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The Unsexy Work that Pays Off: Why the Boring Stuff Builds Your Travel Business

Ros: Well, hey, there everybody. It's Ros here, of course, Travel Agent Achievers Podcast with a very quick but what I think is a powerful episode today, here on the podcast, I am really just coming to you to talk about the stuff in business that isn't glamorous, that isn't exciting.

Sometimes, I often feel as though I get a little bit carried away and say feels a bit boring like but honestly, it's the stuff that makes the biggest difference in your success, and it's often something that I get asked about. How do I do it all? I had my last podcast episode where I said that it takes a village. You know, I'm very lucky that I have a supportive husband who, you know, supports in lots of different ways, from the business side of things, but also in the family as well. And, you know, I call this in business the biggest difference, but it's also what I would think is the unsexy work. It's the behind the scenes, things that no one really talks about, but it does give you the strength, it gives you the confidence, and it also gives you the clarity as a travel business professional. So it's really easy, right as travel professionals, to focus on the things that we love. We're talking with clients, we're posting trips on social media. We might even be tweaking a Canva design or, if you're not the creative type, it might be putting together that itinerary and working with the tools that you have right now. Those things make us feel really good. I know for me, when I am on the phone to a client, or I'm consulting or dreaming big about their experiences, that's what makes me feel good. It fills my cup. I love being having having conversations with suppliers, connecting with other advisors. It's the relationships that I love being able to nourish and really just spend time with people that, to me, feels good. But then there's the other stuff right in business, it's the checklists, it's your to-do lists, it's the templates, it's the follow ups. It's setting up workflows, we tell ourselves as travel business owners, I'll get to that later. That's something that I'll do later. I know how it all works. It's all in my head.

But why do we do this? Like, why do we put it off for later? For me, and what I see in other advisors that I talk to, is because it feels hard, it feels boring, as I said, it's not sexy. But here's the truth: avoiding these things keeps us unstuck. Sorry. It keeps us stuck. So avoiding it, it keeps us stuck. It keeps us stuck. In that moment, we waste time repeating ourselves. We get overwhelmed with managing groups. We lose energy that we could be spending with clients. And it always comes back to for me, a story where my team member, I asked them to draft an email for me, and they said, Yes, no problem, I've got this. Went ahead and dropped the email. I had a look at it, and I was blown away like honestly, it wasn't a sexy email, but I thought, wow, that that sounds exactly like me. And she said to me at the time, Ros, you say the same thing most of the time in these exact emails. So I was wasting time physically typing out an email, which resulted in the loss of time, but it made me feel good. It felt me maybe that I was being productive, or that I was typing something up that really meant something to clients, and that was the value that I was providing. Well, let's be real, right? 

I've learned now that that is not the case, that we don't have to be doing everything all the time, retyping out emails. And this is where having things like systems and processes in our business, having those email templates there, we can tweak them, we can change them slightly, but to have them there will save you time. And that's that's the whole point for me, in having your systems and processes is you've got that structure, you've got that clarity, but you've got the step by steps to help you move forward faster and to get through a lot more work, right? Which is what we all want, is to be building a beautiful business that makes sense to us that allows us the extra freedom, the time, the opportunities to do different things. And I I say that this is unsexy because we often don't do it. Now, think about going to the gym right in in my world, I don't get out of bed. I don't jump out of bed excited to do school. Or go and ride the peloton. I swear to God, I've been looking at it for the last 12 months. And for those of you that know me, I do love bike riding, but I just haven't done it. Whereas my husband, he will get out of bed and he is off to the gym at 4:30 every morning. So if you think about it, like going to the gym, I would say majority of people do not jump out of bed excited to go, especially early in the morning, but it's the getting to the gym. It's doing the squats, it's running on the treadmill, it's riding the bike. That builds the strength. And business is the same. The things that feel heavy, say, for instance, creating a marketing rhythm you might be posting on social media a couple of times a week, and it just gets too overwhelming at times. You're like, Oh, I've gotta be on this platform and that platform, and I've gotta come up with the ideas. You know, creating that marketing rhythm might feel really heavy. The same thing with mapping out your booking flow. You know how it all happens in your head, and you're processing your bookings like it's clockwork, but actually sitting down and spending the time to say, this is how I want my booking process to work. That takes a little bit of effort. I'm not saying it takes days and days and days. It just takes a little bit of thought and setting aside, you know, half an hour or an hour to say, how do I want my booking flow to work? It's one of the reasons why I created my 67 steps to processing a booking. And that happened on a flight with a very good friend and mentor of mine, Lynn. And she said, what happens next? What happens next? So that 67 steps has become a key staple in our business across everything that we do. It could also be that it feels really heavy to write email templates, right? You're like, Why do I even want to do that? But when you have a process, then you can be copying and pasting and putting that into a template and say, Oh, that's what I do over and over again.

These are the things that build muscle in your business. They don't look glamorous on the outside, but they give you the power, they give you efficiency, and they certainly give you the clarity and results, right? So these are the good things, and when you do the unsexy work, it's suddenly going to free up your head space. I know you might be feeling as though things are all in your head right now. I remember when clients would call me and say, Hey, I know that I'm traveling tomorrow, but what, what time was it? And I would know off the top of my head, right but instead of scrambling for the right words every time a client books, I want you to think, what would it be like if you've got that email ready to go? What would it be like if you had it all in a project management system that you could refer to, or there was a process and system in place that you were sending out your documents to clients, and it was all on an app, right? Instead of reinventing the wheel for group trips as an example and thinking every time, what do I have to do, you've got a process. Instead of chasing payments manually or thinking when, when Is something supposed to come in, when is commission supposed to come in, it's tracked and it's scheduled in order to send out those reminders. The real benefit here is that you get more time with your clients. You get more referrals, more space to work on all the fun parts and all the things specifically in your business that are going to fill your cup and also make it more enjoyable, even if it is to give you that time back that you are so desperately craving. So this is exactly what I'm going to be doing together with advisers in Sydney at our event in a few weeks time, we're going to roll up our sleeves. We're going to get the unsexy work done so you don't just learn about it. You're actually going to walk away with the booking flows. You'll walk away with that marketing plan or that social media calendar that you know you can replicate every month. Have it mapped out in Canva so that that isn't ready to go. You might even have your client journey mapped out, your email templates ready to go, those systems and processes they're done so that you can then scale your business. You can grow it. You can bring in extra team members if you want to to do things that are the process driven to allow you to step out and get more of those clients that you love working with. It's honestly, it's two days where you'll finally put the foundations in place that I know will make your business stronger and your life certainly easier. So if you've been avoiding this work, Sydney is your chance to come and get it done with the support and guidance I'm going to be walking you through the whole process. We do a lot of this work inside the achievers mastermind, but this is a get it done moment.

This is together. It's a Friday and Saturday. So you are actually doing the work. We're going to be using the tools, working with AI to support us if we need to, but getting the stuff out of our head. So if that event isn't for you, that's okay. I would love to see you actually though, come and do it. Come and put in the effort and say it's then done. Now, what's next? So that is in September. I'm going to be linking to everything in the show notes. It is in Sydney. So for those of you that are listening, that are international or out of the country somewhere else, then please reach out to me, because this is something that I will be doing certainly next year, as well around the world.

But here's my encouragement for you today, don't avoid the unsexy work, because that's the work that will pay off. I want you to do one thing this week to make your business stronger, whether it is setting up an email template, writing an email sequence, or mapping out your booking steps. If you want to get it all done, come and join me in Sydney. I can't wait to see you. Thanks for tuning in. I'll catch you in the next episode, but make sure you're getting the work done right, the unsexy work, too, and then you can do more of the fun stuff. All right? I'll speak to you soon. Bye for now, make sure you grab all the show notes, all the links, and you know what? I've even got my 67 steps that I'll link to as well. So if you want to jump ahead of the game, you can download it for yourself, as well as a couple of other resources that we'll make sure we link to our group processes. But you're going to do this all right. Don't just download the resources. Come and join us and we'll get it done together. Thanks for Bye, guys.