Mastering Success in the Travel Industry: Core Principles and Strategies

Unlock the secrets to a thriving travel agent business as Morris Sims unveils the five foundational principles every agent needs to succeed. From mastering the art of personal and business planning to perfecting the professional sales process, this episode promises to equip you with the essential tools to elevate your travel business. Learn how a client-focused approach can transform your sales strategy and why helping clients achieve their travel dreams is the ultimate key to your success.

Discover powerful marketing and visibility strategies tailored for the travel industry. We discuss leveraging platforms like social media, events, and email marketing to craft a robust and consistent marketing plan. Morris also dives into the importance of balancing your family and business life through effective organization. Finally, gain insights into the mindset required for a professional travel advisor, where client satisfaction and trust-building reign supreme over mere sales and commissions. Don't miss this episode packed with actionable advice and expert knowledge to help you excel in your travel career.

Chapters

• 0:00 Key Principles for Successful Travel Business
• 9:29 Effective Strategies for Successful Travel Business

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Building and growing a travel agent business requires that you know a whole lot of stuff, right? I mean, you got to know a lot of things and you've got to know it well, and you've got to be able to utilize what you know. I believe there are really only five key topics that you really have to have a lot of information, or a good bit of information about, and when you do and you know how to implement systems for each one, then you're going to find success. Those five things are personal and business planning and organization, the professional sales process, marketing and visibility, the mindset of a professional travel advisor and product or destination knowledge. That's it Five things. If you can get a handle on those five things, then you're well on your way to success. The question really only is this are you willing to put in the time and effort necessary to learn the key principles around those five things and then implement systems that you need to have to make those principles work in your business? If you're willing to learn, we got a whole lot of stuff to share with you. Welcome to the Travel Masters podcast. We're here to help travel advisors and travel agency owners get what they really want from their business.

Speaker 1: 1:30

I'm Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for our podcast. I'm an ex-chemical engineer turned life insurance agent. I've got to tell you, selling life insurance was a lot more fun for me than being an engineer. After a few years, they asked me to teach other people how to do what I was doing. And well, long story short, we wound up in New York City for 20 years. That was quite a change for a young Alabama boy. I retired after 20 years as the vice president and chief learning officer, where my team and I trained over 12,000 agents and their managers to be independent business owners and sales professionals. Now I'm not one to stop working, so I started my own business and I was blessed to find a sweet spot with travel professionals that I was able to help. Now I've got several travel agency consulting clients and I'm the co-founder of the Travel Masters Learning Community, where we provide opportunities for travel professionals to become more effective, efficient and to get what they want from their business. On this podcast, I'm going to be interviewing guests that I believe are going to have a message that can be of help to you, our travel professional community and I'll do some solo episodes as well, with some other stuff that I really think can help you and your business. So, with all that said, hey, let's get this party started with today's episode. What do you say? Welcome to the Travel Masters podcast. Thank you so much for taking your time to be with us today and to share this podcast together. My name is Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for the show. All our episodes are all about building and growing your travel business. I've been in the corporate world teaching independent contractors how to build and run their own business for a long time Well, over 40 years and there's always been an emphasis in what I do on the professional sales process and leadership, the same thing that you do each and every day in your business.

Speaker 1: 3:35

That's what you do. You provide leadership and you work within the professional sales process. Now, this podcast and our membership, the Travel Masters Learning Community well, we're all about helping you get what you want from your business. See, we believe that we can best do that by providing you with principles, practical systems, ideas, concepts and everything else you might need, all wrapped around those five topics, everything else you might need all wrapped around those five topics Business and professional planning, professional sales process, marketing and visibility and the mindset of the professional travel advisor. And that fifth topic destinations and locations and stuff products. Well, you're going to learn all that from the many, many vendors out there that you're already connected to. We'll handle the other four. Our job is to simply help you get what you want from your business, and our four topics are going to help you get there.

Speaker 1: 4:36

So, with all that being said, hey, let's get with today's episode. Episode. Today's show is kind of an overview episode, if you will. We're going to go through the topics that we mentioned earlier and share with you a few of the things that are worthy of taking a moment to drill down on. We're not going to be able to get through it all in one show, in one episode. It just isn't going to happen Way too much. But what we can do is give you a broad picture of what all of this is, how it all fits together, and maybe an idea or two about that particular topic. Then we'll drill down more and go down long, stay down much deeper later on in other episodes. But first let's get started on our four topics.

Speaker 1: 5:27

Today let's talk about the professional sales process. You see, we're all salespeople, whether we like it or not, the best salespeople I know are parents of toddlers and teenagers and I'm not just joking, it's funny, but I'm not joking, it's true. The best sale I ever made was to Carla, who's been my beautiful, wonderful spouse for over 46 years. See, we're all selling and there is absolutely nothing bad or sleazy about it if you act and you do your work professionally and sincerely. There's only one way to do that, and that's by remembering that your job is to help your prospective client get what they want from the process. It's all about your client, it's all about your prospect. It's all about the person you want to help. You want to help them get what they want.

Speaker 1: 6:25

Now, influence is a part of sales. We want to influence others to see how our products are going to solve the problem that they're experiencing and then help them take action to get it. If our product doesn't help them solve a problem, then we ought to help them find a product that does. The key is, we want to help them. This is not about us. It's about the prospect. It's about helping the client, the prospect, solve a problem. Our desire, our motive and our systems are designed to help people take action and not procrastinate. Yes or no, just let's get there. Procrastination doesn't help the buyer or the seller, it just takes up precious time. If we conduct ourselves as professionals, the process runs faster and easier for everybody involved.

Speaker 1: 7:19

See, professionals use words that matter, words that positively influence the prospect. They also avoid words and language that are not going to be a positive influence. Negative words like quote Boy. I'd ban that from the dictionary if they'd let me. It's just, oh, I hate that word. You've heard me rant about that before. I bet, so try this on for size. Rather than saying, john, I sent you three quotes for you to look at and get back to me with the one that you want and we'll talk about it. Then Compare that to language that will do better, because that original language there that's just going to generate the sound of crickets while you wait on them to make a decision to call you back. Well, another way to do that is to help the clients by maybe we say it this way.

Speaker 1: 8:14

Here are three recommendations I put together for you based on what you told me you wanted for your ideal trip, and I'm going to share a couple of the benefits of each one, and then I'm simply going to ask which one of these do you think is going to be best for you and your family? That's it. That's all. One quick question. If I show them three alternatives, all I have to do is say, john, which one do you think is going to be best for you and your family? When they choose one of those things they have chosen to buy, if you will, when they tell you that they have closed the sale and now all you have to do is wrap it up with a deposit, it's called closing with implied consent and it puts the client in charge. It puts the prospect in control, and that's where we want that control to be, because they're the only ones that can make a decision. All I can do is help them. All I can do is educate them. The prospect's going to make the decision and I can do is help them. All I can do is educate them. The prospect's going to make the decision and then I'm going to do the best I can to help them get what they want. There is so much more to the sales process and we're going to talk about it all. This is just an opening idea, and the same holds true, as I said earlier, about all the other categories. So let's move on.

Speaker 1: 9:29

Marketing and visibility is next, and that's very important to the travel agent business. People have to know that you're in business and that you're here, and you're here and the problems are out there and you're going to help them solve those problems that everybody has when they travel. You need a marketing plan that's going to take advantage of all the different marketing platforms. Those platforms are things like social media, personal observation, events where you go, set up a booth or you just attend and meet people. Email marketing probably the best marketing platform in the world that we're using right now today in business. And finally, direct mail. It may sound old, but I think you can do it without a whole lot of work and maybe the vendors will help you. Having a plan for what you're going to do with each of those platforms is critical to your business. You can't just shoot from the hip. That plan has to generate an activity calendar that tells you what you're going to do on every day that you're going to do marketing. See, marketing successfully requires consistency and persistency. One post or one series of posts is not going to make it or break it for you and your career, I promise.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Business and personal planning and organization is next, and I got to tell you, man, I've seen more people in my career lose it and not be able to create a good business because they just can't get organized. They just can't get organized, they just can't plan. They think that all they have to do is get up in the morning and go out and talk to people. And if you will shoot from the hip, that ain't going to work, you know it just ain't going to work. This particular topic includes planning for your business as well as planning how you're going to spend your time. Now, what other things do you spend your time on besides your business? Well, I can think of one big one, and that's usually my family, right? So if you're not planning for that along with everything else, then it kind of gets lost, and that's when things don't work well. So your planning has got to include being able to sit down and think about how am I going to make sure that I attend the little league baseball games for my son's baseball team, how am I going to make sure that I get to my daughter's volleyball games, each and every game when they come up See personal and business organization and using a planning system that works. That's how you do that. Those are the things you need to be able to make sure that you can get the family stuff done and the business stuff done.

Speaker 1: 12:20

A very simple principle that says plan each day of the coming week, starting with your family activities, then your most important business topics, is a concept that will help you time and time again. How do you do that? Well, you start by planning your week on Sunday afternoon, saturday afternoon, saturday whenever on the weekend you plan your week, you take a look at all the things you got to get done, including those baseball games and volleyball games or whatever. All of that stuff. You know your beautiful spouse's birthday. All that stuff goes on your calendar for the coming week and the family stuff comes first, then all of the business stuff that I've got on my list that I need to accomplish this week. All the business stuff goes on my calendar. Now, once all that's done, I've got a week that's planned and all the important stuff's on the calendar, I won't lose it Now. Each day is already planned that way at the end of the day, I don't have to sit down with a blank piece of paper and say, okay, what do I got to do tomorrow. No, all I got to do is tweak tomorrow. I've got, tomorrow, a list of things I'm going to do for Tuesday. What are the things that I need to tweak based on what happened today, on Monday?

Speaker 1: 13:38

See, we operate in this world that we live in. I think we operate in seasons. Seasons, see, if I can say that correctly Seasons. There may be a season when I've got to spend the majority of my time focused on my family. There may be a season when I've got to spend the majority of my time focused on my business, but we float between those seasons and other seasons as well. There may be a season where I've got to spend my time focused on my mom and dad. We float around between those seasons from time to time. We've got to recognize that and focus on the season that we're in.

Speaker 1: 14:22

See and it's personal opinion here, I just don't believe there's anything called work-life balance. I don't think you can balance it all. There are going to be days when you're more concerned about this and other days when you're more concerned about that, but you've got to plan to be able to make sure you use the time that you have to the best of your ability. If you don't stop and take the time to plan it and put it on a calendar, put it on a business plan, put it on a weekly plan, then you're going to lose track and you're going to lose that precious time that we've been given. We'll show you exactly how to do that later on, but there is a system and it works. I've been using it for years.

Speaker 1: 15:04

All right, the mindset of a professional travel agent. That's the fourth topic. The main concept, that's the foundation to our entire approach to business, is this particular topic. See, first and foremost, we've got to be always mindful of the fact that we're here to help our clients get what they want, whatever that might be. If they want their best vacation ever, we want to help them get there, whatever that is, whatever their destination is.

Speaker 1: 15:35

When our thinking turns to worrying about how much commission we're going to make on a sale or where that next sale is going to come from, because there's stress and anxiety in our own lives, golly gee, that hurts, because your client's going to see it in your eyes and you're going to lose that bridge over the valley of no trust. You see, we're building relationships. That's what business is all about. That's what sales is all about. We're building relationships, positive, sincere, real relationships. Those relationships are that bridge over the river or the valley of no trust, if you will, for a visual, a picture. There we're trying to get past that point of hmm, not sure I know you well enough to say I trust you to the point where they're willing to say I know Morris is a professional, he knows his stuff and I trust him to make the right recommendations for me and my family. That's all that's what we're trying to do.

Speaker 1: 16:41

So finally, the last topic was products and destinations and all those kind of things. Come on, there may be stuff out there that you need to learn about, that you don't care about. You and your family may never want to go there, but you might have a client that does. Vendors provide you with great training on all their products. Take advantage of it. Take advantage of it. Take advantage of it. It usually doesn't cost you anything and they're going to be the best people in the world to teach you about their product. There are other places, other things about travel that you can learn from folks like Travify that have wonderful systems that are going to help you communicate with your clients Now, in future podcasts and frankly, in everything that we do at Travel Masters and in the Travel Masters learning community, we're going to be working through the principles behind each of these categories with specific, practical ways to help you build and grow the best travel agent business that you could ever hope to have, and you're going to build it and you're going to love it and it's going to be just for you and just for your loved ones.

Speaker 1: 17:54

Best wishes. Thanks so much for listening. We really appreciate you. I'll see you next time right here on the Travel Masters podcast and online in the Travel Masters learning community. Remember, you can get a free. What is it free 14-day free trial. Give it a shot. We'd love to see you on Travelmasters. I'll see you again next time right here, and until then, I'm Morris Sims.