By Michael Akana, ECCS, CTC, member of The Travel Institute’s Professional Educators Program (PEP) and co-author of The Travel Advisor’s Handbook
It was months into “The Great Pause” of 2020 before I fully adopted video conferencing and platforms of Zoom and Teams. In the past, phone calls had supplemented in-person meetings. From spring of 2020 and well into 2021, the drop in face-to-face contacts, and the fact that few were traveling, affected my relationships with clients and, well, with everyone. I felt disconnected. It was a bit of a journey for me to reconnect.
In a Friday Five post last year on “Resiliency,” we discussed principles that can expand our impact and improve the travel experience across our client base. Continuing our exploration of Transformative Travel, I offer the following five steps to reconnect.
1. Quit Hiding. Engage with clients. We don’t always need a reason to reach out or make a call. Do you feel you need a reason to make that call to a client – a birthday, an anniversary, or a sales promotion? Some of the best calls I’ve made, and the most productive, are conversations that admit we haven’t talked in a while and should catch up.
It is okay to have sales goals and it is helpful to be informed and prepared, but in your conversations with clients, are you able to achieve a true dialog, or does it feel scripted and contrived? Try a few calls without a specific agenda and see if the discussion leads to insights and opportunities to reconnect and maybe even improved sales. Follow the conversation and let it flow.
2. Find a Purpose. Open conversations with clients or with each other may reveal or reinforce common interests or gaps in service or markets. Maybe you have done some deep soul searching or maybe you feel a gentle pull toward a calling.
A passion for the environment could lead to a niche in green and sustainable travel. You are driven to improve your health? Identify and define itineraries, destinations and travel packages that explore or help achieve better health.
Use travel to raise awareness or funds for a non-profit, community project or recovery effort. Help clients and see how their travel can have a positive impact. You may reconnect by volunteering, serving side-by-side with others distributing food, collecting needed supplies for a disaster, or cleaning the neighborhood park to create a safe place for children to play. There is a language to service that doesn’t always require words.
3. Reframe Your Role. Find a better reason for your day-to-day work. How do you respond when someone asks about what you do as a travel advisor? The response “I sell travel” may be technically correct, but does that definition sustain you? Perhaps you also inspire people to dream of and experience exotic locations. Maybe you empower clients to overcome perceived barriers. Help them stretch expectations and aspirations to higher and better experiences. Find a definition of what you do that is more interesting than “I sell travel.” Unlock dreams. Inspire. Challenge.
If you feel you spend the morning shuffling papers or “making calls” and the thought of it wears you down, seek out the better reasons for what you do that will help refresh and inspire you. You can choose a better reason for what you do – a reason that can sustain you.
4. Join. Engage with a group. There is a synergy to group effort – working together or volunteering side-by-side. Together we are a more powerful voice, whether advocating for (or against) new laws and policies or exploring better ways to conduct business. We gain greater power learning from each other and providing mutual support and inspiration.
We examine features and benefits of associations such as ASTA, CLIA and our membership with The Travel Institute with a critical eye. Are the benefits worth the cost of dues? It depends. That gym card in my wallet doesn’t help with my New Year’s resolution unless I visit the gym and work out. The same applies to any organization.
Consider in your analysis what we may learn and experience. We can be strengthened by the sense of fellowship and belonging. Yes. The benefits are worth the price of membership if you use it. Use it.
5. Find Your Voice and Exercise Your Power. Say something. Do something. Accomplishment is not a spectator sport. While we can absorb a degree of knowledge reading or listening, it is only by exercising what we learn that we gain experience and skill. Speak and do. Practice what you learn. Choose activities that require participation, not just observation. When you learn something in a class, try it. If you succeed, do it again. If you fail, Bravo! The deepest lessons result from failure. I experienced disconnection. Others may have felt the same. I reconnected. May others reconnect as well. You have suggestions? Drop me a line. We can transform – a step at a time, a destination at a time, and an experience at a time. Do you recall the joke with the punchline “You can’t get there from here”? So, then, tell me, friend, what is the first step? We will start there and together we will discover the destination.
