Subscribe & Review on Apple!

Get first access to our latest episodes! If you haven’t already, make sure you subscribe to the Travel Agent Achievers podcast. Each week we release a new episode that will help increase your knowledge and expertise as a travel agent. Click here to subscribe to Apple.

Once you’ve subscribed, leave us a written review on iTunes or your favourite podcast platform.  Simply click here to give us a review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review.” 

If you have any colleagues that this information may be useful for, share an image of this podcast on socials and make sure to tag us! 

@travelagentachievers 

 READ THE TRANSCRIPT IF YOU PREFER - BELOW 

"My Opinion on Coaches and Mentors"

Roslyn Ranse: Hi there Travel Agent Achievers, it's Ros here, hope you're having an awesome day, wherever you are today. Welcome back to the podcast. And today I've got a bit of an opinion episode for you. And opinion. I want to say it's also fact I want to say it's also around personal beliefs. But anyhow, whatever it is. I'm here to talk about coaching, coaching and mentoring and why it's really been thinking my why I've really just been thinking about this over the last couple of weeks. So let me take you back to an interview that I had with a journalist a few weeks ago. And when we're having the conversation, she was saying, Look, Rosie, you just you're just so different. Like there is just something about you that is not very common. And I've had this said to me before, and I have often just brushed it off. And I don't know I am exactly like everybody else. And I do believe that I am exactly like you. I own a travel business. I have a family, I love to travel, I love to experience the world. I love my business as a business. And I've always treated my travel business as a business. Not just as a hobby, but something that I have wanted to come back to time and time again, I have grown it I've systemized and organised it due to my own personal needs and what's happened in my own family and what I've wanted to get out of it. 

But I've also looked at my life and what this journalist was saying was even going right back to school. So when I was 14, my very first job at 14 and nine months. And I say this very specifically, because that's what the rule was in Australia, back then, in the late 90s was very specific, you had to be 14 and nine months in order to get a job. And I went and worked at McDonald's. And I loved it. What I loved about it was the organisation, the structure, the step by steps, the the ability to be challenged, and to perform to the best of my own ability. I was consistently rewarded and acknowledged for doing good work, there was almost like a, a tick system that if you if you did something good and you got a little tick, or a pat on the back, there were secret shoppers, so you never knew what was going to happen. It was time dependent. So it was very speedy. And I thrived in that environment. And I really enjoyed it. And what I loved about it, as I said was the organisation and the structure of it. But it was also about the community and the people that I met. And there are still people to this day that I know. I see. And I think about because of where we were back then. Now I was also recently sorts of people from my high school. And I was thinking why am I not really in contact with people from my high school. And I think it's just different. And it's different for everyone. But for me, my part time job at McDonald's became my community. They came, they became my people. And the reason for that was that we were all in it together. We had a lot of fun what we did, we worked hard, we played hard. We loved up on our customers, hospitality and tourism just became my thing. But I also had really good mentors. I had people that were in that job that looked out for me and recognised the work that I did, but encouraged me to be better. 

I didn't necessarily have that in my home environment. And I love my love my parents, my mom in particular. So there are some people that know my story a lot that don't. But my mom in particular and I think that at that time I, I really just was looking for a community and I was looking for people who thought like me, and I think that that's why being in that environment really shaped and moulded me as I grew. And when I was talking to this journalist and she said that I don't remember my experience at McDonald's or my friends working at small restaurants like that having as much fun or enjoying it as much as you did. And I think for me, that's what set me up for the future. So what I wanted to share with you today is the thought notion around coaching and mentoring, because a lot of us have our own business. And we also have families. And we often put other people before ourselves. Yet there is the saying, and a good friend of mine, Sebastian Terry, who has a business called “100 things”, I initially heard it from him. And I think about it often as well as we need to put on our own mask before we can help others. And if you think about this, in analogy for you're on the plane, and they're going through this security briefing, you need to put on your own mask to get the oxygen flowing before you can help other people. And so in the coaching and mentoring space, and the communities and the people that I surround myself with, I think I often need to put on my own mask, but I don't. But I love to be able to help others. So when it comes to this notion about taking care of other people, before we take care of ourselves, I'm often challenged by it. And having this conversation with the journalist really brought up something else for me that it's, why is it okay to have coaches and mentors in sport, yet, it's often weird, or the last thing we think of when it comes to business. 

And the reason why I say this is because according to money.com.au, my source, the business sector in Australia is dominated by small and medium sized enterprises or businesses. They say that 97 and a half percent of all businesses in Australia are around two and a half million businesses are small businesses. And that's a small business that has between zero and 910 employees. So you and I fit here with our travel businesses. And then a further two and a half 2.3 medium businesses employ between 20 and 200. People. So thinking about that, small businesses really do drive the economy, they drive industry. And you and I are not alone, yet, we don't ask for help, when we need help in our business to make it thrive. And the reason why I'm saying that is that according to UTS, the University of Technology in Sydney, the estimates are that currently one in three small new businesses in Australia fail in their first year of operation, one in three, so around. So coming back to the other stat, you've got two and a half million businesses, small to medium sized businesses in Australia, but one in three, that start will fail in their first year. Two out of four will fail by the end of the second year. And three out of four will fail by the fifth year. So if you have been in business for more than five years, massive congratulations to you give yourself a pat on the back right now, wherever you are high five yourself, because you are already an anatomy. And you know, you know what I mean? You're you're not anonymous, anonymously. Anyhow, you're not normal, because the majority of small businesses will in fact fail in the first five years. And that is really, really sad. And when I think of why I got into travel, in the first place, it was because I loved travelling, I loved what I did. I started my travel business because I wanted to help people explore this incredible planet that we live on. But I also wanted the flexibility and the freedom to define my own hours, to have my family to be able to take care of the people that I wanted to work with. I really feel as though I was set up in a position in the small business environment for failure. However, this is where I believe the coaching and mentoring comes into place. Because it is a little bit weird to have a coach a business coach or a mentor for your business. And when you look at the stats, two and a half million businesses in Australia, small businesses in Australia how many of those actually have support or people in their corner? Who are coaching and mentoring them? Yet? When we think about our family, if you have kids, are they part of a team? Do they have a coach to help them to improve in their studies? Do they have a coach that helps them in their sports, when you're doing a team sport, you always have a coach and that person is there to mentor them and guide them and teach them the skills to improve in that specific area. So is having a business and your own business, then why aren't we all wanting to have a business business coach or mentor, like, for me, going right back to my McDonald's days, I was surrounding myself back then without even knowing it, for fantastic mentors and of business owners looking up to them wondering how and why they did it. So maybe I'm the weird one. Maybe I'm the, I'm the different one. 

But I think that there's an opportunity here for everyone that owns a business to be able to get the support in an area that you feel as though you need to learn. We haven't necessarily grown up in, you know, small business households, not everybody has had that opportunity. Not everybody has had the opportunity to work amongst millionaires. Yet, we need to have the opportunity for the support and encouragement to build a travel business that we absolutely love. And I know that you deserve and you desire to have my very first business coaching programme that I joined, and who I am still very good friends with today. And I work inside the programme and I help coach and mentor the students was a programme called business blueprint by my friend Dale Beaumont. Now Dale has sold multi million dollars worth of programmes and products, and he's a best selling author. He's himself, you know, was a champion gymnast, when he was only a teenager. He had the coaches, he had the support around him. And he felt that small businesses as well, like he, he would go and do the programmes, he would go to America and learn from the best and come back and he would coach and mentor small businesses. Now, when I started my travel business, I knew that I needed a coach or a mentor or someone around me that could help guide me and give me the structure give me the tools and the resources because I didn't want to be a statistic. I didn't want to be the four out of five that fail. I didn't want to be the one that you know, friends and family and say we'll see I told you it would fail or you know that that was never going to work. I had those the imposter syndrome on my shoulder. And there are still times that I have it now. But I think it was very strong back then. And I knew that I needed to do something different in order to be different. 

And so I remember going along to one of Dale's free sessions. It was a day long event. And I went with a friend and my friend Alex said to me during that programme, he'd already done a whole lot of business coaching himself and ran a very successful cabinetry business. And I really admired and looked up to him as an a good friend of mine, and we still are today and I, I sat there with him and I went, Wow, this is what I need. This is what I need to understand and grow my business. And he said to me, it got to the lunch break. And they they sent out you know, they gave out all these forms, like come and join the programme. This is what it is. And it was a very, very big investment. For somebody who was only new to the travel industry new to starting their own business. This was a five-figure programme to join. And I said to Alex, I can't do this, like this is this is making me feel really nervous, really anxious. I don't have that kind of money in my bank account. And he said to me, if you don't do this, you're and said a few exploitive words that I know the reason why he said to do that was because he knew that I needed to be challenged. He knew that I needed to be backed into a corner almost have that feeling of oh my gosh, I can't do this in order to make a decision. And so for me, I signed up then and there. And I put my American Express card down because that had no limit and signed up for the programme. And I implemented and worked and did everything that I was told, because I knew that I knew did somebody who had been there before me, I knew that I needed a coach or mentor or people around me that could inspire me in different ways and give me the opportunity to think bigger challenge my own beliefs. Believe in me when I didn't believe in myself. And so when I joined that programme, yeah, it, it really stirred something inside me. It felt scary, I was so nervous, I had the butterflies, I didn't know whether it was going to be the right thing. For me, it was what I call now a “scary no brainer.” 

And I say this difference when I have my friends, call me and tell me about some programme that they want to join in the States or that they're looking at doing this specific thing. And because I work with them so closely, I ask them these questions, you know, will it challenge you? Will it change you? Is it an opportunity be to be in front of the right people? Do you know enough about it, that it will give you the answers that you feel as though you might need? And are you willing to lose that money, if it's not the right thing? I think that's the biggest thing is are you willing to invest the money and not receive the return on the investment, because in the majority of programmes that I know of, and the people that I work with, if I don't do the work, then I don't get the results. So I can be part of a community, I can just enjoy the friendships and the connections. But I know that if I don't learn, or sorry, not learned, because you're always learning. But if you don't implement what you are learning, there will be no change, you will continue to do the same thing over and over again without actually making progress. And so for me, it's that scary, no brainer. Because you get the butterflies, you feel a little bit anxious, it feels a little bit out of your comfort zone. But you make that decision either way, based on a whole lot of different factors. And I know for me, that it's also about having skin in the game. So I want you to think about the last time you downloaded a free resource from somewhere, or you joined an email list that you thought, Yes, this is going to be the right thing for me, you join an email list, you get all the emails, but you put them straight into a folder. And that folder is called to come back to later, or training or learning or, you know, many different words that I've seen amongst a lot of different people. But the end result is always the same. And that is that they do not come back to it. And I wonder why do you not go back to those free resources. And I think one of the things that I see a lot is because people haven't invested in themselves, or got what I've called skin in the game. And skins in the game is where you are actually investing and amount of money. And you need to get that return on investment. It's exactly like your clients, they come to you because they want an experience, they will pay for your services, because they feel that it's a value. And if you can provide the value to them, they will continue to pay you for your services in the coaching and mentoring space or working with a mentor or working with somebody to learn a new skill or joining a programme. So if you're feeling as though, you know, you need to learn more about graphic design, and I talk about Canva. So go and do the training. You don't just sign up for something and then not do it, you actually need to do the training. The same with understanding social media. If that's an area that you feel as though you need to learn more about, then pay somebody to help you in that area. If you feel as though if you sign up for something for free, you're not actually going to do it. You need to have that skin in the game and I say need because that is what comes back to your own psyche and your motivation in a way to really just take action. If you invest in yourself, you will take action and coming back to your kids. 

My son Jackson, he has soccer lessons and he's part of a private programme as well as his weekly normal coaching sessions for his games on the weekend. Now he's his coach for our regular programme. Well, that's all a volunteer position. My husband volunteers to be the age manager for our local nippers because Jackson loves his Surf Lifesaving man now that isn't a paid position that that is still something that our kids look up to respect they learn from so that they can be better. In addition then have a coach that Jackson joins a special programme and we pay for that. We pay for him to get the extra tuition so that he can improve. And I may not be able to get out and go and play soccer with him every single afternoon. And, you know, yeah, I can't run around like that. I don't have the same energy as an eight year old. But he learns the skills, and I am not an expert soccer player. So why would I want to step in and try and teach him about something that I know nothing about, I would rather pay for an expert to come in to teach him so that he can improve. And that gives me great satisfaction as well. So whether it is in education, that you give your kids tuition for a particular subject, or in a sport or activity, dance coaching, like for instance, then why are we not doing this for ourselves? And is this because we're adults? You know, you inherently want other people to be better you want your kids to improve? You want the best for them. But why aren't you doing that for yourself? 

There's a motivational quote from a speaker called Jim Rohn. And he said, In the words of him, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. The people you spend the most time with shape who you are, they determine what conversations dominate your attention. So you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If you were to picture the people that you spend the most time with right now. Where would that place you now I'm not telling you, you need to go change your friends or your family or anything like that it's that you spend the most time with that's absolutely fine. But as part of your network, or part of your community, to improve your life in a way that you feel satisfied that your cup is full, daily, that you are motivated and excited to do the work that you do, who you spend time with. Now, not everybody in your circle is going to understand what it's like to be a small business owner, not everybody in your circle is going to understand that you need to work evenings. So you because you take care of the kids during the day, but you love your business. So you want to do that. 

So who do you spend the most time with? And are these people, the ones that are going to encourage you, lift you up, give you the right resources and tools and valuable information to inspire you to grow? If they're not, then who could you surround yourself with Who Who are those people that you've thought about and said, I really want to spend more time in their orbit because I like what they do. I like their energy. I like their enthusiasm. I love those clients because they do this, this and this. It's exactly the same as having your ideal client, your avatar, however you want to talk about it, you know, your favourite clients, you are automatically drawn to them, you want to spend more time with them, you want to book more people like them. And this is exactly the same in the coaching world and the mentoring and masterminds and those sorts of things. 

When you find your tribe, you want to spend more time with them. Because when things are tough, there are people there that understand you, there are people there that get you, there are people there to lift you up that believe in you and encourage you to be what they see you to believe. Now I say this as well to all of our achievers, mastermind members, people that I connect with, I see you, I can see the potential. And I will say to them that I believe in them. And I will continue to believe in them until they believe in themselves. I'm very fortunate to have the people around me that have believed in myself or have believed in me when I haven't seen it. When I've doubted myself when I've questioned my own abilities when I've challenged my own thought process. And they have continued to believe in me because they can see something that I can't necessarily see. So yes, I'm different. Yes, I am unique, but I will take that and I will run with it because life is short. I don't have time to be spending a whole lot of time with people that suck my energy away or that you know, a negative. That for me, is what brings me down. 

I want to live life to the fullest ability. I want to learn I want to continue to surround myself with people that in inspire me, that encouraged me that laugh with me that wants to travel with me, because life is short. And I see that more and more now. And as I'm getting older, and I don't feel as I'm that old. But as I'm getting older, I think I'm starting to see it more that we need to have our tribe around us that do hold us up that do hold us to account that can call the the yes, if necessary with us, but also believe in us and give us the tools and the encouragement to be the best that we can possibly be ourselves. I want you to try, I want you to improve. My heart is always around helping other people. I want to see you succeed. And that brings me the greatest joy that I can ever have. So some people often challenge or question me and say, Well, Ros, you're part of one group, why are you helping all of these others. And like I've always said, in business, and in my life, people will be drawn to me for me. So if they want to book their travel with me, they will, if they want to book it with somebody else down the road, they absolutely will do that. There is nothing new about what I have to say, there is nothing new about the flights or the airlines that I work with, we all work with the same people, right? So what is different? What is different and that one difference is me. The one difference is you, you are unique. And you have an opportunity to create the life that you've always dreamed of, you have the opportunity to build the travel business that you've always hoped for. You have the ability to surround yourself with people that lift you up, you have the choice. So what are you going to do about it? I was talking with my son Jackson the other night as I was putting him to bed. And he was really quite down on himself about something that happened at school. And I had to start talking to him about resilience, determination, grit, you know how how strength is. And I said Not, not everyone is going to win every single time. There are always winners and losers in any competition. There is only one person who gets first place in a race. Like you can't deny that that's just life. But I said to him, what we do in our family, is we get up and we keep trying again. We don't give up. If it's not right for you, then sure we can switch tactics. We can change direction. That's no problem. But we don't give up. Yes, there are going to be hard times yes, there are going to be challenges. Yes, we're going to feel as though we don't want to get out of bed, sometimes, yes, we're going to feel knocked down, we're going to be upset. And we may feel as though we're all alone. But at the end of the day, we will continue to get up and keep going. Because that is going to be the difference between you succeeding and you just coasting along. So when I think about it, having coaches and mentors in my business journey, it hasn't been something for free. And as I said before, if I looked through my honestly looked through my email inbox, there's a lot that I say yes, I will come back to like I'm sure that you will. So you've got to have that skin in the game. And it doesn't have to be a five figure programme or a six figure programme. It can be something small that you're okay with. But you know, that you will learn from. So, if this has resonated with you, and you feel as though Yeah, I want to do something different. I want to learn I want to surround myself with people that believe in me that lift me up that I can improve myself and my business. Then come and join us at Travel Agent Achievers because I know that we have an amazing community. I know that the people that are part of our Mastermind and the achievers programme are the ones that continually show up. They are the ones that are continuously putting the work in and we aren't trying to do everything and be overwhelmed because just having a business in the first place is a lot of work. But we are working on one thing at a time. Just taking one action to say this month I am focused on marketing and my visibility. 

This month I'm focused on staffing and how to outsource and get support in the administration work that I do so I'm not feeling as though it's all climbing up on me. We might be working on sales and that's what we're doing this month is looking at sales for our travel biz Notice, how can we prepare, get organised, and really just have all of our ducks in a row to structure and systemize and prepare and be ready for big sales months. We know what's coming ahead. We know what we've already been through. But what we're doing is getting organised. I'm going back to my McDonald's days, constantly drawing this and say, right, what are the six steps to service? What are those six steps? Yes, there are six steps to service just so you know, at McDonald's, when you go up to the counter, whether they still do that or not, I don't know that's over 20 years ago that I was there. But I'm just saying, following the system, following the process, surrounding yourself with the people that lift you up that understand you that get you and we are all achieving what we want to achieve, to grow ourselves, to grow our business, and to have more fun, make more money, and have the lifestyle that I know you absolutely deserve. So I hope you enjoyed my little rant today talking about coaching, mentoring being different, I want you to be different. I want you to be unique, I want you to stand out, I want people to be looking at your travel business saying I want to work with them. I want that for you. Because you absolutely deserve to have the best business with the best people coming to work with you every single day so that you are lifted up, your cup is full. And you get to have a great time while doing everything that I know you love. 

Thank you for listening today. I really appreciate you I just wanted to give a shout out to those that send me messages after each of these podcast episodes telling me what you really like what you have enjoyed. It gives me the opportunity to then get the best, you know, people to come in and have a chat with to help you. But also if there's a topic that you'd like me to talk about, or give my opinion on, please let me know. I am all ears and I look forward to chatting with you speaking with you on social media. Hopefully see you at some stage because now that we can have live events, we will certainly be trying to do more of them. And yeah, hit me up. I love to see you. 

Alright, everybody, have an awesome day. Have a great afternoon, morning, wherever you are. Whatever time of the day it is take care stay safe. And have a think about coaches and mentors how you can implement for your small business, because we often invest in others, it's time for you to invest in yourself. Take care. Speak to you soon. Thank you for listening to this episode of Travel Agent Achievers. If you love it, please share it on Instagram or Facebook. Make sure you tag us too so that we can shout and share with you as well to your friends and colleagues. We are here to help as many travel professionals as we possibly can. Don't forget to check out the travel agent achievers.com website, so loads of resources and tools to help you grow your travel business. We'd love it if you shared a review and you subscribe to the podcast so that you don't miss an episode in the future. Now I truly hope this podcast gives you so much value and ideas to help you build the incredible travel business you deserve to have.