Episode 104 Transcript

Heather (00:03.83)

Hey guys, welcome to episode 104. So last week I flew to the Gold Coast here in Australia and I was a speaker at a summit called Travel Trend Summit. And it was basically for travel professionals to come and learn from speakers like myself on how to grow their business. There's some good takeaways.

 

And I wanted to share them with you. I know I just shared with you guys in one of my previous episodes, what I learned in the Philippines at the business blueprint conference makes me sound like I travel a lot, doesn't it? I mean, I don't always travel, but just this kind of type of year, time of year I'm traveling, it's really cool. I'm enjoying it anyway. So back to what I was saying, um, covered that, but then this is a totally different type of conference. And I wanted to share.

 

I really just have sort of four core takeaways that I wanted to share with you guys that I know will help you in your business. Um, yeah. So I want to jump into them. All right. Four, four takeaways that I learned in the Gold Coast speaking over at the travel trend summit. Now, first one is this always cater to your market, to your market. Now in a lot of events I speak at, there'll be business owners from all different backgrounds.

 

service, Ecom, different levels in their growth, all of that. This was very specific. This was travel professionals, you know, agents, experts, coaches, people basically helping people, you know, other people to book incredible holidays. So I needed to cater my talk to them. So I really specifically found stories and examples very specific to their, this community.

 

And even to the point where I asked in advance the organizer, Stephanie, which you will be meeting soon, by the way, I'm going to be interviewing her because she's created an incredible community. So we're going to talk a bit about community on that show coming up. Um, but, you know, I talked to Stephanie and said, Hey, Steph, like, I really would love to get actual businesses that are going to be there so I can weave those into my presentation. So I kind of did conversation and teaching and use examples of people that I know in the travel space.

 

Heather (02:23.542)

but then I also did actual audits on their accounts that she gave me. So I made it very specific to the market. And that's something that is really, really important. Not just you, if you speak, but anything that you do, the group that you're a part of, how do you support them very specifically? The next thing was focused on building a community. Like I said, I'm going to talk to Steph more about that in a future episode, but very much learned a lot about good, strong community building through.

 

this event. So onboarding, very, very important. So she's excellent and onboarding everybody into the event and the community. So each event she does, she has a private podcast just for that event, which is all of the speakers. So people come, they get access to this private pop -up Facebook group. They get access to this private podcast where they get to hang out with the speakers before they even show up. There's so much

 

free work that's going into this where you really feel like you belong to something very, very special rather than just getting a ticket to something. The community gets to weigh in and share content as well. So throughout the whole time, you know, we were promoting hashtags and tagging her in and she was sharing everyone's content to each other as well. So that was another thing is just really the power of getting the community to weigh in and create their own content. She also

 

had two types of community. So she had the attendee community and then she's put together a speaker community as well. So all the speakers can connect further in that way. So that was just a few little community points, but really the main thing was just taking very good of your community, taking good care of your community as well as how do you onboard them? How do you welcome people in really just making them feel like they're part of something rather than saying a thank you email.

 

You know, if somebody's like a new client of yours, for example, the next thing was the niche or the niche. Niche is so important so you can serve your market better. So that obviously is what she excels at. She's very specific to travel professionals or people in that space. So all the conversations at the event were all geared at supporting that community, that niche, that group of people. And I guess that's the

 

Heather (04:50.614)

key thing to always remember for you guys as well in your business is are you always thinking about your community, your niche, your target market that you're focused on? You're always thinking about who they are and really catering and customizing the support that you give for the problems that they specifically have with what they do. And then the last one, which was done really well, was bringing in elements of surprise. So.

 

really creating fantastic experiences through Surprise. When I showed up in my room, there was a plate of beautiful little sweets like macaroons and little chocolate mousses and a really beautiful little welcome note. So that was setting the stage for my whole time there. Then in the day of the event, we walked out, we had a break, like our lunch break, we walked out of the room. It was just like another world.

 

opened up to us. There was a pool at the venue. We were at the up in Gold Coast at the Ridges Hotel and there's a pool and there were two women dressed up as mermaids fully from head to toe with the whole mermaid tails on. In the pool there was like a sort of a circus acrobat sort of hula hooper type of woman that was there all dressed up. There was a fairy floss stand. So this woman was making burnt

 

sort of Burt Caramel was like the flavor, fairy floss, and which is by the way, cotton candy for those of you in the States that are listening, spun sugar. And so she was doing that and she was basically putting tufts of this fairy floss on top of glasses of champagne. And then she was sprinkling it with pop rocks and like popping candy and like little pieces of rose petals, all sorts of things on top. So you...

 

come by and grab a glass of champagne and you had this sort of fairy floss on top. She was packaging it up into these beautiful little bags where you could take away some with you. And then there was the music, the song choice was beautiful. It was somewhere over the rainbow, which was on when you left the room and you walked out into this whole other environment. So that was something phenomenal that, you know, she did. And then later at the end of the night, when the event ended and we went up and we had rooftop drinks,

 

Heather (07:14.486)

She actually organized the flash mob. So there were dancers that came out and started dancing in front of the conference delegates, but also just the random people at the bar as well. So really thoughtfully thinking through these elements of surprise, you tend to, I guess, forget that you can do them and you can be creative. I'm always looking at ways of doing it better. Like for our customers, I send out cards and I send out like beautiful chocolate truffles.

 

And now I'm looking for the next gift that I'm gonna send. Cause if you're with me as a client over the years, then every year I give you different types of gifts. So now I'm sort of thinking now what next can I send people who've already gotten the other things? So yeah, think about that elements of surprise into not only your own customers, but even your team as well, your community, right? So the four core things I learned.

 

for this specific event, we're always catered to your market, really understand who they are and help them specifically as much as you can. Focus on your community and really how do you onboard people into the community? How do you take really exquisite care of them as well? And your niche. So how can you constantly focus on a niche, a group of people, a sub market, target market of people that you're going to be helping and

 

specifically making your services and your communications and everything you do to support them. And the element of surprise. Yes, that was done so incredibly well at this event. I really loved it. Got me back into that sort of state of childlike curiosity, which is very fun. So hopefully there's a couple really quick, just little aha moments there for you. That was the intention of this podcast as you're going through the day in and day out of your business, you know, bringing more fun.

 

Remember your community, they're there to support you and also focus on growing them. All right, you guys, thank you so much for tuning in and I'll be talking to you very soon. I'm prepping to go over to the UK for three months. Yes, I know you're saying, oh, there you go again, Heather with the travel. I'll talk more about what that trip is about, it's more personal and talk a little bit about that coming up in the next episode and what I'm doing to prepare myself for three weeks away. So that's coming up soon, okay? Stay in there.

 

Heather (09:37.302)

Talk to you soon, you guys. I have some amazing guests coming up. I've invited a lot of the speakers from Business Blueprint in the Philippines, as well as some from the Travel Trend Summit. You're going to hear about the founder of the Travel Trend Summit and how she's building her community. So much goodness coming up. Can't wait to bring these guests on. Talk to you soon, you guys. Thank you, as always, for your support. Bye.