4 Phases of Being a Travel Entrepreneur

Welcome to another episode of the Strategic Travel Entrepreneur. My name is Rita M. Perez, and I am the chief connector here at Take the Helm. And I connect you to some of the best resources out, both in our travel industry and outside of the travel industry that help empower you to take the helm in your travel businesses again. Welcome back to the episode. Doing things a little bit differently, obviously. So I don't have the. The big major intro on, but let's just, like, dive into this week's episode.

And that is all about something that I have been. So this is, like, a very preliminary, I guess, findings of something that I've been trying to take a couple of months to kind of look back and pinpoint, because I think there are. Well, not that I think I've seen this. Working with entrepreneurs both inside and outside of the travel industry, and especially inside the travel industry, there are kind of four phases of business that people kind of go through. And those four. I was like, is there a fun acronym that I can create to kind of, like, help people remember this? And the only thing that I can think of is freega, which stands for, like, the initials of each of these four phases. And I'm not even sure if I'm totally sold on that and the names of these four phases, but I would even say that I would break up the four phases into kind of two, like, main phases. And again, like, kind of bear with me here, because this is like, I'm.

I'm trying to develop this. Like, I want to have a webinar at some point to dive in a little bit deeper. So I see the first two phases as kind of, like, startup phases. And I think a lot of us are still in this phase because we've been trying to do things that are on the second level, which I would call, like, the experience level, because I think all the gurus are telling us to do certain things, but we have not mastered the foundations first, so we're a little bit stuck. Also, we've been living in a pandemic for the past two years, and so many of us were moving forward into the more advanced stages of being in this travel business, and now we're finding out that we are still stuck on the startup level. And I don't even want to say that that's, like, a wrong thing, because I think, like, it's been really good and really good evaluatory period, if that's even. If I can even, like, utilize that as a word, to do a lot of the things that needed to get done, especially during the somewhat of a down period. Many of us are still a little bit down, especially with this recent variant.

I know for me, December, like leaving December, coming into the new year, things were looking really high, really positive. And then Omicron hit us and now I'm back. Now I'm back. Now I'm back down again. I know many of you guys can relate to that. So what are these four phases? So the F and I have been wondering if I should even make this a phase, but I feel like the F has so many things involved in it because F, it's not going to shock you too much, but F stands for foundations. And there are a lot of foundational things that have to happen as we're starting our travel businesses. And I think a lot, because it wasn't taught.

When I started this Travel Business in 2010, things like this weren't talked about. We didn't talk about branding. No one mentioned about that. Picking hex codes as your colors and sticking with certain fonts so that everything could be uniform that you put out there. No one talked about that. No one talked about legal agreements like they talk about legal agreements now. No one talked about having like certain processes and SOPs that you can kind of like rinse and repeat, which kind of goes into my next phase. But.

But these things weren't widely talked about. And I think a lot of these things, people are kind of getting into their bandwidth now as well, the foundational elements. So once you have kind of secured or solidified all or most of your foundational elements, then it's time to do the R and the R. For me, it's a double R because, well, you know, the double R, it's the rinse and the repeat phase. I don't think there's any solid word out there that can define this, but this is the rinse and repeat phase. You move from foundations to rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat are things that we have to be doing consistently to make sure that we are getting that consistent income. That means that you are talking to other people about your business.

You are trying to get as much exposure to your business so that you have a big group and big pool of people who are interested in your business or know about your business, because they might not immediately utilize you, but they might know somebody else who might be able to utilize your services. That is all what the rinse and repeat is. It's really talking about your business getting clients, keeping clients, doing it all over again. This rinse and repeat cycle, and I think this is the part that is really missing from the conversation as far as so strategies on how you are acquiring these people. And I know it sometimes sounds really simple, but I think also this is why I created the bingo for your travel business. Because these are so simple and these are, I feel like little tasks that we check off quite constantly, but we're not holding ourselves accountable to doing them and we're not seeing actually all the action that does take place in this very foundational, what I call one of the startup phases, the rinse and repeat. You got to sell the travel and do it again and sell the travel and do it again. So that is the second phase.

The third and the fourth phase I haven't solidified. And that's why I'm like, I'm not sure if the acronym FRIGA is going to work right now, but it's going to work for the time being since I haven't developed this full webinar yet to kind of like really dive deep. The third phase I'm naming as grow. And I say that because some other names that I've had and you probably heard in this phase are really scaling your business. That's a big hot button word right now. I wanted to do something different in ascending because you are ascending to the next level. But I think grow kind of stands in there too. Because the other thing is that I have noticed that we're not so things that we don't talk about in the travel business, that everybody has a unique business because everybody has unique needs.

And when we, when I start talking about grow, not everybody is going to need the same tactics to grow like somebody else might because of those goals and the goals of where somebody wants to be and what they want their life to look like and what kind of income they really need. So, and that's kind of like what I would identify as differences between the first two phases and the second two phases is that the first two phases we all have to do the same things to kind of stay in business. But when we're getting to the second two phases, it skews a little bit different. There's some things that we have to do the same, but there's some things that we have to do differently because of how we want our businesses to be. Like, maybe we're okay with getting $500 commissions and we want to be working 60 hours a week, but maybe you only want to have four figure commissions and you only want to work 30 hours a week. Both of those are okay. If it works in your life for your family for whatever you have going on, it is okay. And no one should make you feel like less than or more than because you're doing business one way or the other.

So what I see, kind of like the key things that are happening in this grow phase is that you're wanting to grow your business a little further, but there's only so much that you can do yourself. And hopefully in that rinse and repeat phase, you have started adding systems to help automate a lot of your processes. And then so here, when you're in your grow phase, you're really thinking a little bit more strategically, and you really have that CEO hat on even more, thinking a little bit more big picture. And you're able to hire on additional help or use additional tools to get you to the next level and making sure that you're using your time wisely. So, moving on to the first phase, I'm calling this right now Ascend. I think this is the Ascend phase. But again, don't hold me to it. Other names that I've kind of like pinpointed for this phase are evolve and adapt.

And that is really when you have taken on the CEO hat. And I want to let you know that while each of the phases, there's kind of like less things to do at each of the phase, or less different things to do, each phase has its own set of problems and issues. And just because there might be less things to think about once you get higher up in the phases, that does not mean that there aren't problems or issues that arise. There's just different problems or issues that arise and you have to deal with them a little bit differently. But you have the foundations of each step before that helps build and helps you to make decisions. And as you're like really getting into the CEO role, however, that CEO role looks for you. And this means that you're really streamlining a lot of your processes. And this is where I'm like, I have trouble identifying because I see some people wanting to grow a team and having a large team, but some people in their CEO role, they don't like.

Maybe they have an assistant, maybe they don't have an assistant, or maybe they've been able to grow so lean utilizing automation and processes, they don't need to hire an assistant. Even though I feel like you probably do need to subcontract some items out. Even if you do want to be lean, and if you don't want too much help or like too much business, I don't think that you can, like, really totally do this business 100% by yourself if you don't have some sort of help. So whether that's contract employee or like seasonal type roles, that's, that's CEOs aren't doing it all themselves. Especially when you look at the big like Fortune 500 companies, they have a huge team under you, but that may not be what you want. You might not want a large team, but that is also why you set up the foundations and in the previous phases so that when you do need to eventually hire out help, you're able to give them your standard operating procedures, access to the processes or actions, access to the tools that you use so they're able to, it's easy for them to just slide in and get to the flow of your organization without you having to train them. So, um, this is a lot about stream, even more than streamlining processes, but really strategizing and even like going back to the rinse and repeat phase being strategic with the type of work that you take on. And I definitely see why.

I kind of see like in the grow phase where you're kind of like, okay, I do not want to sell cruises anymore because there's no money in cruises. And I'm, this is not, I'm not saying this because my business is primarily cruises. I'm saying again, each travel business owner has a very individual and unique needs. So maybe they aren't making as much money with cruises as they are with luxury safari fits or whatever it be. And so yes, so there's a lot of long term planning and you are the visionary and you're creating connections so that the team who is now underneath you or supporting you is able to do their jobs. So that makes me think also too of somebody that, and you may have heard of her, she's huge in like Instagram and YouTube marketing. Her name is Vanessa Lau. And I have been watching Vanessa Lau for a couple of years, like when she first started to the huge CEO role that she takes on now.

And she actually had like a report come out of how things went for her last week or last week last year. And one of the biggest observations that I took from her and I think it's hard for us as business owners also to kind of unless like you've been in the trenches like she has been, to really get this and click. But once you kind of like hear it, it's like, yeah, yeah, that just kind of makes sense. And she was hiring for roles throughout last year that she didn't need. She thought that she needed this was part of like her evaluation of how last year went. And it was a client experience roles when she really need, sorry, when she really needed business operations roles. And those business operation roles were going to free up more of her time than a role similar to what client experience is. And her, her kind of perspective on that is that as the CEO, she needs people on her team that she can rely on to make decisions who really are experts in their individual fields.

And so she had to let go of a couple people in this client experience so that she could get stronger people to help her even move forward and revolutionize her business. And I just think of that and I it was like, wow, it was very impactful. For me that has been both on like working on corporate side, but also being an entrepreneur that as a business owner she was able to identify too that the people she needed on her team was, were smarter than what she is in the aspects that she needed help with. And she owned that. And she was totally comfortable hiring people with those skills necessary because she could no longer spend time on those tasks because those tasks were getting her mind and her focus away from where it really needed to be focused on, which is meeting new people to see what things that they can try out for the future that would be beneficial for the business and moving her business forward and keeping the momentum up in her business. And that's where I say each phase is going to need, I'd say even like a different mindset, but there are different problems that come with each phase and you have to be prepared for it. One, by making sure all the foundations of each phase is done, taken care of, so that as you're moving along it's a little bit easier for you to identify this. And not saying that it's going to be like totally smooth sailing, but you just have put.

It's kind of, it's kind of like what the cruise lines are doing now to help combat Covid on their ships. They're putting in lots of barriers so that it doesn't happen. It doesn't mean it's not ever going to happen. But they're putting lots of barriers and that's what's setting yourself up for success on each of the phases kind of means and signifies to me. So again, we're going with FRIGA as the acronym for the phases of your travel business and that's foundations. Rinse and Repeat, Grow and Ascend. So I have very specific tasks that go along with each one of these. And I again, I want to solidify this so I Can put on a webinar, present the information of kind of like what I've noticed are common things that happen at each of the phases.

When I look at business owners who are each in each of these different phases and kind of what happens, because I want to unlock that. I feel like a lot of this business, we're so like hush, hush, like, oh, I don't want them taking what I'm doing or I don't want them to have the edge on what I'm doing. And I can see that being like happening for certain things. But I feel like sharing this information with everyone just helps us as a travel industry just become better and stronger and helps us really fight together when we are getting that constant negative media attention. And hopefully this helps you also take a look at some of the processes and how you're running your business. And you can start tweaking based on what you need the most. So if it is that you really need clients because you really need to be making money, maybe you're not so much focused on documenting your processes right now, or maybe you've decided to take this month off like I know many travel advisors have. And so you're not focused on getting clients right now.

So you do need to focus on solidifying your processes so that when you do like kind of put your open sign back on, you're ready and rinsing and repeating there. I think rinse and Repeat really is my favorite phase. Just because it is so foundational and you just got to do it. You just got to meet people, tell them about your business, start selling travel, do it again. Make sure you're taking care of them. Do it again. So I think rinse and repeat is definitely a favorite. But let me know what do you think of these phases? Do you think I've kind of like pinpointed some accuracies? Would you say that there's some discrepancies to these four phases? Foundations.

Rinse and repeat, grow and ascend. Would you add a fifth? I don't think I would add a fifth phase, to be quite honest. I have thought of foundations being like a pre phase, but again, I think there's so much stuff that has to be done in foundations that I think it really is a solid phase in itself. So. And that's if you are looking for some of the things that have to be done in these phases. That is why I created the collaborative. It is a monthly program. I get a bingo board set up for you and we play bingo for our travel business.

And that means that we have a bingo board with actions that should be happening every month and it doesn't mean you should be doing all of these actions, but it gives you kind of like a nice solid target for where you should be going. So I give away monthly prizes if you get at least one bingo a month and then you're entered for an extra drawing. If you're sharing something that you took action on that was really helpful and you think other travel business owners should know about. So if you are interested in getting like right now actions that you should be taking in your travel business, please this is your invitation to join us inside of the Take the Helm collaborative. The information will be in the show notes that you can join and it is just $11 a month because I know times are tough one and I know you need to be making other investments in your travel business. So I wanted to be this to be super low cost, get you holding yourself accountable, get you like even tracking some of the things that you're doing and really focusing on doing that rinse and repeat consistently in your business but also, you know, having fun and collaborating with other people in our travel businesses. So that is everything that the collaborative is about. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to send them my way.

I hope you have enjoyed this very high level overview of my four phases of being a travel entrepreneur and and again I welcome any feedback. If you are in the Strategic Travel Entrepreneur Facebook group, I will go ahead and pop a question up in our group so that we can talk about these phases and what you're thinking about them. Alrighty. You guys have a wonderful week. If you are new here, please make sure to subscribe. If you have enjoyed listening to the podcast, please make sure to give us a rating and review on Apple Podcast and have a fantabulous week. No matter what you're taking action on.