Episode 121 Transcript
Heather (00:02.515)
Steph, welcome to the show. Finally, I get to bring you to my listeners because you have such a cool story and such a cool niche and I'm so excited you're here. Hello.
Stephanie Myers (00:12.906)
Thanks, Heather
Heather (00:15.087)
It's so good to have you. Guys, Steph invited me recently to her Travel Trend Summit that she does. She's stirring stuff up massively in the travel industry. You're going to hear a little bit about that because I think that's important for you to know. And I mean, being innovative and disruptive to industries is why people listen to you. And I know you're doing something cool coming up about that too, which we'll talk about.
So we're gonna get into what you do. We're gonna get into your business and some of your backstory, but we're gonna start with some tactical tips. I know you're absolutely crazy busy because you just finished a summit and you're taking on like so much stuff coming up and you have a kid and all the things. How do you, Steph yourself, manage times in your business and life to sort of stay away from that crazy grind and hustle?
Stephanie Myers (01:03.918)
Okay. So I'm one of those people that tends to, get really inspired by things that I do myself. I'm one of those people that also listens to my own podcast. I don't know how many people do that. Sometimes people say, you know, they can't listen to the sound of their own voice because they feel like, you know, it's got too much, it's too cringy, but I really get inspired by the work that I actually do, which I don't mean to sound wanky.
Heather (01:26.483)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (01:32.046)
But, I feel like that's worth noting only because I draw so much inspiration about from my own journey. So when it comes to, ideas, I feel like I've got heaps of really good ideas. I try not to, you know, action them all at once because I really love being able to just let them come naturally. And I know that part of that plays into like the bigger vision for your business. But for me, I.
Heather (01:50.195)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (02:02.19)
Don't have a lot of time because like Heather, you said I've got a child, he's on the spectrum. So we're constantly in and out of, you know, school appointments, NDIS appointments, all of the things, plus running a business as well. as well as trying to be a mom and wash my hair and drink enough water and all of the things. So just being able to be receptive to when you good ideas come to you and actually be really inspired by them when they come.
Heather (02:08.499)
Mm -hmm.
Heather (02:14.771)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (02:32.334)
Because I feel like that's another important thing too. I think as business owners and as people in general, we tend to write off the ideas that come our way thinking, you know, I wouldn't know where to start or, or that's a, that's a crap idea. I don't want to action that or it's not really what people want or, you know, we just tend to make excuses for the thing that we really want to do. Despite actually it's a really good idea and we should do it because it makes us unique and different.
Heather (03:01.987)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (03:02.734)
Yeah. another one is not forcing anything. So if you're trying to put a square into a side of circle hole, like it, and it keeps, you keep finding that resistance. Generally it's because you're trying to make something work that probably doesn't have a place right now, even though it might not have a place right now, doesn't mean it doesn't ever have a place in your business or in your life. and it comes to like dating, right? Like I'm single mom.
dating is not on my forefront at all. But if, you know, if the stars align and all of a sudden like that circle can fit through the square and the square is big enough to kind of, you know, make that work, then that's something that I will do, but it's not, it's not something on the forefront. And that goes for anything really in business as well. not forcing anything and recognizing that.
when it is feeling resistance, asking yourself like, where does that resistance come from? Understanding those triggers in and around that too. And I think if you keep going on the same loop and not understanding that it's going to send you insane. And it's the worst counterproductive thing that you could possibly do.
Heather (04:08.179)
Mm. Smart.
Stephanie Myers (04:24.654)
another one I can think of is creating a business that is in your own vision, not the vision of somebody else. So that's something that I've really had to learn, like learning off different mentors and things like that. Picking, learning to pick what you want to learn rather than just going all in on getting validation for the way that they want you to do things. So just remember to design a business.
in around your vision, what you want. And if that looks like working from 7pm till 2 o 'clock in the morning, because that suits you and your lifestyle better, like that's just your work day. It doesn't have to be the whole like nine to five or 10 to two or whatever. Like you just create a life, create the business that, you know, doesn't compete with your routine. Just do with it.
whatever it is, whatever that looks like is just the way that you do things. So I might do things. I feel like I do things a little bit less conventional than a lot of other people do. Like I podcast at nighttime, like really late at night. I feel like there's no traffic. There's no outside noise. Everyone's asleep and I can go deep. But yeah, I just feel like working to your own vision instead of somebody else's is the best thing that you could do for yourself.
Heather (05:40.563)
makes perfect sense.
Heather (05:48.467)
It's so true. And I wish more people knew that sooner than later, because a lot of us are accidental entrepreneurs. We, or we're like a practitioner or in trades and we're like, I'm going to do my own business. And you don't actually even know you can design something around what you want. I mean, I did it when I first started, I'm still working on designing something that suits me better. So I'm glad you shared that piece of advice. I'm a big advocate in that.
Stephanie Myers (06:12.046)
Mm.
Stephanie Myers (06:16.814)
Let's start a trend.
Heather (06:19.731)
Let's start a trend, everybody listening, remember you have choices.
Stephanie Myers (06:25.39)
Exactly. And your ideal person will go, you know what, I like that chick or I like that guy. He works to the rhythm of his own drum, you know, beats to the rhythm of his own drum. And, and you'll approach, you'll get people who work the same way. I like it.
Heather (06:31.315)
Yeah.
Heather (06:35.411)
Totally.
Heather (06:41.011)
And speaking of working to the rhythm of your own drum, we're going to talk about you and what you do. But before we get there, let's paint a picture and give it some context. What have you been doing prior to the business that you're doing now?
Stephanie Myers (06:55.918)
Wow. Okay. So I have been a travel agent for 16 plus years. And before I went into my whole mobile travel agent journey, I was working in a retail store and that basically saw me sitting at the desk, tune, you know, not tuning. I shouldn't say tuning. I should tune clients as they come in. That's so bad.
But you know, chatting up clients as they come in, that doesn't sound any better, but kind of my style, a very casual. And I think at the end of the day, I think that's how I make relationships, just very casual person. So yes, selling travel, booking everything from bus tickets to, you know, luxury high end super yachts. But yet doing that, looking after my little boy, but also,
Heather (07:22.355)
funny though.
Stephanie Myers (07:51.214)
Also coming through with really good ideas. I mean, this might come through a lot in this podcast episode, Heather, about my really good ideas. Most of them are really good. Some of them aren't, but when I'm sitting in an office where everything has to be done a specific way, my good ideas was disrupting the piece. Cause I felt like we could be doing something differently in regards to how we interact with clients. The way that we can host our evenings in the office.
I was thinking, okay, so if those, these people aren't here physically on the night, they miss out on all that information. Like how do we make this accessible to the people that aren't able to come to our film nights? What's something that we could do differently? And a lot of those ideas went to the wayside. They didn't fall into their branding all the way that they do things. So I thought, okay, right.
Heather (08:39.123)
Mm -hmm.
Stephanie Myers (08:48.59)
I am putting all this energy and effort and thought into how to creatively grow this business, but it's being not unseen by the people higher up from me. It wasn't escalating. Nothing was being actioned upon. And even though I would create a whole plan and basically run with it, they would say, we just have to let you run with that one, Steph. It wasn't ever going anywhere. So it wasn't a very good use of my,
my skills, my passion, but also my time. And why am I there in the first place? I started very, you know, questioning the fact, why am I here? Why am I trying to grow this business when I could be light bulb moment doing this for myself? So that's what I did. It was time to go.
Heather (09:39.379)
How long ago was that when you went out on your own?
Stephanie Myers (09:41.742)
Yeah, I started my own travel agency towards the end of 2018. Yeah. And growing up, I'm an identical twin. So growing up as a twin, I've always had to educate people about who I am. So when I went into a franchise business and we've got the exact same branding, same logo, the same brand colors, everything, same, same, same from me to 500 other people in the network. The only thing that was differentiating me to any other.
travel advisor was postcode. And I thought, okay, that's not, that's not okay by me because every single person that's got their own business, they've come from different backgrounds in travel. They've been to other places like they niche or they love or they're passionate about different products and destinations and why are we only just differentiating ourselves based on who's closer to the potential client. And I thought, okay, we can do better here.
Heather (10:14.643)
Yeah, not a lot.
Stephanie Myers (10:39.502)
So I already knew that I had to be doing more to be considered. So within five months of my, solopreneur journey, I started my first podcast. Yay. I taught myself everything I needed to know. Thanks Google. so yeah, it was very interesting times. I was working in a surf shop as well. So being able to, you know, serve customers and have that.
Heather (10:53.811)
That's brilliant. Yay!
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (11:09.294)
social side of business as well, by bringing in my laptop and looking after people's flights and doing things in between was quite good. but also teaching myself how to do the thing with the podcast. Like how do I get audio? How do I get music? How do I stitch it together? How do I edit it? How do I do this? How do I do that? So yeah, and that was one of those ideas that came to me because we used to listen to Spotify a lot in the surf shop.
And Spotify have this sister brand called Encar, it was called, but now it's Spotify for podcasters and every, we had the cheap version because my boss at the time didn't want to pay premium. So we had to listen to the ads a lot. So it was drilled into me like, you know, 50 times a day, you know, Hey, Hey, podcast style. Hey, Hey, you want to start a podcast? You know, meet Encar, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, software. And I'm kind of going.
Heather (11:47.859)
see you at the ads and everything. Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (12:03.182)
this was an idea in my head, but now it's just becoming more solidified. I'm like, right. I'm going to download this anchor program. And that's where it happened. Yeah. So it kind of gave me a taste of what it would feel like to do something else, but in a digital space, obviously I had to teach myself a lot to, you know, what to do and things like that. But yeah, it was really fun because it gave me the opportunity to build my thought leadership.
Heather (12:14.067)
Amazing.
Stephanie Myers (12:31.406)
Obviously my clientele is different to what it is now, but I did find it gave people a speaking point when they met me. you're the podcasting girl. you were the one with the podcast. And other travel agents were listening in because a lot of travel agents were rural. So they wouldn't necessarily be able to have a chat with a, you know, cruise rep or something like that. So they wouldn't have that contact.
Heather (12:42.003)
Yes.
Stephanie Myers (12:56.142)
But because I would interview them on the podcast, they could then tune in and get that level of information as well. So for me, it was like, cool, you've listened to it, great. So then more and more travel agents started listening to it. And then my pivot happened during COVID where I had to sit and think what it was and who it was that I was best serving. And everything changed for me in the course of about a week. So really switched from the consumer.
to my industry pals, which was one of the hardest transitions I've ever had to do. And yeah, it's kind of trying to say, hey, I'm just like you, but I've also got this other skill set too that I can share. So yeah, I think that's probably the hardest part of the pivot. Like everyone talks about.
Heather (13:38.515)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (13:45.518)
know, the word pivot and things like that. But people don't generally pivot within their own industry. Like they pivot outside of their industry or they do something completely different. But during the pandemic, travel was just a bloody write -off. And no one was, you know, you'd say travel to somebody and they'd go, yeah, did you just say that? Did you just say that T word?
Heather (14:04.883)
Yeah, I remember.
Heather (14:10.931)
especially the C word, cruise.
Stephanie Myers (14:12.974)
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it was, it was very interesting times, but being able to go, okay, I want to be the little cog in the big wheel to help bring our industry back. And I want people to fall in love with their businesses again. There were people crying to me on the phone going off, Steph, what are you doing with your business? I thinking I'm walking away from mine and I'm saying, no, no, no, no, no, you can't leave your business. You are so good at what you do. Your clients absolutely love you.
Heather (14:27.987)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (14:43.022)
You know, who's going to serve them when travel comes back in force and like, I know, but it's just not enough for me to hang on. And, it was like, you know, Jack and Rose moment Titanic. It was like that, like really outstretched letting go thing, but you know, hanging in there. I had to do a lot of convincing for people, but basically I created my flagship program, travel agent runway to help keep them working on their business and.
making them feel like, yeah, I'm a business owner and I'm working on my business until my business is back in force. And then I'm doing things differently. Cause I feel like that was like the number one promise. Everyone wanted to do things differently when travel came back and whether they honored that or not was a different story. Cause there was no opportunity to implement anything new. It was just like, okay, we're a bit rusty, but it's all guns blazing. Let's just go.
Heather (15:37.619)
It's amazing that you pivoted in one of the hardest times for your industry and decided to support people that were always also going through one of the hardest times in their history. Wow. Like you epitomize what it means to be an entrepreneur where you find a problem that's not necessarily your own. It kind of was at your time too, but not necessarily your own and you make it your own and you are literally going out there to spearhead change around that in the world. And,
My God. So you really haven't been going that long with this new direction of yours either. And so I want to talk a little bit about your offerings and then we're going to talk about a case study specifically how you help somebody. So, okay, you have this podcast, you have the runway program. Talk to me a little bit more about the program and what other things you do around that.
Stephanie Myers (16:28.558)
Cool. So basically I created a framework that helps travel agents build a Rockstar online personal brand. They build a repeatable lead generation system and then automate that onboarding process so they can literally spend more time booking their own trips rather than being chained to their desk trying to teach themselves how to
do all this automation stuff behind the scenes when it comes to social media content, emails, websites, all that sort of thing. So just my own knowledge around that I put into a framework and that's what the curriculum looks like. So with that, I've been running that. So that birthed in 2021 and it was actually really interesting because when I first launched it, I thought, my God, I'm launching it this.
Heather (17:11.475)
Excellent.
Stephanie Myers (17:25.422)
to travel agents in the industry that have got no money. They haven't taken any commission. They've worked for free for so long and they've barely gotten any sort of government assistance because the government absolutely stuffed every single government grant there was available to travel agents. So there was a lot of big gaps with people that were even eligible. So I'm thinking, okay, am I, you know, it could have stopped me from
actually releasing it, but I thought, no, this is way too important. There's people really, people needed this yesterday, not to, you know, six months time when things might be better. But I'm glad I launched it when I did, because it gave people a leg up a little bit of a head start to work on their businesses before travel came back. So I, my first launch, I enrolled 15.
students, which was such a huge intake for me from going from like five students found like foundation students to net, you know, now 20 in total and making like 12 and a half thousand dollars in five days from going to like being absolutely broke and throwing every last, you know, cent I had at a group coaching program to teach me how to do this thing to then making that kind of money.
Heather (18:21.299)
Amazing. Yeah.
Heather (18:29.203)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (18:48.174)
I was like, okay, cool. It wasn't even about the money. I just knew that I was helping so many people and I thought, okay, cool. How can I continue doing this? How can I sustain this for myself? And at that time, year after year, I did my launches and things like that for my course and enrolling new people and you know, getting to know new people in my community. Something was missing and I'm a really people person. I'm like a physical touch junkie. I just, you know,
I've built this business where there's no opportunity to see people in person because it's everything's online. And I'm thinking, my God, how do I, how do I create something, an offer where I can actually see people in person as well as do what I do online that doesn't cannibalize what I'm doing in my course, but complements it rather. So that's where the travel trends summit, which is my.
Heather (19:22.867)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (19:45.454)
in -person live event for digitally savvy and aspiring travel business owners who want to create a killer digital influence online. So, yay! That's where that was born. And I was so excited when it did, because it came to me in the shower, like all like really good ideas do. And I was like, so my first thing that I did was, I don't know how to run events. I'm a travel agent. I'm just a travel agent. I've never run an event in my life.
Heather (19:53.811)
Yes.
Stephanie Myers (20:15.054)
FYI. So for me to go, holy moly, let's teach myself how to create this event. The first thing I did was begin like a spreadsheet, like a run sheet. Who are my dreamies that I would love to see on stage? And I thought, okay, cool. These are the people that would compliment what I do in my course. So the people that would come with theoretically being new people outside of my ecosystem that would come and learn.
about what it is that I'm doing. But also people in my community could be inspired, motivated, learn something new, but also give them like a little encouragement to continue finishing the program. Cause they would take away a lot in that one day. And yeah, so that was, that was the goal. And after our first event, my goodness, like the energy in that room was just, you couldn't replicate it. So.
Heather (21:00.435)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (21:14.734)
When I got the standing ovation and the applause and, you know, encore at the end, you know, everyone was cheering like 2024, you're bringing this back. I had no, no forward plan of even bringing it back in 2024. It was just a one -off thing for me to like, kind of collect the data and go, okay, cool. Was this something that I might want to do? I hadn't even had a chance to even look at it yet, really as like a business model, but.
On the day I said, okay, if you guys want to come do this again next year, like, and then it was like, yeah, it's like, okay, it looks like we're gonna get next year. So we did. And then we had you grace us with your presence on stage, which was, yeah, it was just next level. I really gave myself a hard time going, okay, cool. Now that I'm doing this, like this is us in year two. How do I go bigger, bolder?
Heather (21:50.119)
You
Heather (21:56.211)
Yay! That was so fun.
Heather (22:02.291)
You guys have to listen to episode 104 actually, because that's when I tell you guys what I learned speaking at the Travel Trend Summit. Yeah, totally. Go ahead.
Stephanie Myers (22:15.534)
Yeah, sorry. when I thought about when I was planning, how can I do this, you know, bigger, bolder, better, all of the things. And then I actually had to really just sit with that for a bit. I thought, how can I do it bigger and better? There's no, I could never do it bigger and better because it was already the best. So in my opinion, and because I'm a single mom.
Heather (22:31.411)
Totally.
Heather (22:34.867)
No.
Stephanie Myers (22:45.166)
I don't really go out to events that often. So I think the lack of event time that I've had in the last few years actually really gave me a advantage because I could create something that was a hundred percent something that I would want to attend. So generally, yeah.
Heather (23:05.011)
And you've, that's what you've done, but that's totally what you've done. There's, I have to interrupt you for a minute here because you're, there's so many themes that are coming out of what you're saying. The first one is like anything is possible. You taught yourself how to podcast. You never had a history in events and you have run one of the coolest events that I've been a part of that like with no experience. And it's interesting because almost what you're saying, like sometimes experience is.
And like knowing what's what you can do or being in that industry almost blinds you to what's possible. And the fact that you had no experience and you're just like, Hey, who am I not to do this? I'm just going to do it. It's had, it's allowed you to create something phenomenal. And, as a, like when I spoke and I shared an episode one four, I shared a lot of my takeaways on what you do. You you're gifted as well as building community and surprises. So you.
Stephanie Myers (23:38.806)
Absolutely.
Heather (24:03.315)
innately, I don't know how you work this out, Steph, it just comes naturally to you, I don't know, but you just like have, I'm gonna give it a go. You always are thinking about people and community and you're always thinking about wow factor and somehow all of that together has created a movement, you know, that you're doing. So I just wanna interject with some of those things I'm hearing as you're talking, but carry on. So tell me more about the event, but then I also want you to tell me about how you specifically helped somebody recently as well.
Stephanie Myers (24:28.91)
Yeah, beautiful. So yes, I just had to stick with my values for the event and just stick with the vision. So it was very successful format the year before. So not going big or bold or better was the choice. I didn't go with that choice. I went with sticking with my values, sticking with what worked, moving the needle, a root, like a smidge. Cause last year I feel like it was an introduction to everything that we could be introducing into our business where this year was like.
let's dig a little deeper. But with travel agents, what I've realized is that we definitely need to be told what to do. And we have a lot of imagination when it comes to planning people's trips, but when it comes to our own business, it might be it's time and lack of energy and lack of like self -confidence to go, actually, I want my travel business to look really different. And I want to just create my own processes and things like that around that. And what it is that I do, that's different. So.
It's because our business, our industry is so stuck in the stone age a little bit that people don't have that like, Ooh, I want to do something different. So when it comes to doing things differently, I want to share my, case study with somebody that I work with. So her name is Jade and she actually took out our travel agent runway on a roll award. So this was our inaugural award to recognize students inside of the travel agent runway program who have.
put themselves to the test. They've critiqued their business from inside and out. They've removed all of the things that they didn't like about their business and implemented things that they really do like and have strengthened that over creating resources for their business that speaks to their niche, what it is that they are an expert on and sharing that, onboarding people into their ecosystem that vibe with that.
And creating a business where they are actually supporting the brands that they really love, sharing their passion and, you know, working to sustain that over a long period of time. Because what we noticed and what we saw play out in COVID is that when we don't have anything to sell, we are sitting in an empty shop with empty shelves and it doesn't add to our credibility at all. But there's other things that we could be doing in our business.
Heather (26:48.403)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (26:55.662)
by way of building our email lists and nurturing those people with our expertise. Because there's a bit of a myth in our industry. We don't share our knowledge with anybody who's not our client. So how do you put yourself out there to show case your expertise or your knowledge if you don't want to share it with people who aren't a paid customer? So breaking that barrier.
Heather (27:15.475)
Yeah.
Heather (27:21.587)
Right.
Stephanie Myers (27:25.39)
for people, letting them see behind the curtain and actually giving them a reason to book with you. We want dollars in the bank after all. And my student Jade, actually, she had a niche before she joined my program. So for somebody who's had a niche already established, she knew, so she's a pop culture specialist. And I was like,
Heather (27:52.051)
Love it.
Stephanie Myers (27:54.19)
my God, this is just insane. I had to Google pop culture because I was like, I wasn't 100 % sure what that would look like in the travel space, but I so get it now after working with Jade for a few years. So it was amazing. And I thought, okay, cool. So if she's already got a niche, like why does she need my program? But it was the things like the lead generation system, the automations.
Heather (28:00.019)
Hehehehe
Stephanie Myers (28:17.614)
getting the website up and running and positioning herself as the actual expert, not just someone who does this for fun. So Jade, I hope she doesn't mind me talking about her, but has another job as well. So she also works in the government job and she does this on the side, but the what she's built on the side is just absolutely incredible. Like she's...
done incredible things for her clients, but also for herself too. And this really shone through in her submission for the travel agent runway honor roll award. Just, I'm going to cry here. Holy moly. just this, the beautiful things that she had written about her time in the, in the program and learning from those inside of our community is just, you just know you've done something really special by someone. Cause you know, you've touched their life and it's.
Heather (28:53.043)
Hehehehe
Heather (28:59.987)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (29:10.414)
goes beyond business. It goes to them as a person. I hosted Jade on our podcast as well. And from someone who just didn't even want to speak on camera or speak into a microphone spoke so beautifully on our podcast episode. it's getting all tingly behind my eyes. I knew this was going to be a tricky one to talk about.
Heather (29:35.827)
Stephanie Myers (29:36.27)
But yeah, just the passion and just like, it's absolutely just 100 % pure love over here. And, you know, I just want that story to be a testament to people who are really worried about growth. Don't have the confidence to back themselves, but have the ability to trust that someone else is out there and they'll find their person if it's not me, it's someone else. If it's not them, it's another person that
Heather (29:42.707)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (30:05.87)
they can aspire to, but also feel trust in, opening up and letting that person not take the reins, but, but share them what this looks like. But she's a very big action taker. So if you gave her a project, she would. Yeah. Sink her teeth into it and absolutely smash it. So that combined with a lack of confidence.
doesn't normally add up, but over time and over the years that we've worked together, it's really solidified a person that just goes, okay, cool. that's not a problem because I know my way around that now. I know how to solve that, that problem now, and do it confidently without going, I don't like doing that or second guessing themselves. So I suppose the gift for me as a mentor is seeing that confidence grow over time.
And knowing that you're a part of that, you're part responsible for helping a person do that. And at the end of the day, if that's the only thing I've taken away, then that is, that is so good. Like I could sleep well for the rest of my life. It's, it really is those little things that make big change.
Heather (31:22.963)
Massive, massive, and you're so good at it. And as you guys are hearing, you know, Stephanie's like, I'm gonna cry, but you do, you're so connected to your clients and you, yeah, but you care so deeply and that that's evident in what you do. We'll, we'll, we'll wrap up shortly, but before we know a little bit more about how people can get involved with you, I do want to bring up something you and I spoke about kind of a what's next for you. You.
Stephanie Myers (31:29.43)
So much.
Heather (31:50.419)
you started telling me a bit about a masterclass. And I think that, I mean, the concepts are really cool. And I wanted you to talk about that because part of, I think, longevity in business is reinventing, disrupting, innovating. And so, so what are you, what are you up to coming up next?
Stephanie Myers (32:04.974)
So I've been busy behind the scenes interviewing our BDMs in the travel industry. So these are our business development managers who are responsible for our educational trips. So for us in the industry, we call them familles, so familiarizations, and these are trips that are offered to travel advisors. You know, usually they're based on sales. So if you sell
Heather (32:13.363)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (32:33.454)
10 you might get one free or you sell five you go into a drawer and you might win a trip or whatever or if you're the highest seller in your store or your office or for the month or something like that you might be approached as well but generally inside of the travel industry everything is sales based but there is a quiet I shouldn't say quiet it's not that quiet it's a silent it's a silent crisis.
Heather (32:59.282)
Heheheheh
Stephanie Myers (33:02.254)
a little epidemic in the industry where people are competing with travel influencers because we've never had to compete for our trips before. But when it comes to travel influencers, they are out there, they are raising brand awareness for different, you know, companies and, you know, good on them. But when it comes to travel advisors, they're kind of like, okay, cool. Well, that travel influencer can't sell the product often miss.
Heather (33:07.571)
Yep.
Stephanie Myers (33:30.99)
you know, shares misinformation inside of their big massive Facebook groups or on Instagram stories where they've got thousands and thousands and thousands of followers. So like, where does that translate? Like, where does that translate into bookings? Because that's our logical brain, right? We're like, okay, cool. Where are the bookings coming from? So that was one of my questions for our research, but a lot of the other ones would be, okay, cool. So we're aware that there's a crisis. Travel agents are now competing for our trips.
We have to jump through fiery hoops to get considered over somebody who's just getting it offered for free based on their social media following, which they don't own as we both know. So I'm thinking, okay, cool. Now the question is when you take travel advisors away on females, how important is it for them to capture content on those trips? Huge, right? Like.
Yeah, brand awareness, you are sharing with your clients and you have the capacity to be able to book those clients and et cetera, et cetera. So this asks the question like, where is the opportunity, where does the opportunity lie for travel advisors to be able to have that digital presence and be considered for trips, but aren't necessarily top sellers of that actual product? Because what it works out to be is a reward trip for the top sellers.
Heather (34:34.575)
Yeah.
Stephanie Myers (34:55.438)
who might not even know how to use an iPhone or post to social media, which is very important for them versus someone that's like, okay, cool. I've got a, you know, a small following on Instagram or wherever. but I'm doing the thing that is helping me grow and being seen. So there's a lot of data that's come out of that without sharing too much, but basically it's how to ditch the outdated marketing strategies.
to lend more for meal opportunities than a paid travel influencer.
Heather (35:31.539)
Absolutely brilliant. And again, something else that you're doing well is you're recognizing something that is there. It's already existing. You're not trying to shove wool over anybody's eyes and you're going, this is happening. Let's work together to deal with it. So smart. I just, I wanted to share that because again, you're taking on sort of this crisis in your industry. You're putting it, you're bringing it together within, within your community and you're like, let's deal with it together. And so,
Stephanie Myers (35:43.79)
Hmm.
Heather (35:56.403)
Yeah, brilliant. Just what you're doing and how quickly you're moving is amazing Stephanie and for people that are listening, obviously you just work with people in the travel industry, correct? Perfect. How do they get involved?
Stephanie Myers (36:07.406)
Mm -hmm. Yep. So yeah, my travel industry pal. Cool. So they can come to my website, Stephanie Myers .com .au. They can find me on Instagram, Stephanie Myers .academy. I am on Facebook too. All the places and LinkedIn. They're just going to look up Stephanie Myers. Yeah.
Heather (36:27.635)
Amazing. Yes. And your podcast is great. And yeah, just really good content and good things you're doing in the world. As we start to wrap up, is there anything that you would like to share with our listeners? This just come to you as a result of our conversation, little word of wisdom to say goodbye.
Stephanie Myers (36:44.686)
Okay, I would love anyone who might be worried about whether they're starting a business or they wanting to change things in their business or things feel a little bit stale or they want to shake things up for themselves. Just trust in your own process. You don't necessarily need to reach out to a million different people to ask a million different people's feedback or how the way they did it or, you know,
going to one person and going, okay, cool. That person does something really well. I want to copy them. Just trust in your own process. It's your business. It's your lifestyle. It's, you know, run your business the way that you want, trust in yourself. And I know that's hard. I know it's bloody hard. It's like, I just trusted yourself. Cool. You're good. But it doesn't, it's not, doesn't always feel that it doesn't always feel good to trust yourself, but learning to trust yourself in little instances.
and going, cool, yep, I've got this, it'll come to me. Yeah.
Heather (37:47.475)
Brilliant, thank you. That was the perfect way to end our little chat today. Thank you so much for being here. Just so many cool things that you're working on and themes and ideas for people to take on board, whether they're in travel or not, like just the way you've created and run and established your business and how you listen to your community and how you bring them what they need. There's just such wise words of business in that as well. So thank you so much.
Stephanie Myers (38:13.102)
No worries, my pleasure. We are definitely shaking things up in the travel industry, so watch this space. Thanks Heather.
Heather (38:18.547)
Watch it guys. Bye Stephanie. Thank you.
