business model. I am treating it as like this is it until I get to that point. This is the commitment I've made. Again, if you missed the episode on the optimization trap, it is all about how people get stuck in like constantly optimizing their tech or their, I don't know, their feed, their logos, like things, like I said, low impact things that doesn't really move the needle in your business and isn't going to help you make any money. And oftentimes I see advisors spending way too much money and I don't like it. Stop it. I mean, don't stop it, but just like people marketing to you need to stop it. You don't need to roll out new technology all the time. Calm down. Okay, that is day 139. Fight me in the comments if you're like, yes, I love to constantly upgrade everything all the time and I make no money. Okay, good. Good for you. Anyway, have a good day. Thanks for stopping by.