Hey, it's your travel industry best friends, Robin and Jen from TIQUE. We're obsessed with practically anything that touches your business and allows you to scale to the level of success that you've always dreamed of. With Robin’s background in sales and marketing, and Jennifer's experience as a management level HR professional, we grew a small itinerary creation company into a multi-million dollar travel agency, and now we aim to help others skip the hard stuff and get right to the big wins. We're probably recording this with a glass of wine in hand, so pour one up with us, grab a seat, and join us to talk about all things travel and business.
Jennifer: As travel advisors, it's easy to believe that you need to be on call all the time and that you can truly never take a day off. If you know us, you know that we are big on boundaries and we simply don't prescribe to the philosophy that advisors have to hustle and grind 24/7 to become successful in their business. In fact, we think that by setting boundaries, you become viewed as more professional and respectable by your audience.
Today we are discussing how you can prepare to take a real vacation or go on a FAM and feel like you can be fully present. By the end of this episode, we hope to empower you to take back your time, while also feeling confident that your clients are fully taken care of while you're away.
Robin: OK, so let's dig in. Just to be totally transparent, this may feel a little bit more like a checklist than anything else, so use this as you will. But before we go into our timeline to help you prepare for going out of office, we just wanted to share a few examples of how we failed in preparing to go away and when it actually works.
So, I think this was back in 2019, but we went on an eating Italy trip. It was a group tour, and me and Jen went through various parts of Italy. It was amazing. So much fun, however, I was using a wholesaler at the time. I hate when people don't really tell you who they used because like as travel advisors you want the skinny on all the suppliers, I think. So, I was using Avanti. I have nothing bad to say about Avanti. This issue was kind of just mismanaged all the way around. I'm sure there were definitely things that could have been done on my end, as well. But I was working with them and one of my clients, their flights got so messed up, and they were trying to work it out, which again, when we send travel documents, I always want to empower my clients to take control of their trip and just be super upfront that there's things that I can help with, and then there's things that it's going to be a lot better if they go directly to the source. So, they were empowered in that email to help adjust flights. However, they couldn't because the booking was tied in some weird way. So, it was this huge catastrophe and it ended up being okay, they ended up being happy with their trip. It was an amazing Scotland itinerary, I think. But it just put me in a pickle because all of a sudden I'm in a different time zone, they're trying to leave for a trip, the 24/7 help was not helping, and so it was a lot of things all compiled into one instance. Then on top of that, my sister was in the process of flying to Rome and her flight, she booked direct, but they were also a mess.
So, it was just like we're having a final wrap up dinner on this beautiful rooftop overlooking the, I think it was the, not the Vatican, where were we, the pantheon,, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's where it was. Yeah, we were overlooking the pantheon, so it was gorgeous, and it was one of our final days together. And instead of actually being present in that dinner, I was like spazzing out, trying to ensure that this client was finally set up for success and they could get off to their destination the next day. And then dealing with my sister's issues with flights, because I mean, you know if you're family and if you're a travel advisor and your family has travel issues, all of a sudden they think you can fix them for them when you cannot. So, it was just, it was so much, and I feel that issue really showed me the preparations to do on the front end, and I would have preferred going back to it now, a better, like preparing to go out of office checklist. I reached out to let people know I was going to be in Italy, but I didn't give them as much information as I think I could have about their specific trips and then also making sure that I was leaning on suppliers who had a better handle on processing in-destination hiccups, I guess. I'm not really sure. I think it just kind of showed you need to work with suppliers who also help you look like a rock star.
Jennifer: I mean, we're not even going to touch on this in our checklist, but it exemplifies that sometimes a DMC may be able to help a little bit more than a wholesaler, and not all relationships are the same. So, that's one of the biggest things we look at now, especially as we started our business, we were using primarily wholesalers. In fact, I don't think we were ever using DMCs and so that shift is something that has definitely changed the dynamic of being able to prepare to go out of office for me and I'm going to allude to that in my example as well.
My example comes from a little bit of a flight issue as well, even though it wasn't my fault. The client booked their own flights and then they also disregarded all of my notifications for making sure their passport was up to date. So, I think we can all relate to that. We've all had a client that has not had their passport and all of a sudden, you know, it becomes our issue. So, she let me know ten days before, I got her connected with the congressman, everything like that. And when it came down to two days before, she let me know that she was actually going to now be flying out of Miami, because the next morning she was going to go get her passport in person and then meet her family in the Amsterdam airport on their layover. Well, of course, you know, best laid plans. What happens to those? She did not make that connection. She ended up missing the connection and luckily I had worked with an in destination DMC. They were able to, instead of her getting on the ferry that she was supposed to get on that day, of course, she missed the ferry because she got in much later. They found her a private boat to get to Korcula, and they took her directly from the airport on a transfer, to the private boat, got them to Korcula same day, and I woke up and was none the wiser because they hadn't even called me. She had been working direct with the DMC and I didn't have to fix anything.
Realistically, I know that wholesalers aren't always in a position to find a local boat company to fill in the blanks there. So, that really reiterated to me like, okay, that's especially when I don't have the connections in destination like maybe I do for Italy, more so, Croatia is simply not the place that I have a lot of connections. I would have never been able to facilitate a backup plan. So thinking about, okay, who could I actually create a backup plan with, and utilizing that supplier, I think is the foundation of being able to go out of office and not have as much stress as you may.
So, that's an example of when it went right for me, but I will say, I've definitely been on the other side where, you know, I'm taking off for my honeymoon to Italy and I'm still trying to chug out proposals while being present, and you just can't do both. There are so many times that I think we've compromised our own sanity and peace to try and be everything. to everyone, and unfortunately in this industry, and this is why Robin and I are so passionate about this is, we see that there is this overriding philosophy in travel that you have to be on demand for all of your clients at all times. And that's not any other industry. Why us? Why do we have to do that? Why can we not step out of office? Why can't we have a real vacation? And it's almost like, there are advisors that wear this grind as a badge of honor, instead of saying no I protect my peace, I put in boundaries, I have a backup buddy, I have a plan, and we're here. That's the whole point of today. So, I don't wanna ramble on too much about that because we're going to get into this whole preparatory checklist that can hopefully save your sanity. But it can go very wrong, and it can go so, so, right. So, first and foremost, before we get into the checklist, is make sure you're vetting your partners properly, and that comes, Robin mentioned this before we even started, she's like that's really trial and error. And it's so true, because you don't always know who's gonna show up until they have shown up. So when you have those good partners, really lean into them. But also that's why we have the Niche community. That's why we believe in, you know, collaborating with other people within our consortia, it's because. you want to be able to know who you can trust in the industry, plain and simple,
Robin: 100%. And I think if there is like one main take away aside from all the checklist items that are really good. But I think if there's one main take away, it's that you do deserve time off. We book travel and so normally that means that we enjoy traveling, but if you're only traveling for work or you then like start shifting and you're feeling that work becomes or traveling becomes like this feeling of work even when it is supposed to be a quote unquote vacation i would just mentally stay in tune with that, if that makes any sense. Mostly because everyone always, I've heard this before, that you should not do your passion for work because it takes the passion out of what you love. I don't believe that. I think the reason we're so good at our job, and the reason Tique has grown so much is because we're passionate about it. So I think there is a level that you do need to be passionate about this world, and this and traveling, and what it means to travel well and be a global citizen. I think that makes you a really good travel advisor. However, you do just want to understand that there is time and there is space and you can create that space to travel for leisure. So hopefully some of these items will help you do that.
So to dive right in, as soon as you do, and all of these items can be applied for a FAM opportunity, I know that FAMS are for working. However, FAMs are very strenuous. You're going from property to property, you're doing luncheons or sales meetings with staff, so it takes your time away. I always treated FAMs like an out of office where, yes, I'm technically going to be working, but I'm not going to be checking email, you know, 24/7 throughout the day. So I like to prepare people for that. And then this also of course is for when you truly go OOO and are going on a vacation.
So, as soon as you get those dates, I would add those out of out of office dates to your business calendar, whatever that is. Whether it's in Google, whether it's on outlook, add those dates to the calendar and then we also include in our business signature on emails, upcoming out of office dates where we're going, what dates we're going. So that no matter what, any e-mail correspondence with people, it is right there. Do people look at it all the time? Who knows, but at least you're dotting all your I’s and crossing all your T's.
After you add those dates to your calendar and your signature, I would, if you have the opportunity, identify somebody as a backup buddy. And Jen kind of introduced this when we were working with multiple agents under the Explorateur brand and I loved it because you want somebody to be there if things hit the fan. Again, when you're traveling and you know your cell phone is in airplane mode, or like you're going back and forth between properties and the service is unreliable. You never want that feeling of panic that arises when all of a sudden you do get service in your phone is like blowing up. So even having a backup, whether there's somebody inside of your host agency that you trust, or you know it's somebody on your team internally, like a virtual assistant, whoever it is, having that backup is paramount and it has been paramount for us to ensure that should something happen, there's somebody who can monitor it. Maybe they like, can't do all the things that you can do, but at least they're like a 24 hour touch point if you're not using in-destination support, I guess.
Once you identify that you're going OOO with them and they're okay with being your backup while you're out. I would place those dates on the backup’s calendar so that they are aware and then go into your calendly, or whatever sort of scheduling software you use to book intake calls or pre-departure wrap up meetings, whatever it is, and block those dates immediately. I think that's something people will sometimes forget, is that they'll add it to their main company calendar, but calendly is still active, and so people are booking sales calls with you. Which is exciting. And I always got nervous like rescheduling sales calls because I'm like what if they can't make any other time? So go ahead and block those up front, don't allow people to book for, I would say up to two weeks or so prior, just so that you guys like you can prepare for going out of office. There's a lot of stuff that does come up before departure. So be aware when you're taking those days off the calendar and give yourself a little buffer on the front end and the back end. And then if there's anything like a future calendar invite or anything like that, if they are on your calendar I would go ahead and decline so you're not even getting the notifications for them if they're not applicable to you. This could be like team meetings, this could be, you know, any sort of meeting, or what have you, that was on your calendar.
And finally, once those dates are secured, what I would do is if anybody comes to you and they submit your lead form and their dates are overlapping that date that you are out of office, I would pass that lead off to somebody else or decline that lead. We may not decline, but move them over, or send them off as a recommendation for somebody else to book. This again, this could look different for you because if it's a weekend and it's a quick trip to an all inclusive and you're only out of office for two days, I'm not going to decline a lead for that, that's fine. But now you're at this that I would say it would be more so for like I'm out of office for a week. I'm in Africa, I'm in Australia, I'm in really different time zones for an extended period of time. Because I know a lot of people, especially in the beginning, it's hard to decline leads or pass them off to somebody else. So use your discretion here and know kind of what your availability and stuff is going to look like and this could, you know, again vary based on how long you're out of office. All of that kind of stuff. But for quick weekend trips or an extended weekend trip, I don't know if I would necessarily decline, but this would be very good for when I went to Italy for five weeks, that that was an excellent time when I should have not been taking people traveling, but that's like also a huge chunk of time to avoid.
Jennifer: Yeah, when I first went on safari I did this whole checklist and I will say it worked to the T. The second time I went on Safari I was in a bind because one of my clients, I would have declined that trip, but they were a COVID reschedule and it's spring break and I had no control over their rescheduled dates. So I did have a backup buddy in place and it was perfectly fine. It ended up being fine, but they were calling me and texting me saying that they had just tested for COVID and I'm literally on the safari vehicle going out for a drive. What are you gonna do there? So the thing is, it's like how present do you need to be wherever you're going? And if that's to me, that's the question on a FAM. A lot of the time people are a little bit more understanding if you have an emergency because you're with people in the industry that get it. But if you're on honeymoon, if you're on a personal trip, it's just such a disruption to me to be in this once in a lifetime experience with someone special, whether it be friends, family, whoever it is. And then you have to get out of that, like, idyllic headspace and handle this situation so.
Robin: And it's also not fair to who you're traveling with. If it’s a husband if or you know a family member, that's ultimately not fair, and then it takes the way of traveling away from them and that's never anything I would want to be responsible for.
Jennifer: 100%.
So now going into one month prior. This is where you're going to start to push back a little bit more, the other things are Kind of passive things that you can put in place. So one month prior you're going to want to let all of your clients know, we have a template in TravelJoyWe send and it notifies our clients that I'm going out of office in one month, and it gives them the opportunity to schedule a time to speak. And this is everyone that's in the pipeline. I'm talking potential leads, people that have proposals in hand, booked clients, etc. It's everyone within your current scope and that way if someone does have a pending proposal, they know a timeline that they have to actually have that done by. They have to lock it in or they have to reroute, whatever that may be, but they now have a deadline that they have to abide by if it's a potential lead. They could even say I'm not ready to move forward or it might light the fire to move forward or it might say actually I don't think we'll be prepared by then could I be referred to someone else and just having that honest conversation creates a level of respect in the relationship, that I think is completely fair.
And then of course anyone that's booked. Now this seems so silly. People are like everyone that's booked, like even people ten months out? I'm like, yeah, even people that are ten months out. Because those are the people that you're gonna be taking off and you're gonna be on the tarmac and someone's gonna be like, I just noticed something wrong on our itinerary, and it's going to totally spin you out, because it's not time sensitive. They have no idea how time sensitive it is. And maybe it is time sensitive actually, depending on what the error is, but those are the things if you don't actually, send it. I feel like it always bites you, right?
Robin: It does. And I feel we say this a lot now. It's like a new catch phrase. Clear is kind. With communication and going out of office I would always rather over communicate. So people are like OK, it doesn't matter, who cares, rather than under communice, where it becomes like a dire situation. I feel like passports always have to do, it always has to do with passports, especially when the huge backlog was going on, which I'm not sure if it still is or not. You know, it's just you never want to be in that situation where you're not able to get back to somebody within 24 or 48 hours and then all of a sudden they're freaking out with no explanation for why. So it seems like overkill. I I don't think it is, and I don't think your clients will think it is because it shows that you're really attentive to their needs, and you care that they get responses in the time that you promise them.
Jennifer: I think it sets the tone too, you know, maybe someone just started working with you, they just booked, they don't have any previous relationship. And now they're like, oh, how thoughtful, she's going to be out of office and she wants to make sure I'm completely comfortable. It sets the tone that you're always going to create an opportunity for someone to set a meeting, but you're not always going to be available to just jump on a phone call, so it's teaching your clients without directly having to create that pushback in a moment where it may be less comfortable than it you want it to be. So, giving everyone the opportunity to set a time I think is perfect. And yeah, your calendar might look a little bit crazy that month, but I would rather have a crazy month before and be able to completely be present and have three margaritas without worrying who's going to blow up my phone then ever have to, you know, be stressed about something coming through.
Actually this happened to me, I was in Florence and we were at this amazing dinner, and this is so sad because every time I think about this dinner, I think about this incident. And that's the point, right there, is that I can think back on this beautiful dinner that my husband has a completely different perception of. And I had this just like. knot in my stomach because I got an email from someone who wasn't leaving for four months and said I need this handled tonight because he had a misunderstanding of something on his flight ticket. Of course we got it sorted out because that's what we do. We're travel advisors and we just fix. We're fixers. But to him, it was this most urgent thing. To me, it was interrupting this amazing dinner, and he didn't know that I'm six hours ahead of him at 8:00 PM at night. It's 2:00 PM for him in Florida. So I mean, those things can really derail you.
Communicating one month in advance and giving people the opportunity to set up a time to talk through it, even if it's just to recap it. I mean, I'm not a big fan of talking to talk, y'all know this, but if it's going to give me Peace of Mind while I'm traveling, I will talk for the whole day, a month beforehand. And then you are going to also, in that email to them, so this one month prior email, you're going to say, hey, I'm going out of office. I would even throw out where you're going because it might generate a lead if you're going to Italy, if you're going to South Africa, say I'm going to be out of office for this. I'm so excited. I will actually be checking out sites for my clients. I will not have email access or phone access during this time, but if you have an emergency you can contact XYZ, and that could be the vendor if that's appropriate for that situation, or if you have a backup buddy. And I know not everyone has a team, we know that, but there is probably someone in the industry that also needs a backup buddy. I feel confident that if you're listening to this you probably have a great accountability partner in the industry that you're like, I bet I could lean on them a little bit. So including their information in there and then including that Calendly link is just setting the foundation.
The next thing you're going to do one month prior is go ahead and get it all out. When it comes to your wrap up documents, I mean start, I say this with love, but start heckling those suppliers. Those DMC's this year have been like giving these to us two weeks out. But I would just be honest with them and say hey, I'm going to be out of office, I want to make sure that these clients are well prepared before I leave and I do anything within the month of my traveling. So even if it's two weeks after I'm traveling, three weeks after I'm traveling, if I can get my hands on those documents, you better believe I'm going to send them because I would rather have those wrap up calls before I leave then the day I get back from the trip, or worst case scenario, my flight gets delayed on the return. You just never know what's happening. Or they spin out and they're like, wait, you're going out of office right before I'm traveling? Then it causes this just like emotional tension.
So sending those wrap up documents with the loom video walkthrough, saves you some grief. Always do a loom video walkthrough of the entire itinerary, who to get in touch with, and of all the wrap up documents. I promise it will make your life so much easier, and then you're also going to want to go ahead and make sure that those wrap up documents include every detail that that client would ever need. So if you know they're gonna need a taxi to go to dinner, write that in their itinerary creation system, we use Travefy,I love it for that. Any notes that are logistical I always highlight because people miss those the most. Reconfirm the COVID requirements if at the time of travel, let's knock on some dang wood that there are no COVID requirements. Then of course include again in that email the backup contact as well as any possible DMC in destination or flight consolidator contacts, anything like that. And when you do that loom walkthrough, you're going to want to say I am going to be on a different time zone. If you're in trouble, I am going to be in travel, but here are your primary contacts. Of course, if there's an emergency, I absolutely want to know about it, but please know that I am going to have limited availability to help, and the reason that I am providing you with these points of contact is the same reason that I actually planned with them in the first place, was to give you the best support possible. And when you frame it like that, no one can say like you're passing me off on someone else, because you've intentionally set that expectation from the beginning, that you're partnering with someone that has the best possible interest in their success while they're actually traveling.
I think some people have a hard time with that. They have a hard time with like the white labeling concept. Like, I don't want anyone to know that I planned it through a DMC. I have no issue with that. I'm like, I have friends in it.
Robin: Yeah, I'm so transparent. I always say they're my boots on the ground. They're there to ensure that everything goes off without a hitch. And like the way that you say this and sales, the best way to say anything as you rephrase it is as a benefit for the client. Like yes all these boundaries, there are benefits for you. Like the backup, that's a benefit for you. But when you're saying these and like explaining all these like different things you have in place. You only phrase it as a benefit for the client. I wanna make sure you're feeling confident while I'm out of town. Like I want you to feel that somebody has your back if you're in an emergency. And I would also list out what is an emergency and what can wait. Some people don't know, like, I mean, some things can spin people out into that guy from Florida, or whatever that situation was, that was probably a huge deal for him. But like you know, maybe there is a place in that email that one month email like what is a time sensitive emergency for some examples of what we can easily tackle as soon as I get home. Clear is kind.
Jennifer: Clear is kind. So, now let's jump into two weeks prior.
Robin: OK, so two weeks prior. This is when I would stop taking new leads. So, I would pass them off. I would maybe even in your, if you get like an automatic response to a client inquiry, tailor that message in TravelJoy to say like as I prepare to go out of office, you can either choose to wait. I think some people, if they really want to work with you, they can either choose to wait when you'll be back in the office and then they have that choice or link somebody else. And like here is my colleague and so she is fabulous or he is wonderful at this and he's going to, you know, be taking any of my new inquiries up until this point. So discontinue taking leads. Pass them off. Be clear about when you're going to get back again. If people do want to wait, I've had people, they just really want to work with you. And of course you're a wonderful travel agent, so that could be a situation as well. But you want to make sure that they know that, like you're not working on any new leads from this point forward until you return on X date.
After that I would communicate with any pending leads or like proposals and give them an update and remind them on their departure date. Whenever I am sending proposals off to people, I am like bolding, underlining, pointing arrows to when quotes expire because like, you can't, in my mind you cannot just send somebody a quote because they, I mean you can only hold things for so long before they go back into the booking universe. So I'm always super clear about when things expire, but particularly for proposals as they lead up to the thing like hey, just a reminder, I will be going out of office on this date, so if you choose to move forward with this proposal, which you always hope they will. Please make sure that you get the initial deposit or you pay my deposit or pay my planning fee, whatever it looks like for you by this date and this time. Or else, you know we sacrifice or we maybe in an issue where we have to sacrifice this booking and I would hate for you to lose out on this amazing pricing or this amazing room category.
And then just again you always spin it back to them, like this is for you. So make sure that they know about those. Then you'll want to send any invoice reminders for unpaid final payments that are due during your travel dates. So here's one of the things that I started doing. With my invoices in my supplier invoices and travel joy, I always want to do due dates a week earlier than the suppliers due date and the reason that it's like kept running into all of these situations where people were like out of pocket, they were busy with their own lives, they were traveling, they were doing something. Hopefully they weren't traveling without me, but they were doing something and they weren't getting back to me on invoicing. And like, I know there's a slight grace period, but it always stressed me out, so I always would say to clients that the invoices due earlier than it was, just to make sure. You're never going to get in trouble for paying an invoice early, but you might get in trouble for paying invoice late. So, I always did it. Gave myself a little buffer room, but I would again if people you know it's due by a certain date. You're reminding them upfront and what that looks like for them.
Also sending those, if you do, welcome letters when people get to hotels or you know you're requesting like a VIP sort of situation or you're notifying the hotel or the property of your clients coming. You can choose to send those early. Something I always do is we use Gmail and Google for everything. So I will schedule send and make sure that anything, which now travel joy does, have supplier messages so you can send supplier emails I'm pretty sure throughTravrlJoy, which is amazing. But I would always schedule send those out via Gmail just because you can't do that back when I was booking travel, so I'll make sure to get all those ducks in a row, have those ready, and again if you have a CRM like a TravelJoy where you're able to automate tasks and schedule things out. Utilize that. That's going to be a really awesome resource for you while you are traveling because you know, like if somebody is arriving home while you're taking off, they're still gonna get that welcome home email and all of those things.
Aside from just clients, because you know if you have a team, there are things that you need to do to prepare your team as well. So if you have a VA or a marketing manager or a client experience manager, make sure that you're kind of giving them the lowdown on your out of office dates. I would create task lists and goals for the time you're out of office in the event that the workload gets lower. I know when I'm out of office, sometimes there's a little bit less to do because I'm not in the business thinking of things. So I would do or get together a like, you know, put together X amount of blog posts, send all passport and expiration reminders, follow up about birthdays for this month, thank you cards, whatever that looks like. A really good one is auditing all of your trips. You should definitely be auditing. I always put it in my calendar to audit trips monthly. At least for the trips that are going within the next two months. But it's a really good way and a really good task to get your VA, especially in the habit of auditing those details, making sure your birthdays are aligned, that the names are spelled correctly, that the dates on the ticket matched the dates and the itinerary of Travefy. There's like a whole thing.
I know we used to have an audit checklist, somewhere. Do we still have that?
Jennifer: We do, actually. Our audit checklist is in the Niche community resources, I think premium, but it is beefy. I mean, it goes through everything from flight seats, which I know not everyone assigned seats, but and I don't and I know you didn't, but at the same time, we got so many people that were upset that seats weren't assigned once they got to the counter. So we've actually started auditing to see if that person has assigned their own seats and then communicating with them in advance just to be like OK, clearly this person is relying on us. They haven't read the three emails that said to assign their seats. So just reminding them like, hey, we see that your seeds aren't assigned. It actually happened to me today. So this is real fresh. I'm like, Yep, you gotta call Lufthansa, you gotta get those seats assigned because. There's a payment associated with that in certain airlines and we're not going to necessarily be able to even book that even if we wanted to. They have to do it on their own.
So, yeah, I mean the audit checklist has saved us. It's real nitty gritty and it takes a long time. But I mean, I agree with you. I think it's totally worth it to do the next even like two months coming up because it just saves you from even feeling rushed to do that all over again for the upcoming trips.
Robin: Yeah, so much Peace of Mind. I would honestly add that into your like client booked checklist and travel joy. So it's like it comes up a month or two in advance to say like complete the client or the itinerary, audit checklist or whatever was it. Maybe even a link if travel will let you do that. I think it's a Google sheet that we did. But it's beefy.
Jennifer: So if you're a niche member, go grab that. It is amazing. Anything else about two weeks before?
Robin: No, I don't think so. I think two weeks is really just, it's where you engage, you get your ducks in a row, you want to feel good if you're struggling and it's like a day before departure, that's the worst feeling, like I packed the day before departure. You should not be doing travel stuff the day before departure. So, two weeks is when I'm really starting to think about the wrap up week before.
Jennifer: Wait a minute. OK, so you pack one day before?
Robin: I started getting in the habit. I literally can't do it anymore. I can't.
Jennifer:I don't even know who you are because like, I would envision that you have a Google sheet checklist that you're starting to like, build and work towards, and that you have like a rubber made like container store esque situation like starting to be built like two months or two weeks prior.
Robin: No. Am I damaging my brand by letting you know that I don't do any of that? Like I'm lucky to like have clean underwear sometimes before I'm hitting the road. So, I will pull things from my closet and put it in a specific spot, so I know to pack it in advance, but that's just like as I'm diddling around, that's not like I'm like in the know or like working through it type of thing.
Jennifer: We're not editing this out because I want the whole world now.
Robin: I know. People who like, have seen my resources and all my checklists that I've made, especially if you like, we just wrapped up AEA when at the point of this recording. So people were like, oh my gosh, you're so organized. And I'm like, you're right, I am, but there's certain things where I am not. I'm not a planner. I don't work in advance on trips, anything like that. It's very OK. I do know that. I do know you can ask Jen. I'm the worst travel client in the world.
Jennifer: But I think this is shocking because I create a checklist like a month in advance, and I actually even create a, I have a box in the corner that as I'm working towards the trip, I drop things that I know I won't wear again into that so that if I have to. I act like I have to, like, pick up and go the next day, just so I never forget something.
But I will say the one time that I did not do this thoroughly, I got a notification that my flight was canceled and then when I called global first, I'm going to give them the biggest shout out because they always solve my travel low problems, when it comes to flights. But I called them and they're like, alright, so we can actually fix this for you, but you're going to have to like get there within an hour. And I was like, it was for a trip for Ireland in the fall, so there's like all these different temperatures that you're going through. So I packed in 15 minutes for a seven day Ireland trip and I had only like put certain things. I left my heels and of course like you're in small towns, you can't buy heels but you're eating at these like beautiful places. So, now I will never not do it again. I learned my lesson. I veered one time thinking I could be cool and casual, and it turns out I cannot. I am just not. I'm not the cool and casual type. So, that's the one thing that I think I prepare for that now I know I have an edge on Robin. Everything else, definitely not.
Alright, so let's go into one week prior. You are going to speak of the devil. Create a checklist of final items to wrap up prior to your leaves. So this is when you're just kind of like brain dumping everything. Of everything that you just know you need to handle. So that's finance. So if you haven't gotten your statements too your bookkeeper. Get him over to your bookkeeper. If you have things lingering with clients, you have spa appointments, dining, etc. Make sure that you're making a really granular, itemized list of what you need to do before you take off. So none of that is popping in your brain and you're not having to deal with that while traveling.
Social media, if you are someone that always posts consistently, which we hope anyone listening to this obviously is, because you're marketing your business right, treating that business like a business. Get in Planoly and schedule your posts, schedule your stories, or queue up your stories, whatever you need to do so that your presence doesn't go interrupted while you're out of office. Because a lot of the time we are one person agencies, if you will. And so if you go dark for two weeks and you just, you know, fall off the grid. Then that could. I don't want to say that's noticeable. That's quite a vein comment to say like if we stop posting that people you know notice that we stop posting, but you always want to remain top of mind. And so if you can remain top of mind while you're traveling then why not do so?
And then lastly, if you do a certain newsletter at a definitive point of the month and you're gonna be traveling. Make sure you've got that queued up and scheduled, proofread, ready to go and communicate to all suppliers that you are going to be out of office if you have pending bookings with them. Not pending bookings, but pending proposals with them. Because they actually, I was surprised by this and the reason that we have this bullet here is because we had an advisor on the Explorateur team that said hey, if your clients have any questions about the proposal while you're out of office, just shoot them to me. And they made themselves available and I thought that was so interesting because usually that's not the relationship that a DMC is going to have, but they obviously had the best interest of the advisor and the client in mind. And we're like if this is going to get the deal done, let's just wrap it up with a bow. And if that means they have to reach out to me to submit that deposit, let's do the dang thing. And so I think reaching out to your suppliers and letting them know like I know this proposal is lingering, I just want to let you know I'm going out of office. I think it's one, a courtesy, but two, you may even be surprised by the help that they extend to you. And then lastly, of course, reminding your clients that you're going to be out of office.
So you've got that one month email that went out and then anything that is pending, you're just gonna keep reminding people as you get closer because, I know Robin mentioned, you know, two weeks prior, communicate to any pending leads. Well, if they haven't locked that up by Monday, you best believe I'm still gonna reach out and say, hey, just as a reminder, as of 2:00 PM on Friday afternoon, I'm not going to be able to continue with this proposal and it's most likely going to be timed out and there's not going to be the same availability when I get back. I think the biggest pushback that we get with this is if you are on a team of similar brand. So like the Explorateur team has multiple advisors, which people perceive as an employment kind of structure. And then people are like, oh, well, can I just work with someone else on your team? And they don't really understand the relationship of working with an independent contractor. So there may be some education you're going to have to actually impart upon that individual, and just say like no, I'm sorry, like once you start working with me, I don't have the availability. You can say I do have a backup buddy on our team for emergency purposes, but unfortunately they're not going to be able to handle any bookings, and you could say something like because they can't access my system, or something like that so that they just know what the boundary is.
Just kind of be aware there may be some educational components that go with pushing back on those clients and helping them to wrap up. But I swear there is nothing to light a fire on a pending proposal then saying you're going out of office. I feel like that's the highest sales month you possibly get is when you leave the office.
Robin: No for real. Yeah, everyone seems to want to book this that week.
Jennifer: That's true.Mean.There's no shame also in acting like you're going out of office if you have a lot of pending proposals. So here's your stamp of approval to go on a fake vacation if you need the lock up for the trip.
Robin: Or at least to get movement. Like, I mean, there's a lot of people I know who struggle with like, OK, they're not moving forward, but like, let me know. So I think even if they don't want to move forward, just say like this is gonna time out. If you're not interested, just let me know. That's totally fine. Like if this isn't the vacation for you, I just wanna make sure to keep it updated in my system on where you stand. Um, so I mean, that's always something too, because I know people will ghost, and I used to ghost when I didn't like something. So I would just, you know, maybe even make a blurb like if this isn't the correct trip for you or you need some edits, I'm happy to do that, but just kind of keep me posted on what your thoughts are either way. And I think that comes back to like creating a personal sales relationship with the person so that they feel bad about ghosting you.
Jennifer: Also, hopefully if you've collected a fee, they have a lot to lose by ghosting you. So there's that too.
But now we're at one day prior.
Robin: OK, so the day before, if you're like me, you're packing. If you're like Jen, your suitcase has been sitting there for two months now. But what I would do one day prior is I would make ny sort of notes inside of whatever your CRM platform is, of time sensitive items. So this could be, you know, things you need to make sure you do when you get back. Maybe you know somebody did schedule a calendly appointment with you and they're kind of stressed about this part of the trip. They want to rework this part of the itinerary that you made and it's not time sensitive. Now they're not traveling for three or four months, but you told them that when you get back you will make it a priority to get that back or if shuffled around or whatever you decided that needs to be done, make those notes inside of the CRM so that you're reminded when you get back into the office.
I would also meet with scheduled meetings, with your backup, whoever that contact is or the VA to give them any updates on accounts. Of course there's like you know, there's the wave of people either getting back to you or you're hearing nothing, but just make sure that you have a way of communicating where everyone is standing for them. Clear is kind. They can service you as fast as possible, but you need to give them all the information to be successful. So whether that's, you know, a Google sheet that you make that kind of gives them a blurb of each client profile who's active or you're adding a lot of notes, detailed notes into the section of their profile inside of the CRM, whatever works best for you. Just make sure they're aware of where to find that information and everything they need to know in order to service that person well.
So something note here is that if you do have a backup buddy and you're working in a CRM, that doesn't automatically kick them a response for submitting the form, which is weird, I think TravelJoy does not do this and that's a shame, but you can like request that they're like checking these new leads daily and sending them the Calendly link in the follow up so that they know once you are back in the office when they can book and kind of what to expect so that there isn't like a weird gap in communication where somebody submitting something and not hearing back from you at all. That's always uneasy for people.
And then you'll also want to update your auto responde, we are big fans of having auto responders on at all times, just so people you know can quickly get information that they need. But especially when you're out of office, of course you want an auto responder on your email account to follow up automatically when somebody emails you with any, like, relevant information, Calendly links to schedule a time to talk once you get home, whatever that looks like, or if they're like traveling while you're out of office like we have a blurb in our template, our TravelJoy template that where you can like list the main suppliers you work with. I think we have our core people who we booked the most with, so it's always helpful to at least put like emergency information or something in there, should somebody be in travel and freaking out too.
Then changing your voicemail. This is something I always forget. I have an automated voicemail and it's the worst. And so Jen, there's a script I think in Niche of what she uses for her voicemail. But then once you go out of office, it's great to use that voicemail as well if you have people who like to call you a lot or you give your cell phone out. I'm like not a fan of this, but if you do, give your cell phone out to people making sure that you're updating the out of office or the voicemail to be like an out of office notice on like, what to expect when you're coming home, how to get in touch with you if it's an emergency, stuff like that.
Jennifer: Awesome. So now the date of departure. You have one goal. It's to get to that airport wine. I’ll Always make good joke about um like what the best varietals of wine is.Excuse my grammar but they're but I always make a joke what the best varietals of wine are. And I have this whole categorization where it's like the like 5:00 PM wine, the airport wine, the check-in wine, like all of these things that are actually not varietals at all, but they just taste good. They could be the worst thing ever and they taste so good.
When you clock out, you get to the airport, you get to that hotel. Doesn't matter what it is, but that's the goal of date of departure, is get to that airport. For me anyways, and the only thing really to do this day that I would recommend is to do a trial and make sure that you're out of office responders are working. So, double check the details on your out of office responders. Make sure that it has your backup buddy, it has any relevant information. Ours is pretty detailed. In all honesty, I know that's probably not shocking for anyone, but it talks about how to submit a lead or how to submit an inquiry if you know you're reaching out and you haven't submitted an inquiry yet. If you're in travel, how to handle certain things. So there are literally different bullets addressing like in travel clients versus inquiring clients, as well as saying, hey, I'm going to be on Safari checking out properties for you and just again, kind of subtly advertising that you're doing something in travel really for the client, Wink, Wink, even though it's very much for us, we know that as well. But, do the the trial, make sure that that auto email is kicking off. Once you've confirmed that, set it up and step away. Order that airport mimosa cocktail, whatever it may be.
And just really that's when you have to let go. And I think this is where I have the biggest anxiety is like, so now I actually have to step away from my baby. And that's just not our nature. We are business owners. We're proud of what we do, but you can't pour from an empty cup y'all. So you have to step away. You have to give yourself the time, be present and enjoy being on a flight without having to log in and do the whole Wi-Fi connection thing and panicking if the Wi-Fi isn't connecting, because that's the life that Robin and I live. Our biggest trigger is when the Wi-Fi on a plane does not work when we were expecting to be able to be productive. So just take that time and actually pull out a book, listen to a podcast, be present with the people you're around. And that's the whole point of this checklist. And I know it's long, it's detailed, and you're thinking do you do all of these things. But yes, we do because, well, you'll know exactly why. Once you land and you actually get to be present with the people that you traveled with.
Robin: Yeah, I mean, rest is so productive. As a business owner, it really helps you. I don't know, burnout is so real in this society, especially in this industry. So rest is productive and you deserve rest. But, if you do it the right way, then you have less anxiety when you're resting, so you have a wonderful trip, whether it's a fam or, you know, an actual vacation which you deserve.
So, let's talk about what you do when you return. Of course you're going to want to review all those emails, and then I like to do typically, you know when you're out of office and you're truly out of office, not checking email because like your system is, if there's an emergency or VA is reaching out to you directly on like Google, what is it Google Voice or WhatsApp or whatever that system looks like for you. But when you get back, there's all those emails still in your inbox. So, I do a big old clean out. Before I'm traveling I try to get to my Inbox to zero always. So there should be nothing. I'm an inbox zero person. My inbox is like auto sorted for me because I'm a crazy person. So once I get home the inbox should be filled up. Like there's all this stuff right? There's marketing materials, there's people, you know, suppliers sending their newsletters to you. So there's a lot to sort through. So I go and I review all of it and I take the time to make sure that what's important is like starred or labeled. I use a today and this week label in my stuff to keep everything organized. And then once I get the junk out of the way I will create my like plan of attack for like handling my e-mail. So some people need an immediate response, some people need to hear back from me this week. And then I go and I make sure to segment out what I'm doing, when and what I need to get to.
And then sending a back in office email, again, I don't know if people think this is like over communicating, but I don't believe in over communication. So if people are about to travel and they just got all these things from you about like being out of office, I think it's really fun to come back in and be like I'm back. I feel refreshed. That was an awesome. here's like a little breakdown. Maybe add a picture of yourself in the destination and just say like if you need anything, it's back to business as usual. I feel refreshed and excited about your upcoming trip. If you have any questions, here's a calendly, let's schedule a time to talk. But I'm home.
Jennifer: So what I want to say, before we close this out, is I love that idea that you just had and I've never thought about adding a picture and like elaborating a little bit on the trip, and I think that's so fun. And this goes back to us being like, people join people. That's such a fun idea. I've always just been like, hey, I'm back, here's the Calendly link, but to add a little bit about the trip again, it's like a little advertisement, like maybe they never thought they wanted to go to Ireland and then you share this story or this anecdote about how you had a private champagne tasting in a castle and now they're like all enthralled by it. So, I think that's the coolest idea.
We can never over share on our travels and particularly with our existing clientele, you have a captive audience. Why would you not share with them, especially if they're not on social media? We don't think this, we all think everyone is seeing every story that we ever post, right? But the reality is that there are a lot of things that happen on social media that we post that the majority of our clients will never see unless we actually spoon feed it to them.
So, coming back I think is really cool to add that, but I also what just popped into my brain was also reaching out to those clients that maybe, you know, this would be a great fit for them and telling them, even just elaborating a little bit more and saying I just got back from this fantastic trip, I think you should consider this for your next trip because it's fresh and the enthusiasm is real and people are attracted to passion and they can hear it when you say it. Also just adding that on maybe your to do list for when you get back, like just touch base with the people that you know would be down for the caliber of the trip that you just took and elaborate a little bit more.
Robin: Yeah, the only way you're gonna sell travel is like visually inspiring people. So, I think that like recaps of wat you loved, what you're excited to do again, etc. Maybe it's in the wonderful blog post and you can easily link that inside of the email out to them and get some website traffic. So there's a lot of ways that you should really be capitalizing on any sort of trip you're taking whether it's a fan or, you know, an actual vacation.
Jennifer: Well, we hope this was helpful for y'all and thank you so much for listening to this episode of Tique Talk.
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