By Timothy M.T. York, CTIE, CTA
No, I’m not talking about BIO 101, but rather your modern-day, interconnected network of teams, vendors, and customers alike. Hopefully, everyone is living in harmony and continuing to evolve, but are you? Are you thriving or just merely surviving?
Here are five major niches and skills to focus on for expanding your professional travel presence:
1. Start with your immediate environment, your “microclimate.” This is most likely your current team and company. Your internal team should be one of your strongest allies to help you grow and enhance your trajectory: correcting your course, helping you critically evaluate, and allowing you to think more broadly about the people and things you encounter. The best skills I’ve found within a multifunctional team setting are self-ambition, adaptability, and receptiveness to different leadership chapters.
2. Regarding Partners and Vendors, solving problems and achieving goals are better when completed together: promoting universal, mutual growth. Ensuring product and process efficiencies at all times is a sure way to cultivate loyalty and foster stronger relationships, but what else? I’ve found articulate reporting and flexible scheduling are often game changers. The more you’re willing to step up and facilitate difficult conversations, the better. Substantial skills that have worked best for me with partners and vendors revolve around transparent communication, ownership, and stewardship. Representing yourself, products and services, and overall partnerships are strong ways to improve your presence for everyone involved.
3. This overall symbiotic relationship continues with Customers/Clients. Nurturing this niche can boost one’s service experience skills, tactical and technical abilities, and soft skills. Customers and clients come to us to help navigate and decipher their needs independent of their wants, redefining their scope through discovery — all while providing superior customer service! Yes, it can be hard sometimes! We rely heavily on them as vital to the company’s wellbeing and performance indicators, yet, showing you care beyond numbers is a sure sign you are meant for the industry. Here, the best-developed skills are endless empathy, confidence, and direction; soft skills like these can go a long way.
4. On a grander scale, we can think of the Travel, Tourism, and Hospitality industry as a whole and everything associated with it. This can expand into the markets and “ecosystems” of Higher Education, Healthcare, Legal, Finance, and other adjacent fields, spanning the different realms of Accommodation, Transportation, Recreation, Technology, etc. To succeed in our industries, one needs to be curious, collaborative, and insightful – staying up to date is paramount in an ever-changing landscape such as this. I have numerous certifications through The Travel Institute and believe it’s paved new avenues for opportunities and chances for me to connect and shine. It incites this feeling that we are a part of something bigger while sharing some of the same commonalities and differences, as we all try to succeed and win.
5. The last piece of all this is You: the individual. Are you a producer or a consumer? To become the leader, examine your goals and ambitions; do they align with your current role? Does your workplace allow and motivate you to pursue your purpose? Skills I’ve focused on over recent years include self-awareness, passion, and resilience. By knowing our own needs and being willing to be our advocate, we can become a much more balanced individual. Nourish yourself personally and professionally. Don’t be afraid of challenging yourself; by emphasizing your willingness to take on more responsibility, you open yourself up to recognition. The more you are relied upon, the more connections you will build – as this happens, nurture these new relationships and establish a rapport that further identifies you as a leader. It’s the legacy of your presence and how you treated others that people will remember.
Be at peace knowing sometimes we outgrow our environment. Changing your sails can be a good thing. Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” If I can adapt and thrive, you can, too.
Contact Timothy via email or connect with him on LinkedIn today!
