You can listen directly here. 

It’ s time to get out of the tracksuit, put on some button-up pants, because we are going to regain your mojo and start moving forward - rebuilding you and your travel business. 

I am a factual and constant learner. I listen, read, surround myself with people that motivate and encourage me. It can take a little shove, but I take action. I trust my instincts. This episode I get a little personal. What is working for me right now in my travel business and life. It may also work for you. 

The Travel industry, your travel clients, your suppliers they need you. Are you ready to work on YOU and your business? Your Travel Business is ready for a dust-off. New opportunities await. Are you ready? 

Are you going to pivot your business? Stick your head in the sand? Or really reassess what you want to do and use this time to look at opportunities that exist in your business to strengthen it for the future. You get to choose, it’s your business. Don’t let others tell you what you “should” do.  

Now is the time to assess your business, your systems, your goals and who you want to work with. I want you to be able to feel in control - even if only in your daily routine. Let’s regain some rhythm and start moving forward. 

 

As my good friend, Lauren asks me. “ Have you got your button-up business pants on?” because it's business time.

Show Transcription: 

 

Announcer: Welcome to Travel Agent Achievers! The place to learn how to grow your travel business and have fun with it. Join Roslyn and her guests as they walk you through proven steps to a fulfilling and profitable business. 

 

Ros: Well, hello there everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Travel Agent Achievers. This is Episode 26. And the title of today's episode is Regaining Rhythm When you Feel Like you've Lost Control.

 

So welcome back. First up though, I do want to say thank you and a huge shout out to everybody who started in our Six Week Rebuild your Travel Business Programme this week. I'm super excited and pumped and I love getting to know you all it has. 

 

It is a true honour for me to be able to help and support you through this time, sales, marketing, finance, business planning, accountability, those are all my loves the whole thing around business, my background in sales and marketing as well. 

 

So it's an absolute honour and a pleasure to be on this journey with you, and also for you here on the podcast as well. Thank you for all of your messages. 

 

And one thing I do want you to do is make sure you hit subscribe and you will get access to these podcasts as soon as they go live. And if you also love the podcast, please write and write me a review here on iTunes or any way you find these podcasts because it means a lot to me and I want to help as many people as I possibly can. 

 

So your emails and your messages are absolutely awesome. I sincerely appreciate them. If you also know of any other travel agents that could do with some help right now or inspiration, even a laugh and an uplifting you know, uplifting and a light conversation then please share this podcast with your colleagues. I want to help as many people as I possibly can. 

 

You also know that I love that by step action and breaking things down. It's, it's what I do. But I also want to give you the best information and I want to give you a solid footing to start learning or regain control when right now you might actually be down in the dumps. 

 

All right, let's just jump straight into this week's episode. Regaining Rhythm When you Feel Like You've Lost Control. So having rhythm is or was the owl norm. You know, you get up in the morning. You might work out maybe so not my thing. And you take the kids to school, you grab it. Coffee and you go to the office or you might be working from home. 

 

So for me, this was my norm. I needed the rhythm and the routine to get up. So it was Get up, get Jackman to go grab a coffee. That was my moment to be able to connect with people and be surrounded by them before I then came home and worked from home throughout the day. That was my very simple, normal routine that has just been thrown out the window for me. 

 

Yes, my cup of tea has been stopped. So now what are we going to do? Are you going to cry about it? 

 

Well, yes, you're probably saying to me, Ros, I have had a serious cry. And I have as well, I know we all have. But do we ignore what also happens like the other opposite? Do we have a cry about it and really grieve the process which is me. 

 

That's what I would do or do you ignore what's happened and keep pressing on and I have seen some things on social media, just continue promoting. And I don't know whether it was already automated or whether they'd already planned out all of the posts. 

 

But for me when, you know, everything went chaotic, I looked at it and I felt, oh my goodness, are they sticking their head in the sand here? And are they continuing to sell without compassion?

 

Now for me that was a world of pain to say that. But that's my journey. And that's what I was doing.

 

So, do you go through the process, acknowledge the steps along the way, and as you're ready, then dust off pickup and just get going? Well, that's what I do. You do need to or I feel as though you need to feel the process. 

 

I've grieved, I've lost. I've, I've really even felt as though I didn't know what to do for a period of time. And it's taken me a little bit as well in the travel business to actually pick up and dust things off and get going. But that's me. 

 

So I feel as though we're now in a position where we are coming through the tunnel, we're starting to see in different countries how they are opening up. There's definitely some new opportunities. And if you're an agent that has specialised in a particular area that may not be available yet. I want to talk about pivoting and also discussing some options. 

 

It is okay if you don't want to change your business model, absolutely fine. You are allowed to do whatever you want because it is your business. It's also okay to allow yourself the opportunity and time to look at what suits you now, you're not locked into everything. 

 

It is all okay. You don't need to beat yourself up. You don't need to listen to those people that tell you that you should do something different. 

 

Oh, my goodness, the should-ers. I know for me in the last few months. And you all know that I do quite a bit of business coaching and mentoring of small businesses and in particular travel agents. 

 

But there have been some small companies and even large companies and people that I am in mastermind groups with that have said, Oh, Ros, you should be doing this, you should be doing that. 

 

Why don't you go out and get a job in logistics, you would be amazing at that. And a few times, it actually threw me off my own path because I thought, what is it that I'm good at? What is it that I like doing? 

 

Well, the information actually, it came from people that didn't really know me, and the skills that I have nor understood the passion that I have being in the travel industry. 

 

So when I come back to the whole logistics thing, I actually sat on it for a second and I went, you know what, that's not me. I love what I do. I love working in the travel industry. And in particular, I love helping people. 

 

I love business. I love marketing. I love sales. I love systems. I love getting things done. I love accountability. So for me, hearing all of these other people say you should do this, you should do that. Why don't you go do something else. It was really hard to stay on my path.

 

Because people didn't understand the passion that I have, and particularly those that don't know you so well. 

 

So today, I'm asking you to stay strong. Stay focused, look within yourself right now. Reach out to those that you can trust and that you do trust. People that will be with you on this journey and that includes me guys, I am here and I am here to help you. I want to discuss what you can do to regain control. 

 

What do you need to do to get back into having a rhythm in your life and in your business? So it's time to get out of the tracksuit put on some button-up pants as my good friend, Lauren, to me, because it is now business time. J

 

ump off Tik tok and your dancing. I see it, I see you out there even though it has been good for a laugh, and I love it. If you love it, then stick with it. But it's also time to now have a look at your business because we are regaining rhythm and I am going to help you find the control back in your life. 

 

There are four areas that I believe that we need to work on in order to regain some level control. So everybody is different. However, when I look at myself, when I look at my team, when I look at my business, and when I look at the travel and tourism industry and when I talk to you becauseI understand you and I know you, these are my top four things.

 

One, mindset. Okay, mindset, I'm not going to talk about the hula hoops, gooey duck mindset, it is something that we need to get right. Number two creating content, but not just any content content that means something to you. Number three, stay connected. Number four, building your knowledge. Areas that you feel weak on and things that you love. 

 

So let's break it down what you can do for all of it, and how can you put it into practice? So let's start with number one mindset. With mindset. People talk about this differently. And for me mindset is really what is going on in your head right now. 

 

There are times That stuff is just going to be so bad that you can't even get your head clear, right? My husband can't talk to me sometimes and says Ros, I just want you to do a brain dump. And that means getting everything out in my head so that I can focus and I can realign what it is that I need to get done right now. 

 

But mindset can also be about switching things up. And one thought could mean two different things. This is totally up to you. You have your own way of looking at your life and your own mindset. I'm a, your glass half full sort of person or you know, my I feel as though my my glass is always the positive. 

 

I'm always looking at the positive things. So for me, I love to be able to read and sure I don't get as much time anymore having a child. But things like our travel newsletters and publications, things that mean something to you, or even a good business book. 

 

So one of my good friends and mentors, Tina tower has written a book called One Life. I'm hoping she'll be on the podcast very, very soon. And it's a great read about what's going on and the things that she has overcome in her life and in her business and being very creative around it. 

 

So Tina Tower, One Life, I'll put a link in the show notes because it's an awesome read. Another great read, or it's one that I listened to on Audible and because I was going for a long drive is Chris Helder called Useful Beliefs. 

 

And he talks about things that you believe whether they are true or not, but are they useful? He also talks about instead of moving forward in life or when you say I'm gonna bounce back. 

 

So when COVID over here, and the whole world was just in a bit of a turmoil, a lot of people were saying, I don't know your bounce back. Now I need to change my mindset. And when I was listening to Chris Helder, and he's useful beliefs book he was talking about instead of bouncing back because of backwards back, meaning a negative come, you know, word in some format. It was I changed it to be bounced forward. 

 

Because I don't want to go back to the way things were. I wanted to make changes as well in my business. I know that we needed to do a lot more systemising. We needed to streamline some things and automate a few processes. It was about becoming slicker and leaner and really calibrating what it is that we want to do. 

 

So his book, Useful Beliefs. was about changing your mindset. So instead of bouncing back, you're going to bounce forward. It's a really good book to listen to on Audible. That's how I was able to listen to it on a car ride. So it's one for you there. 

 

The other thing for your mindset is listening. So listening to podcasts, audiobooks, even getting outside and exercising and listening to them. If I'm going on a walk, or I go down to the beach, I love to be able to put a podcast on and listen to something new, just to get out of my own head. 

 

But I'm a continual learner as well. So I find for me, going for a drive or walk on the beach is the best to clear my head, but also to listen to something as well is really useful. So for me, changing my mindset is really about opening up reading, listening, and taking what means something to me. 

 

I don't take everything as gospel, I don't listen to everything and then say yes, I need to win. But I do look at things that are going to work for me. And for me at home, I can get distracted by life. So it's not someplace that I can always be working on my mindset. 

 

So number two is creating content. And when I say creating content, I'm talking about something that means something to you and also providing value. I want you to ramp up helpful information right now. 

 

If you're promoting something, whether you're promoting domestic travel, you're promoting people coming to your destination or even further afield, and you're comfortable in doing so at the moment, then absolutely go for it. 

 

I would love to see you being the expert in your field, providing insights, information, helpful tools, showcase experiences that you've done before and what would be really good for your clients. So being helpful and providing adding value is an awesome place to be right now, positioning yourself as the expert providing value. 

 

This is something that I always come back to and I believe in wholeheartedly. Value.

 

Give your clients the good stuff. Don't be afraid that others are going to read it. They're gonna listen to it or they're going to tell their clients the same thing clients are going to come to you for you. And whether that in your own space is doing your Tik Tok right now. 

 

Or if it's doing a Facebook Live and educating your clients writing a blog, or even simply upgrading your LinkedIn profile, you could be providing industry updates and become an expert in your local area. 

 

You could even reach out to your local newspapers, magazines, TV stations, they're always looking for content. And who knows you could be the next face or the next columnist or the next industry expert because you provide helpful and valuable valuable information for the travel and tourism industry. That could be you. 

 

So that's the second thing that you can do to start regaining a bit of control in your life. 

 

The other thing is staying connected. So this is number three, stay connected, personally, professionally and within communities that help you stay focused and accountable.

 

Always make sure you are with people that inspire you. The more people that are around you that inspire and encourage you to do better and to grow and that will listen and empathise with you. You will keep moving forward. 

I suggest also if you can, or if you haven't already joined some sort of an accountability group. We have one at Travel Agent Achievers. It's called the achievers in travel accountability group. And from now on every Monday, I'm checking in with you all in our private Facebook group and just going “Hey, what are you going to do this week to keep moving Your business forward?''

 

At the end of the week, you're going to tell me whether you've done it or not. Because it doesn't matter whether you're doing something or somebody else is doing the same thing. The fact is that there are billions of people. 

 

And not everybody is going to want to work with the same person. So join a group or connect with people that are going to keep you accountable and keep you moving forward. staying connected is also about building relationships with the suppliers. 

 

Who now oh my goodness, have you seen over the last few months, who let you down? And who has stood by you, who's been there to send your message when things have been really bad? Right now is a great time to be reconnecting and building those relationships with suppliers. 

 

I know for me, reaching out to wholesalers and tourism bodies and just letting people know over the last few months. Hello, I'm here and I will continue to support them. And because they've supported me, it is a two way street. And we need to nurture and look after those relationships with our suppliers and wholesalers because I know I want them to be there on the other side of this, I want to continue to work with the people that mean a lot to me. 

 

The last thing is staying connected is to surround yourself with people that make you smile. You're there for them in tough times. And I know that they are also there for you. So it could be friends, family, other business associates, people within your network. You know, I'm here as well. 

 

But surround yourself with people that make you smile, because at the end of the day, we only have the one life and we want to live it and be immersed in it as much as possible, but bring joy to ourselves as well. 

 

And the last thing that we can do to regain rhythm and sense of control in our travel business right now is to build your knowledge. When I talk about building your knowledge, I'm not just saying go and do a tourism or a destination programme or a wholesalers course, absolutely, you should do these because you have the opportunity to become a specialist in something. 

 

You have an opportunity right now to learn and immerse yourself in new business. And I think that that's awesome. But the other thing that I really want you to do is build your knowledge in other areas of business. 

 

If you are certain that you want to stay in this industry, you want to come through the other side and you want to be the best that you possibly can be. Then right now, you need to do your research.

 

You need to be looking at marketing, you need to be looking at sales, areas that you feel weak in your business. Is it even around finance and things. Is there a short course or something that you can do to enhance your own skills and learn something new. 

 

This was the whole reason why I started as a Six Week Programme to rebuild your travel business. And if this is something that you are still thinking about that, yes, Ros, I need to know how to plan I need to understand clients a bit better. 

 

I need some sort of accountability, momentum and somebody who will cheer me on, then this programme is probably be you. So we'll add a link in the show notes. But it's ontravelagentachievers.com. It's the Six Week Rebuild Your Travel Business Programme and I can tell you what we are going to make things happen. 

 

And I want you to be stronger. You will need to be stronger as we come through this. And I want to teach you some great new tools and tips that keep you focused as well. 

 

The other thing that you can do with building knowledge is look at specific areas. So do you need to upskill on social media? Do you need to learn about Facebook marketing? You name it, there's always going to be a course out there. 

 

There are things and tools and assets and stuff that you can learn. So just embrace it. If you're in that place right now. I do believe that we need to plan, we need to prepare, and we need to get ready for what's happening if we don't plan. 

 

What's the thing if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, I don't want that to be you. I want you to get your mojo back. I want to work together with you to bring you through this time and come out stronger on the other side. It's time to take action. It's time to be your best self. 

 

Find the motivation to get going and be the person that I know you are and that you can be. 

 

I was on a call with one of our awesome students inside a Travel Agent Achiever programme the other day, and I could see you now Zoom master class that she just wasn't doing so well. You can tell these things. And I'm not telepathic and I'm not psychic, but I can read people well. 

 

So I just asked if I could give her a call after we finished, and she agreed which was beautiful. And when we got on that call, she said to me, not in these exact words, but she said, Ros, I really needed this today. I'm so glad that I was on that call with you. You reminded me of what I needed to hear. 

 

The whole situation within the travel industry it finally hit me over the weekend. And I got an extra dose of really crappy stuff thrown at me. And to hear you today was what encouraged me and it lifts me back up, and I really needed that. Thank you. 

 

So just talking to her, made my heart sing, but it was also I want to be there. I want to be the champion for you. And you know what being with you and delivering this podcast, helping you with tools and assets and resources. 

 

It lifts me up as well. Just being able to support you provide guidance and assistance wherever I can. It's what I can offer you. My business in travel is like yours. However, I know that there are others that are out there like yourself that are suffering. 

 

If you are one of these people, then I want you to reach out to me because I am here for you. I want to help you regain that control. I know you got into your travel business for a reason. And it's in there somewhere and you still love it. 

 

That's why you're here listening. I want to encourage you just to reach out, let me know how you are and if there's anything that I can do to help you I will be here to support you on this journey. 

 

Make sure you are downloading the resources from the website, travelagentachievers.com, there's a lot of step by step instructions that go with a number of the different podcasts. I am trying to figure out a way that I can put all of the resources in one place. 

 

But we've now got 26 episodes, we've probably got over 20 different resources that you can download and you can start working through it. 

 

There's one thing that you can do today, I want you to look inside yourself and know that you are okay. That you will get through this and that you are on the right path. 

 

Travell will still be there. Your clients need you, your clients love you. And there are other people out there right now that are waiting for the world to open up so they can come to you.

 

They just need to find you and I want to help you find them as well. 

 

Alright guys, that's enough for me today. I appreciate you being here. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and write me a review I would love to read it. Shout out to you and know that I am here to take care. 

 

I want you to regain that rhythm. I don't want you to lose control and if you have lost it, let's get that mojo back. You've got this.