Travel Masters Podcast
Founded by travel goddess and CEO of Small World Big Fun, Cindy Minor and sales training expert Morris Sims, The Travel Masters Learning Community (click the link and join us there too) is here to help you grow in the world of travel and achieve greatness!
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Travel Masters Podcast
Planning for Prosperity in the Travel Industry
Ready to transform your travel business by 2025? Discover how stepping back from the daily grind can lead to strategic success, as Morris Sims shares insights. We promise you'll learn how to carve out essential planning time, away from distractions, to align your business strategies with your personal and professional goals. This episode is a must for travel advisors and agency owners eager to differentiate between working in their business and working on it, with practical tips on scheduling and creating a focused environment to enhance strategic thinking.
Learn more about defining and achieving your business objectives with clarity and purpose. Morris delves into understanding your personal "why," crucial for driving motivation and overcoming obstacles, and outlines the importance of narrowing your focus to one or two key strategies. Learn to set specific metrics for success and align team goals effectively. With targeted marketing insights, like prioritizing river cruises in Europe, and advice on managing unexpected opportunities, this episode challenges the misconception that social media alone is a comprehensive marketing strategy. Join us for valuable insights that will empower the strategic growth of your travel business.
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You know I've written and recorded podcasts on this topic several times and this time of year it just always strikes me as one of the most important things a business owner can do. So what is that thing? Well, it's taking time to work on your business and plan for, in this case, 2025. If you do this right, when you're finished, you're going to have a practical business plan to help you every day of the coming year. I've learned a lot since I addressed this topic in the past, so I trust that you're going to hear something new in this episode. So let's get to it. 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. I'm Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for our podcast.
Speaker 1: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 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.
Speaker 1: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? Hey, thank you for joining us for the Travel Masters podcast. I'm Morris Sims, business and sales consultant, turned consultant to travel advisors and travel agency owners, as well as the co-founder of the Travel Masters Learning Community. My role is to help you grow your business to be what you want it to be in the most effective and efficient manner possible to be what you want it to be in the most effective and efficient manner possible. With all that said, here's today's episode, and I hope you're going to enjoy it and learn something new. Thanks again for listening. We really do appreciate you being here the last two months of the year, boy. That can either be hectic, as you run just as hard as you possibly can to reach your objectives for the year, or it might be a quiet time for your business. Either way, it's always that time of year to take some time to focus on your business for next year. This is not a bunch of hooey from some corporate type, I promise. What I'm going to share with you today is the result of a whole bunch of these kind of planning meetings that I've had with entrepreneurs just like yourself, and many of those are with travel advisors and travel agency owners. Yeah, okay, the whole thing started with a bunch of corporate hooey, but we've made it real and practical. But we've made it real and practical.
Speaker 1:Michael Gerber is an author and in his famous series of books, the first titled the E-Myth, he teaches us that we must spend time working on our business as well as working in our business. Working in your business is doing those things that you do every day, the things you do to serve prospects and clients. Working in your business is presenting recommendations and booking trips and supporting your travelers yeah, I know, that's how you get the bills paid right, I got it. Working on your business is taking the time to sit back and think about what you want for your business, your family and what you want for you personally. It is taking time to remember why you're doing this in the first place and then thinking about your strategy. Your strategy is what you're going to do to get whatever it is that you want, and it specifically gets into how you're going to meet your objectives you want and it specifically gets into how you're going to meet your objectives.
Speaker 1:So how do you practically plan for 2025? Well, the first thing necessary to do is set up your planning time for success, and that is to schedule the time on your calendar. Ideally, take a day off from working to end your business. If you just can't see yourself disconnecting from business for a whole day, then schedule a couple of mornings, back-to-back if possible, and work on your business until noon or one o'clock or something. But right now, how you schedule the time is less important than just actually scheduling the time on your calendar to make it happen.
Speaker 1:And once you've chosen a day, choose a place, a place where you can get away from the everyday scene that you're in. Go somewhere. Spend a day in a hotel room, camp out in the public library. Go to some new place in your office or in your home where you can really think and focus on your business. It helps so much to be in a place where you can truly disconnect from the day-to-day operation of working in your business. You know, get away for a weekend and take the family to the lake or go to the Great Wolf Lodge my daughter and her family love that place. Maybe you get away and you work in the mornings while the family's out doing other things, and then you join them in the afternoon and evening Whatever works best for you.
Speaker 1:Just take some time to get away from it all. Get away from working in your business so that you'll have time to focus on working on your business. Now, to do this, no cell phones, okay. No cell phone or email or communication devices of any kind. Put the phone in a drawer and turn it off. Turn off the Wi-Fi on the computer until you reach that specific time that you set up every day to check your email, probably at the end of the day, but get away so there are no staff people or interruptions or distractions of any kind. You need time to focus on your business.
Speaker 1:Now, all that may sound like a bunch of hooey, but I promise you it's not. I've tried it this way and I've tried to do it as kind of a side project, so I'm going to do it while I'm working in my business. I'm going to steal an hour here and an hour there. Will you develop a plan either way? Sure you will. The one I built when I could focus is always the better one. It's better than the one that I built when I'm trying to steal a few minutes here or there and try and get it done that way.
Speaker 1:This process, to be done well, requires your time to focus and I promise you it's going to be productive time in the long haul for you. Now, who should join you for this process? Generally, your direct reports, the people you work with to run your business on a day-to-day basis. I like to call this group your leadership team. Collaborating with the people most important in your business means that you're all going to be on the same page when you leave this planning session and everybody pulling in the same direction. You may have reasons to work this out alone, and I can kind of understand that for a lot of different cases. Just remember, when you do build it by yourself, you're still going to have to sell it to the team. When you get ready to implement, you're going to have to have their buy-in Dictatorships and the old command and control leadership style. You know that stuff doesn't work well in any business I've ever been involved with, but it certainly doesn't work well today. You need your team to follow your lead because they buy in, not because you said so. Now you're all set and ready to plan for 2025. Well, hang on a minute, not yet. I think it's a little important to do some pre-work before you get away for that planning session.
Speaker 1:The clarity principle lays the foundation for what you're going to do in your planning session. Okay, to follow the clarity principle, you begin by asking the question what is it that I want? What is it that I want? What is it that I want? Not what the family wants or needs, not what your boss says or your friends or what other people tell you you should want. The question is what do you want? Ask it, brainstorm it, write down all the answers you can think of and narrow it down to the top couple or one or two or three. Put it on a piece of paper and write it out with your hand and a pencil or a pen, but write it out. Not just type it into a computer, but write it out. Take that piece of paper and put it in a drawer somewhere, think about it for 24 hours and then edit what you wrote. You might wad it up and throw it away and start over, and if you do that, that's okay. It's more than okay. As a matter of fact, you need an answer to this question that you're going to believe in for yourself. Okay, this is the foundation of everything that we're going to do. You've got to have these answers to these three questions, and this is the first one what is it that I want? What do you want? Then you've got to ask a question why? Why do I want this? Go through the same process Write down, brainstorm it as much as you possibly can, narrow it down and then let it rest.
Speaker 1:Go back in 24 hours and look it over, see your why is what's going to get you out of bed in the morning. Your why is what keeps you up and helps you to jump over the hurdles and run through the brick walls and do all the things that business owners tend to do. It's got to be wrapped in passion and fueled with emotion. This is one that has to come from your heart. It can't come from your head. It can't come from somebody else. It's got to come from you and it's got to come from your heart.
Speaker 1:Okay, now the last question is how? How are you going to get what you want that's so important to you? Get some ideas generating in your mind. Jot some things down and think it through. If you can define it, go ahead and narrow it down to one or two things. One strategy, two at the most. When you start your planning process. By doing the process, you're going to expand on these ideas. So this step is critical from the beginning, and I call it defining your strategy. How are you going to get whatever it is that you want?
Speaker 1:Okay, now you're off, by yourself or with your team, and here's the process that you'll go through for your time together, away from working in your business while you're focused on working on your business, okay. So first, if you have a team with you or anyone with you maybe it's your spouse share your answers to the clarity principle questions. Answers to the clarity principle questions. And if you do have a team, you probably ask them to do this same exercise with the clarity principle and then everyone can share their answers. The objective is to end this discussion on the same page for the business, okay.
Speaker 1:Second, get practical about what your business objectives are. Okay, what were your gross sales results from last year? What do you want them to be next year? How about your gross revenue? What about expenses? How about staff? What's the head count of the number of staff people you're going to hire and have? Or, another way to put this is to say what are the metrics that you're going to measure to determine if your company is successful? What are the targets for the coming year for each of those metrics? Yeah, you need to have some metrics that you're going to watch. Gross revenue increase and decrease is probably one of the top ones, that's for sure. I definitely have that one on my list. And then anything else that's vitally important to you. The key here is you don't want 20. You really don't. You can't follow 20 metrics and do any good with them. What are the top two? Four things five maybe that you want to watch, because if they change drastically one way or another, you're going to change your strategy a little bit. You're going to do things a little bit differently. So what are those things that you need to watch For a pilot flying a jet airplane, or any airplane?
Speaker 1:He's going to worry about airspeed. He's going to worry about the attitude of the airplane. Is it banked left or banked right? How about the up and down? Is it, you know, going up or going down? What are those things going on? And what about direction? Are we headed the right direction? You put those things together and that's what a pilot's going to worry about. There's a lot of different stuff on that dashboard for him to look at or her to look at, to worry about. There's a lot of different stuff on that dashboard for him to look at or her to look at, but those are the key metrics that they're going to watch for flying that airplane straight level, at the proper speed and going in the right direction. So there you have it. That's it. So that's how you build your strategy and where you go from there. So that's how you build your strategy and where you go from there.
Speaker 1:Third piece is how will you get to those objectives and get what you want at the end, by the end of the calendar year, by the end of the second year, by the end of the fifth, whatever you set? How are you going to get to those objectives to get whatever it is you want? What's your big picture strategy for the coming year? Is it the same as it has been you know the plan, travel for whoever contacts me and just keep working as hard as I have been? Or is your strategy I'm going to work twice as hard as I have been? Or are you going to build a strategy and the supporting tactics for your business that are going to specifically get you what you want? Now, obviously, I guess I like that one, so let's talk about that. How do you do that? How do you build out that strategy and the supporting tactics for your business that will allow you to specifically get whatever it is that you want? Here we go.
Speaker 1:Number one you have a strategy. You set that already. For example, your strategy might be to focus your time and resources on selling river cruises in Europe. That doesn't mean that you're going to turn down the honeymoon trip to Belize when they call you. It means that you're going to focus your time, your money and all your other resources on booking river cruises in Europe. Your marketing plan is going to focus on booking river cruises in Europe. Now somebody walks in the door figuratively to your business and says, hey, I want to buy an alligator, sell them an alligator. Business and says, hey, I want to buy an alligator, sell them an alligator. That's an outlier right and that's my strategy on outliers. When an outlier walks in and wants an alligator, sell them an alligator. You're in business to make money.
Speaker 1:Number two what are you going to do to build your marketing plan? Now? The answer to this question is important and it's much bigger than one podcast, but I can tell you what the answer is. Not, it is not. I'm going to use all my social media to find new prospective travelers. Social media is a huge electronic billboard. In my opinion, it is not the overall solution. It is one of five marketing platforms that you need to be involved with. The point here is to build a marketing plan, get some help from a marketing professional and if you need help with that, let me know. I can hook you up with the right person or give you some ideas myself. But let me know how I can help and I'll just tell you right now. My email is simsrm2017 at gmailcom. That's S-I-M-S. Simsrm. Took me a minute. Simsrm2017 at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:Number three what's your process? What's your process for your day-to-day operation? Somebody calls and says I want to go to Norway. What's your process? Write it down. Is it the same as it's always been? I mean, that might be what you're sitting there thinking, gee Morris, it's the same thing I've been doing for the past 10 years. Whatever it is, that's fine, but take a look at it. When was the last time you pulled it out and really looked at it?
Speaker 1:Write it down if you haven't already, and as you look at it, you can ask yourself am I actually following my process? That's one of those questions you've got to really work at being honest with yourself on. Are you really doing it? I know I'm supposed to do it this way, but am I really doing it? And if not, why? If I am doing it, why? If I'm not doing it, why don't I do it? Does it need to be updated. Is it old? Is it dusty? Is it time to dust it off and make it relevant to today, what's working and what's not working? And then the real critical question here about this whole process thing is how can I improve my sales process? Remember, please, professional sales is simply helping people get what they want, and this process is your sales process. That's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Number four how are you going to get all the administrative work done? In the olden days, there was a big poster that says you know, I won't go into it, the job's not over until all the paperwork's done, remember. Well, it ain't all paper, no more, but there's still a lot of administrative stuff that has to be done. Now, when you do the junk work that must be done, don't get me wrong but when you do it, is that really the best use of your time? Or maybe would a virtual assistant or a social media posting person or a nanny for the kids three days a week? Would that be a better use of your resources? No matter what, and the answer to all those questions is your answer and it's absolutely good. Okay, I'm not trying to judge anybody here. I just wanted you to stop and think and ask those questions for yourself, and whatever your answers are, they're your answers and they're right. So, no matter what, you need a plan for how you're going to handle all of that administrative stuff that comes along.
Speaker 1:Number five how are you going to actually implement and do this? How many plans have you? Well, let me rephrase that. I have built a whole bunch of plans in my life, put them in a binder. They were gorgeous, they were beautiful, had every question answered, all right there, and I put it on the shelf and never looked at it again until I threw it away.
Speaker 1:So how are you going to get all this implemented? It's like trying to eat an elephant. And how do you do that? Well, you do it one bite at a time. You set priorities and you build an action plan for what you're going to do and when you're going to do it and who is going to do it. This becomes your strategic action plan. Now, all this is going to turn out to be your business plan for 2025. Write it down, get it in a Google Doc, but document it and refer to it no less than monthly, to make sure that you're on track to get what you want. That's the process that we do, called monthly plans, and we'll get into that in a podcast after this one. But after all, remember this business. This business is designed or you planned it, you designed it, you built it in order to allow you to get what you want and live the life that you want today for you and your family. Well, that does it for this episode of the Travel Masters podcast.
Speaker 1:Thanks a lot for listening. I really do appreciate you taking the time to listen to what we share and the people we share with you. Please let me know how we can help you. My email is sims S-I-M-S 1-M simsrm2017 at gmailcom, or you can go to morrissimscom and find our page for the Travel Masters Learning Community. It's up on the top in the top menu and there you'll be able to join us. Until next time, best wishes on growing your business. I'm betting on you. I'll see you next time. I'm Morris Sims.