Up and running: about this course
Introduction
Greetings! What you have before you might be compared to a destination guide. While we will be sharing our vision of what a successful travel marketing, sales and customer service strategy looks like, your own experiences and the bend of your own nature will shape your personal journey. We are excited to be sharing this road with you.
Your travel practice can be fun, exciting and can offer you tremendous personal reward. Travmarket has designed this course to provide you with a resource for increasing your personal sales volumes and thereby the satisfaction you can derive from being a travel professional.
In the 100 or so lessons that follow, you will learn about the value of relationships over transactions, the power of planning and persistency, and the need for authenticity and empathy as you work with your clients. The goal is to enable you to have the travel practice you most want, the one you dreamed of when you first entered the travel profession.
I will be adding to this course continually, probably without plan, rhyme or reason. It's just the way my mind works. Please bear with me!
Authenticity...Intentionality...Consistency
These three qualities are descriptive of the necessary elements of great marketing, sales and customer service.
1. Authenticity - the relationship between you and your client is primary and built on trust. Everything you do will depend on your integrity and your willingness to take ownership of your relationship with clients.
2. Intentionality - you will work from a plan, with forethought and well defined goals.
3. Consistency - your messaging to clients and to the world at large will be clearly articulated and consistent with your core values. Every marketing effort you undertake, every conversation you have, will be consistent regardless of the medium of communication.
The Marketing Mindset
Greetings! What you have before you might be compared to a destination guide. While we will be sharing our vision of what a successful travel marketing, sales and customer service strategy looks like, your own experiences and the bend of your own nature will shape your personal journey. We are excited to be sharing this road with you.
Your travel practice can be fun, exciting and can offer you tremendous personal reward. Travmarket has designed this course to provide you with a resource for increasing your personal sales volumes and thereby the satisfaction you can derive from being a travel professional.
In the 100 or so lessons that follow, you will learn about the value of relationships over transactions, the power of planning and persistency, and the need for authenticity and empathy as you work with your clients. The goal is to enable you to have the travel practice you most want, the one you dreamed of when you first entered the travel profession.
I will be adding to this course continually, probably without plan, rhyme or reason. It's just the way my mind works. Please bear with me!
Authenticity...Intentionality...Consistency
These three qualities are descriptive of the necessary elements of great marketing, sales and customer service.
1. Authenticity - the relationship between you and your client is primary and built on trust. Everything you do will depend on your integrity and your willingness to take ownership of your relationship with clients.
2. Intentionality - you will work from a plan, with forethought and well defined goals.
3. Consistency - your messaging to clients and to the world at large will be clearly articulated and consistent with your core values. Every marketing effort you undertake, every conversation you have, will be consistent regardless of the medium of communication.
The Marketing Mindset
Too often travel professionals treat marketing like a “tool box” or a set of tricks to be pulled out only when needed. Marketing, however, is a mindset about how to better communicate the value you offer to travelers.
The experienced marketer is always thinking about marketing opportunities. Not marketing? You are probably not growing and probably losing ground. Marketing is acquiring new clients, and retaining your existing ones. It’s the engine that both maintains and drives your travel business forward. The more overtly and consciously you effect your marketing, the more you develop a marketing mindset. |
Ironically, marketing, sales and customer service are not difficult, nor hard to understand. But to do well, you must build relationships in a business context. Otherwise, you are living transactionally. Good marketing is done systematically with a plan and intentionality. Marketing has goals, mileposts and destinations. We are going to help you get there from here!
The Exercises
In each chapter, you will find one or more exercises. To get the most out of our program, please do these exercises. You will find the extra time you spend working on the exercises will strengthen your understanding. We want these principles to become muscle-memory for you, not something you understand only intellectually, but something so deeply ingrained your responses to the changing environment around you will be well-grounded in business logic.
Up and Running
We are going to begin by describing some key shifts in the way we think about travel marketing and the role of the travel consultant. Then we will discuss business plans and branding for your travel practice. We will cover a variety of tactics at first as an overview and later broadening our understanding with more detailed analysis of each. We will explore sales, not as a transaction but as a consultation conducted in the context of a relationship. Finally, we will see customer service for what it truly is: an extension of your passion for the travel community.
Want to carry on the discussion with others who are using this course? Join us in our Facebook Group! The purpose of the group is to discuss the topics of this course, to engage with other travel professionals interested in building the travel practice of their dreams.
https://www.facebook.com/TravelResearchOnline
There is no single path to success. This is, however, a proven way to build and progress in a very predictable and solid manner. You will bring to the process your own personality, mindset and creativity. Some of our suggestions will work better for you than others. Pick and choose, but stay dedicated to working through this course of study. Do the exercises, reading, and importantly, provide us with solid feedback!
The Voyager Social and TRO teams look forward to traveling this road with you!
Yours in Travel,
Richard Earls
In each chapter, you will find one or more exercises. To get the most out of our program, please do these exercises. You will find the extra time you spend working on the exercises will strengthen your understanding. We want these principles to become muscle-memory for you, not something you understand only intellectually, but something so deeply ingrained your responses to the changing environment around you will be well-grounded in business logic.
Up and Running
We are going to begin by describing some key shifts in the way we think about travel marketing and the role of the travel consultant. Then we will discuss business plans and branding for your travel practice. We will cover a variety of tactics at first as an overview and later broadening our understanding with more detailed analysis of each. We will explore sales, not as a transaction but as a consultation conducted in the context of a relationship. Finally, we will see customer service for what it truly is: an extension of your passion for the travel community.
Want to carry on the discussion with others who are using this course? Join us in our Facebook Group! The purpose of the group is to discuss the topics of this course, to engage with other travel professionals interested in building the travel practice of their dreams.
https://www.facebook.com/TravelResearchOnline
There is no single path to success. This is, however, a proven way to build and progress in a very predictable and solid manner. You will bring to the process your own personality, mindset and creativity. Some of our suggestions will work better for you than others. Pick and choose, but stay dedicated to working through this course of study. Do the exercises, reading, and importantly, provide us with solid feedback!
The Voyager Social and TRO teams look forward to traveling this road with you!
Yours in Travel,
Richard Earls