Recently I hosted a three-day group workshop. In the process of promoting, selling and hosting it, I had a personal breakthrough, and it's one I think a lot of advisors just like you need to hear about.
Yes, I'm a business coach. Yes, I coach in sales and marketing techniques and strategies. And yet I kept coming up against a barrier I couldn't quite break through, a goal I'd set for myself that I'd come close to many times but never fully hit. Fast-forward to when the dust had settled from the workshop when I realized not only had we achieved that elusive goal, we more than doubled it.
Why should this matter to you? Because when I took a moment to reflect on what we'd done differently, I saw patterns in my business that I see in so many travel advisors' businesses too.
In over a decade of coaching independent travel advisors across North America, I've watched this exact pattern play out again and again: The advisors who break through aren't the ones with the best deals, they're the ones who show up.
Are You Talking About What You're Selling?
I'm not talking about a random conversation here and there. I'm talking about a daily conversation running through your marketing channels. In a conversation in our VIP lounge, some advisors who'd wondered why their groups weren't selling admitted they'd only sent three emails about it and posted once or twice on social media.
Do You Have a Community?
Do you even have an audience to promote to? I use the word community on purpose. As AI keeps creeping in and creating more artificial distance between business owners and their audiences, I see more value than ever in building community, not just lists.
Your community is who shows up when you've got something to sell. They want to buy from people they trust. If you're not building a community, how will they know you exist, let alone trust you enough to buy from you? Your community is the people who follow you, lean into the conversation and want to be part of your world. Not an audience sitting in seats at a theatre while you're on stage with a megaphone. A community wants in on the conversation.
Look at the big brands outside our industry. They're leaning even harder into how they make people feel, building content around emotion, not just information. It comes back to the old saying “it's not what you do for people, it's how you make them feel.” And that starts with your marketing.
Are You Showing Up?
Are you going all in? Looking back on my career, I had to get honest with myself, there were more times than I'd like to admit where I pulled back instead of pushing through. The saddest part? I used to think I was doing it for my clients. I didn't send that extra email because, "I didn't want to bother them." I didn't post on social again because I'd already posted a dozen times over the previous couple of months. I saw this pattern in my own career as a travel advisor, and later as a coach. This launch was different.
I had the emails prescheduled, which turned out to be a lifesaver since I got sick in the final few days, so they went out without me lifting a finger. Every one of those emails brought an unsubscribe or two or three. And for every unsubscribe we sold at least six tickets to the workshop. I posted content and ran Facebook ads unapologetically, and every time, sales came in. I answered DMs multiple times a day, and again, sales came in.
My coaching conversations often start with "it's impossible." With this launch, I had my goal, and part of me still thought it was impossible, I’m human too, it happens to the best of us. But as we got closer, something shifted. Instead of its impossible, the thought became, “What could be possible if I showed up just once more?”
Here's what happened: we expanded our reach, welcomed new people into our community, connected with people I'd never met and sold more tickets than we’ve ever sold in the past.
So, here's my challenge for you, what could be possible if you showed up one more time this week? Not to sell, but to connect.
The power behind this launch wasn't what I was selling. It was the community I'd built. I saw my name being shared in other travel advisor communities. I saw my own community showing up and encouraging other advisors to join the workshop. Why? Because they knew who I was, they trusted me and they knew I could help their colleagues too.
Your audience, your community, is willing to do the same for you, if you show up for them first. Showing up isn't just about talking about what's for sale. It's about helping people connect with a possibility. Giving them relief from their daily grind. Sharing stories and tips from your own experience. Look at the travel advisors lighting up social media right now: it's not the ones posting deals. It's the ones sharing stories, their trips, their clients' struggles and how they helped solve them.
What Showing Up Actually Looks Like
When you show up for your community, they show up for you. If you're worried about the unsubscribes or the unfollows, ask yourself why they left. Was it because you never showed up with value?
No one wants to be sold to 24/7, especially not in their inbox or on social media. They want to get something out of following you. If you're consistently providing value, whether that's a tip, a trick or something that makes their next trip better, and then you ask for the sale, and that's when someone exits? That's okay.
You don't want a list full of people who are never going to buy. You want a community lined up and ready to buy from you. The price of admission is simple: You have to show up for them first.
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