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"From Swim Mum to CEO: How I Juggle Business, Mentoring, and Life"

Ros: Good morning. Good morning, everybody. It's Ros here. This is the Travel Agent Achievers podcast, and one of our listeners reached out to me and said, "Ros, I know you have a few things going on, but I would just love to know what a day in the life is like in your shoes. What is it that you get up to? How are all the things that actually happen?"

And so I'm peeling back the curtains today to let you know that I am just like you guys. We are running travel businesses. And in addition to that, yes, I have Travel Agent Achievers and a couple of other exciting projects on the go as well. So I'm going to share a little bit about my day, and I'm going to take you with me as we do all the things.

To give you a heads up, it is now 20 past six in the morning. If I am not recording an early podcast or, you know, speaking to the US at this time, then I like to wake without an alarm. Yeah, I don't like being woken up. Do not put me on a 6am flight, all those sorts of things. I just don't like it, and I feel as though I'm at a point now where I can make decisions as to what I want to do.

So it's 6:25. My husband, Clint, has already been to the gym. He goes every morning at 5am. I do not wake when he goes. He is very kind like that. But I've already had a shower, load of washing's on, Jackson's having breakfast—my 10-year-old son—and we are gearing up to head down to the pool.

Jackson's a swimmer. He loves his swimming. It's one of the things that he's found a passion for over the last few years. We live right near the beach, and so there's nothing better than being a swim mum at the moment and taking Jackson to his squad lessons.

Now it is almost Easter, so with that comes school holidays as well. Our squad lessons are not on, and so this is Jackson's chance to make decisions on his own, and he has chosen still to go down to the pool. So we're going to do that for an hour. I've got his lesson plan with me.

My day ahead—what does it feel like today? Well, it's also school holidays. In addition to that, I have 250 people in a group that are departing on Thursday. I need to travel to Sydney tomorrow and pack up for the long weekend, because it is Easter. Pack up for the long weekend with the family and all the gear and get them all organized.

So, 6:20 now, I am showered. There is a load of washing on. I have got my cup of tea. I will go and grab my cup of coffee, which you guys all know I absolutely love doing first thing in the morning—going and seeing the cafe people, saying hi, getting a little bit of human energy, but also my caffeine hit for the day, and also seeing the beach before I head off to do whatever I'm doing.

So I'm off now. I'll check in with you when I get back. I've already downloaded my emails. There's a few things that are going on there with regards to the group over the next couple of days, so I'll respond to those whilst I'm at the pool. In addition to doing some timing—apparently, I have been nominated to get some of Jackson's new times.

So I'll keep you in the loop. I'll check in with you when I get back. Bye for now.

Well, I'm back, and that was fun. Beautiful day here, and Jackson's going up a level in his squad swimming. So I'm going to be handling a little bit of extra life admin today.

To give you a bit of a rundown on my day today, I'm now back in the office. It's eight o'clock. Depending on the day—I am in school holidays at the moment—so Jackson is around us as a family. He is doing different things with his mates, which is always fun. I'll be ducking out later and taking them to the movies.

But in general, from a work perspective, I am either working early and my husband will take Jackson to school, or I will do the school run, and then be able to come and just jump into work. My team all start at 8, 8:30 depending on their schedule, and also with daylight saving and those sorts of things.

But in general, I am able to start work either at 7:30, 8 o'clock in the morning, or when I get back from the school run, which is pretty much closer to 9am. I'm very specific with what I need to get done, so I have to be super organized, because when you've got other things happening in your life and you're not going to a job where you've got to be there between 8 or 8:30 and 5 o'clock, I need to make sure that I'm jam-packing everything in so that I can handle all the other things that go on in this world.

So my first up thing that I always do is just check Teamwork, which is our project management system, just see if there are things that are outstanding, late, that I might need to bring to the attention of my team on a certain project, or just have a look at how we're going in general.

I'll also have a look at my calendar and my schedule based on the day—if there's anything that I need to do, any final preparation work for, or what's coming up in the days ahead. Looking at my calendar now, it is very full for the next few months. So do I need to schedule anything? Do I need to move anything around? Do I need to ensure that travel plans aren't overlapping with other things?

Also, my emails get downloaded. I run two different systems. I work off Macs, so Mail is for all of my travel business, and then I use G Suite and Google for Travel Agent Achievers. So making sure that everything's downloaded, any extra delegation that needs to happen with my team, that I need to forward things onto them.

And life admin—you know, we're all trying to do all the different things. So the washing is already in the dryer, ready to go. Jackson is sorted. I know what has to happen today for him and the activities that he's got on, catching up with his mates as well. What's happening in the days ahead, and is there any bills or anything that I need to get sorted from a life admin area as well?

So I'm sharing quite a lot with you guys today in what happens behind the scenes in my business and in my life. It's not something that I would normally do. So I hope you do find it helpful in how I might be able to delegate and get so much done, because it is a question that comes up quite a lot.

So now that I've got my Teamwork sorted from a project management system, my calendar—I know what's happening today. Downloaded all the emails. I can see the different things that are happening. We do have a very large group traveling in a couple of days' time—250 people going away on a conference—so I am mindful that the last two weeks prior to any event or conference, it feels like there's a lot of chaos that happens.

There's a lot of extra questions that come up. A lot of the clients just starting to read their documentation now, so they're asking last-minute things. If there's any changes that need to happen—people are finding passports or identification doesn't match, or whatever it might be—we are just sorting all of that out, and that is in the last two weeks. I generally find from a group perspective, the chaos happens. So I do try and clear as much free time around that to allow that opportunity to pop up, because it always does.

So today, for me, I've got a team check-in happening very shortly—just making sure that all of our final emails are prepared and ready to go for our group and scheduled as well, just doing any final checks over those. That's all to be happening in the next 48 hours, as well as our return emails.

One thing that we're talking about inside the Achievers this month is around testimonials and gathering feedback. I want to make sure that the questions that we are asking our delegates and asking our clients are going to be appropriate for our niche and what we do. It is something that I have spoken about on other podcasts and also inside our Achievers Mastermind as well.

So I'll just be finalizing those details. I need to have a content meeting with the team because it's not just the travel business that we create our content for. It's also Travel Agent Achievers. And there are many different moving parts—from the podcast to emails and, of course, blogging, social media, what the themes are for the month, our guest experts. Who have we got coming on? Do I need to prepare for any guest sessions on the podcast as well? Lots of different moving parts.

So we're having a content meeting around that. A lot of videos as well for our travel business, and so I'll have a meeting with my husband, who's a videographer as well, later today. He's prepared a number of scripts for me for our upcoming conference at sea, so we'll be going through that.

I also am expanding our team, and so our office needs to expand. A new project that I'm working on—Travel Agent Co-Pilots—where I'm able to support you, our Travel Agent Achievers members, and anybody who is looking to get support staff in the Philippines. I am expanding our office, so I've got a meeting around that and looking at when that will all be happening, as well as just travel updates.

What's happening in the email inbox with our suppliers? Is there anybody that I need to get back to? Is there anything that I need to flag? I've also been looking at all of that already this morning.

Now I just wanted to give you some insight into our travel business because I think it's really important for us as travel professionals to have a system and a process with our days. And for me, if we don't have sales, we don't have a business. I say that time and time again to you guys here, but I also say it to our team as well because we need to ensure that we've got the bookings coming in, we've got the sales there, so that everybody is in a job, but we're also doing what we love too.

The first thing that we always do as soon as our day starts is check the accounts—receipt anything that needs to be receipted—and make sure that the accounts are handled, because our accountant wants to, you know, do his job too. So that needs to be done.

The second thing that we always check is—Is there anything urgent happening? Have there been any urgent calls that have come in that I needed to handle straight away? Any emails that a client might be traveling or there's an issue that's come up that we need to jump on straight away. So anything urgent. And this is also where I take the opportunity—if I need to speak to anybody on a different time zone—I can do that straight away. So that always happens first thing in the morning.

The third thing that then happens is sales. Now, I haven't talked about admin yet. I haven't talked about getting back to our clients with receipts. It is honestly now down to the sales, and this is when the brain is also fresh. I find first thing in the morning, so if there are quoting things that need to happen, if there are big emails that need to happen, to go back to clients with updates on certain projects or events, or if I've got to put together some extra contracts—big things that work with sales—that happens first thing in the morning.

Up until lunchtime, that is the main focus. We're getting all of that done. Anything to do with sales—getting bookings in, making sure that our clients are happy—all happens then.

I often find that the afternoon the brain is a little bit lazier for me, and I need to take a bit of a brain break. So in our travel business, that's where I always say to the team—this is where you are responding to emails, you're going back with receipts and anything else that you need to send to a client, documentation—it all happens in the afternoon.

We want to ensure as well when we're working on our sales in the morning, getting that information out to clients so that they can make a decision from lunchtime onwards. If we need to be ticketing flights by the end of the day, you have to give your clients the opportunity to read or to go through their emails or to have a conversation or to make decisions, instead of just dumping it on them of an afternoon and expecting that they're going to work around our timeline.

So I am very mindful of the client. I am always putting them as the first thing. But what can I do to allow us the best opportunity to get those sales and bookings in?

So that's how we run our day in general. Number one: accounts.
Number two: anything urgent—clients that are traveling or issues that are coming up.
Number three: sales.
Fourth thing, after lunch, is getting back to clients with general emails, sending out receipts and those sorts of things that have happened in the morning.

So I hope you find that helpful. I am now going to jump into my day, look at the team check-in, find out what's going on with them, what do they need from me, and get into our sales as well. I'll talk to you soon.

Well, I'm back, and it's now just after two o'clock. The day has absolutely flown as I expected it to, with so many moving parts.

So where we're at now—Jackson and his little mate have gone off to the movies. I'm about to head off and pick them up. But now I'm looking at all the things that I have done.

And as I said this morning—going through Teamwork, making sure that our team was all good, our project management, the calendar, emails—how's everything going? Well, emails are still coming in. We get that, right? You guys get that. I get that. It happens all day, every day. But I do feel as though we're on top of it at the moment and getting back to everybody just super quickly because they're all traveling in the next couple of days. So I want to make sure that we are taking action on those and the clients are getting a super timely response because they're getting quite anxious about the trip themselves.

So I've had a catch-up with an Achievers Mastermind member. I love that. It absolutely fuels my soul as to what they're working on, what they're doing at the moment, what their plans are for the future, and any challenges that might be coming up for them.

Voxer is the tool that I use in my business to communicate with my team all day, every day. It's like a walkie-talkie app. I have it on my phone, but I also have it on my computer as well. I'm able to verbally chat with my team. When they hear that, they can reply to me, and we can converse either via texting each other in a way like that or also via voice message.

For me, I prefer to be able to voice message my team. Then they can understand it, listen to the message and come back to me by typing their message out. It's purely because I find that I work much faster when I'm able to read messages than to sit there and wait for them to tell me what they need to tell me, which can take a lot longer. So Voxer has been going absolutely off today.

We've had a couple of issues with our travel clients. Somebody was denied a visa traveling out from the US to Australia, which is gut-wrenching. And I know that when you're looking out to undertake a trip—and this is where we have to stop for a moment and put ourselves in our clients' shoes—I just had to take a moment with them and be on the phone, be available, hear them out, and then work through the plan.

This is also where I know, as travel professionals, our value really comes into place because we can navigate a whole lot of different systems at once, but we also know what needs to be done.

So for me, I was able to have a look at all the things that were booked, get in contact with the people that I needed to get in contact with, and let them know that, you know, these people weren't able to attend. What were our options? Could they do anything? Do we need to cancel? Any chance of refunds? Changes, etc., etc. Making sure that the clients have got their travel insurance in place, if they need any documentation. But really, just to be empathetic with them, because sometimes this is just completely out of our control.

We don't know where decisions are coming from, and that's okay. We have to abide by the laws and the rules of the countries that we are leaving from and going to. So we've had that issue this morning where the client was denied the visa, and we've worked through that process. That is all okay at the moment, and we'll continue just to monitor that, and I'll check in with the clients over the next couple of days.

I've also been able to firm up some extra meetings as I travel to Sydney for my group experience with a couple of suppliers that I really need to connect with and catch up on some group experiences over the next 12 months as well.

So that's where I'm at. I'm looking forward to checking in in the next couple of hours. Bye for now.

Well, it's almost five o'clock here now. The day has absolutely flown, like I feel like every day does. As business owners, we are juggling many different things, and today is no dissimilar to any other day—working on things day after day after day.

So as I wrap up now for the day, I can hear the door opening, food's coming in the door, we've got all sorts of other life admin and just life in general happening. There's a number of things that I've been working on over the last few hours.

One of the things has been AI tools. Google has released something new. I'm checking it out. This is what our Achievers Mastermind guys will start to hear more about. We are doing work with AI to support us and help us in our business, as well as getting support and assistance from team members as well.

You guys will hear more about that in the next couple of months too. As I work behind the scenes, I'm currently helping some advisors with support staff in the Philippines, bringing them into my own office and team there as well, so that we can support them and help others grow. I just love all of that.

So I've been confirming and scheduling emails this afternoon, including welcome home emails for our group that are traveling this weekend. I really love to be able to get ahead of this and prepare and plan as much as possible.

I do like to get the welcome homes and the pre-departure emails done fairly close to the actual experience because stuff always changes, and if I'm able to be as close to those times as possible—rather than preparing these months out—I know that I can also remain on the pulse and see what's actually happening within the group chats.

How is everybody feeling? Are they anxious? Are they nervous? Are they excited? And I can then prep any of that information into my emails either before we actually go on the group experience together or when they come home, I can also just adjust things slightly.

So we've got all those confirmed and scheduled, making sure that everything is ready to go. I've also been able to confirm a speaking opportunity this afternoon for Travel Agent Achievers. I've confirmed some more podcast guests, which I am thrilled about.

One of them I'll be meeting with—or actually, two of them—I'll be meeting with in a studio next week and doing a video podcast, as well as the audio for you. Some absolute powerhouses there that are coming along. Doing the research, preparing all of these things.

It takes time, but I find that in the afternoon, this is where I might have several different projects on the go at once across several different businesses, as well as all the things that happen in my personal life too.

But this is the time of an afternoon that I can segment, sort and organize—see, I can't even speak properly, it’s the afternoon—sort and organize.

I've been having that problem lately. I'll talk more about that another time too—just converting all of my words, sorting and organizing and just getting things clear for the following day and the time ahead.

If I am able to finish projects, meet with my team at the end of the day, check in with them, see what we are waiting on, what we're delayed on, what might be holding us up, where are we missing some things—and we can finalize as much as possible.

This sets us up perfectly for the next day, and the next day, and the next day. But it also helps us move forward in our projects, and we work towards a yearly goal.

Just like I talk to our Achievers members about—we have our 90-day action planning sessions as well—and all of this is helping just to move forward.

So there are times that I feel as though we haven't accomplished very much, but we have done the pieces that need to get done to complete the bigger project. I'm always beating myself up going, “I need more time. I wish I could do this.” There's all these other things that I want to do.

But that comes back down to the planning, the organization, and the structure of exactly what I'm doing in my business on a day-to-day basis and the planning and looking forward.

I have a huge yearly planner calendar on my wall in front of me. I have my goals to my right-hand side here as well, so I know what I'm working towards. My day-to-day is structured so well that I can have the project management system for my team and I to collaborate together and work on things, but I also have my own list, and I have my own calendar in front of me so that I know on a day-to-day basis just what's happening.

There's a lot, but I don't ever feel as though it's too much, or I would change things, or I want to do things differently. I am so happy in the work that I get to do, the experiences that I get to create as a travel professional. But also I am so full with energy, and my cup overflows and my heart explodes when I see advisors in this industry really take action, that learn, that implement, that want to move forward, that want to try something different, that really want to explore what it's like and then do the work to set their travel business up exactly as they want to and have the life around it that they deserve, desire, and have always dreamed of.

That is what I hope and love and dream for with Travel Agent Achievers, and I am so thrilled that you join me on this journey every single day, every single month—when the podcast episodes come out, when you see me at an event and you come and say hi—I love that. Please continue to do that.

I will be at the ASTA Conference in Salt Lake City in May. I cannot wait to see as many people as possible. Please come and say hi to me if you see me, and I will certainly love to sit down and have a chat with you about your travel business.

There are many things that are coming here in all the things that we do. Most importantly though, if you are thinking about working on your travel business and you might be saying to yourself right now, “Ros, I do not have the time.” This is your moment to actually take the leap of faith, invest in yourself, back yourself and say, “I am going to do things differently. I do want to change.”

Make sure you join the Achievers Mastermind. The success that happens within that group—the people that are part of it—my absolute world. I love seeing their day-to-day success but also the challenges.

We all walk the journey together, and I am able to share my business knowledge and background, but also that of some incredible guest experts. I get to share the knowledge, implement with everybody, but also guide you on this journey and help encourage, mentor, and promote you wherever possible as well.

So make sure you join the Achievers. We'll add links to all of the things that I've spoken about today inside the show notes for you—so Voxer and Google Drive, all of the tools and resources that I use in our travel business.

And that's just from a business perspective—we use Travefy, we use Tramada, we use Galileo, all of the travel things that you guys do as well. I work with the same suppliers as you as well. I do the same training that you do.

This is about your business.

So now you've seen a day in the life of Ros and what I do behind the scenes—not just for me and my family, but also for the things that we do in our business. There's always more.

If you've got specific questions or you want to know more about the different areas and how I do juggle the different businesses, please reach out to me. Send me a message. Comment on this video and the podcast assets wherever you see them. Ask me the questions. Come and see me at an event.

And thank you to those advisors that have challenged me to put this out there into the world and get to share a little bit more of behind the scenes and the day in the life of Ros.

Have an awesome day ahead, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye for now.