Lessons in Persistence and Sales for Travel Advisors
Contributed By: Scott Koepf, Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)– Cruise Planners
Travel Advisors have evolved tremendously over the last few decades to a point that almost each one is a business to themselves. Independent Contractors have become the majority of those selling travel, but even employees still operate as separate businesses – developing client lists and building their own book of business. Therefore, most Travel Advisors are entrepreneurs whose success has moved beyond a focus on product knowledge and the handling of transactions. They now need a variety of skills from marketing, to sales, to customer service as well as the financial and operational acumen of running a small business. In other words, being an entrepreneur is an intense journey with an astonishing array of obstacles to overcome along the way!
One musical which hit the scene as a movie is the ideal story and example of what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. The Greatest Showman is not only the name of the movie but the perfect description of the primary character, P.T. Barnum. Mr. Barnum built an extraordinary business and was indeed quite the showman. The Hollywood version of his story shows us the attributes needed to be a highly successful entrepreneur. You don’t need to sing and dance with flourish (although that made for a really enjoyable show!), but instead learn from Mr. Barnum what it takes to be the best you can be.
If there is one word that seems to drive Barnum, it is persistence. His relentless pursuit of his dreams is what we all need to emulate. As Travel Advisors there are actually two types of dreams that you deal with every day. First is your own dream of your life as a travel entrepreneur and second is what you do in that role – make dreams come true for your clients. As P.T. Barnum said, “The Noblest Art is of Making Others Happy.” That is what you are privileged to do by combining your dream with the millions of dreams people have to see the world, which is perfectly described in the song, A Million Dreams:
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
Oh a million dreams for the world we’re gonna make
All entrepreneurial journeys start with a vivid dream, but you need to be realistic. As another song from the movie, Come Alive, implores, you have to dream with your eyes wide open:
To anyone who’s burstin’ with a dream
Come one, come all, you hear the call
When the world becomes a fantasy
And you’re more than you could ever be
‘Cause you’re dreamin’ with your eyes wide open
After you turn your dream into a realistic vision of what your business can look like, the real work begins. You now have to find, sell and keep clients! This is where persistence or as we call it in sales, follow up, becomes your daily mantra. The vision will not come to fruition without action, so procrastination needs to become persistence. Like another song, From Now On, says so perfectly, you must promise to yourself that you will follow up relentlessly on the fulfillment of your dream and the travel dreams of others:
From now on
What’s waited ’til tomorrow starts tonight
It starts tonight
And let this promise in me start
Like an anthem in my heart
From now on
From now on
From now on
There are two steps to being exceptional at follow up, starting with the schedule and plan for when and how you follow up. The other step is to be more persistent than you probably think you should be. Even the term ‘follow up’ brings concerns from many Travel Advisors about being a pest and bothering their potential customers. Sadly, that hesitation leads to a lack of response that they blame on the consumer instead of looking at the weakness in the follow up plan that they can change and control.
Quite simply, you need to get out of your comfort zone and make follow up your primary focus on a daily basis. In the song, The Other Side, the lyrics spell out the choice you can make. You can stay with the conventional and conservative approach, or you can be a little crazy and call and email more often and in a shorter time frame than you ever would normally do. With risk comes the rewards of sales and it does require trading in what you have been doing for something that may seem a little crazy:
So trade that typical for somethin’ colorful
And if it’s crazy, live a little crazy
You can play it sensible, a king of conventional
Or you can risk it all and see
As the song continues it provides some excellent exhortations you can consider when connecting with your clients, once your follow up is successful. You are the one who can get your clients to depart from the same old part they play and take them to the other side, of the world!
Don’t you wanna get away
From the same old part you gotta play
‘Cause I got what you need so some with me and take the ride
It’ll take you to the other side
Now that’s a deal that seems worth takin’
Finally, to answer the question of how much follow up is enough, I will answer with the show stopping song below by adding a couple slight adjustments to the lyrics. If you take this advice, you will turn your business into, you guessed it, The Greatest Show!
All the shine of a thousand spotlights
All the stars we steal from the night sky
Will never be enough
Never be enough
[Emails I’ve sent] are still too little
These hands [have dialed over and over] but it’ll
Never be enough
Never be enough
