Travel Agents' Frequently Asked Questions and Marcie's New Hosted Groups Facebook Space

Hey there, welcome to the No BS Travel Advisor. This is the solo edition, just me, Marcie Muensterman, my mouth, my mistakes, and the real stories from 19 years in this wild-ass industry. There will be no guests here, no censorship, no filters, just the truth behind how I burned out, rebuilt, and finally learned to run this business like And if you're an independent advisor who suspects your host might suck, hates working for free, and appreciates a well-placed F-bomb, you're in the right damn place. So let's go. Hey y'all, welcome back to the No BS Travel Advisor Podcast. I am your hostess, Marcie Muensterman, and I was MIA last week, but it was because I was having a really hard time. It was my birthday week, and that happens to also be my dad's birthday. My dad is 88 years old. My dad was born on the 24th of July. I'm the 27th, and then my daughter is the 29th. And I really had a hard weekend this year. I love getting older, actually. I think that getting older is a privilege. So it wasn't the age that was bothering me. It was just that idea that the person that you really wish was here was calling you. And he called every year at like the most ridiculous hour, 6:30 AM sometimes, to wish me a happy birthday. And it can be really, really hard when you think You're gonna hear somebody's voice, or you want to hear someone's voice, and they're not there. And his birthday this year was on a Friday, and I had sent out an email, and I put the wrong amount of time he's been gone in the email. Like, I mistyped, and I'm just—I was like, should I send a correction? And I just—I didn't send a correction, so I'm correcting it now. The amount of time my dad's been gone is not only nine months; it is one T months. And I think I must have been thinking like nineteen, and then didn't come back to it, and don't know what I did. I just—I. was in a free flow state of sharing, and then I didn't edit the email that went out. So if anyone was confused or has been following my journey, I'm sorry about that confusion. Missing my dad has been the hardest thing I've been through in my adult life, and I've been through a lot, as many of you have. And so many of you were so kind to send me an email back sharing your journeys, and I read all of them and cried in my bed. Aw. For like 3 days because, you know, that black cloud of grief was so heavy. I actually did not enjoy my birthday this year. I love a birthday, but I just needed it to get over because I think I was feeling lonely and a little distraught. I was not distracted. I spent way too much time just in my own head and thinking about my dad. I was so excited when the day was over so I could move on to Jude's birthday. And we had a lot of fun. I do yes days for the kids. So we went to volleyball one-on-one and then we went to International Mall in Tampa. And if you've never been to that mall, it is one of the nicest malls. There's lots of great stores, but you know, if your kids are into all the '90s stuff like Aeropostale and American Eagle and Hollister, we visited all of my old haunts. And of course I never got to wear those clothes when I was her age. My family. Did not spend that kind of money on clothes. And it's always a little shocking to go in there and realize nothing has changed about that store. And yet the prices are probably triple what they were in the '90s. But my dad was a pain in the ass and he was very budget conscious. And you can get something like that at Kohl's. That was his answer to everything. So where, you know, I did not suffer, do not get me wrong, but I definitely didn't have t-shirts with Hollister on them or any of the like new trendy things. I, I I didn't have that stuff growing up and that's okay. But I am glad I'm able to do that for Jude. She has expensive tastes and she had to have a new glove for softball and she wanted all the trendy pieces going into her freshman year. And yesterday she made the JV volleyball team. Super excited for her because she's only been playing volleyball for a year and she hasn't played in several months. She's finally feeling better after her bone bruise and I was nervous for her. Because there were 44 girls who came out for like 25 spots or something. I don't know. Anyways, she made it. It's been a good week since her birthday, like, which was the 29th. Is that— this past Wednesday to Wednesday has been awesome. It's just making up for those bad days. And you know, a lot of stuff goes on in the background of the coaching business that I don't tell you all about. Not because I don't wanna share or I'm not being transparent. It's just, I don't want anyone to feel sorry For like the mess I have created having this business, and it has grown so fast. In fact, the Maximize Your Travel Advisor Business Facebook group has 16,000 travel advisors in it. And this past week, I launched a brand new spinoff of the Maximize group. I'm really excited about that new space. I will drop the link in the show notes, but it is called Maximize Your Escorted. Hosted Travel Advisor Group Business Sales and Marketing Tips. It is exclusively going to be about filling your groups. And for those of you in Lead the Manifest, I think there are 65 of you. I am honored. And last semester there were 55. We are going to be pouring into selling your groups out, of course, in live time, which is so much fun. I love coaching in live time. I love seeing results in lifetime, and that's why Lead the Manifest is the best groups framework out there. There is no copycat. There is no other groups course that can compete with this, and it's not available all the time. And for that reason, I was like, I should start another Facebook group to manage that's free to the travel advisor community to talk about groups. You guys have so many questions and I really want to support you, and there's just not enough. space in the main Maximize group to give it the attention it needs. We already have like 1,200 members in just a couple of days. And if you want to join either of my Maximize groups, they're both free. You can find them on social media, on Facebook, and there's a link on my website to the main one. And then you can easily find the groups one. So yeah. I'm really excited about kicking this off because I love helping you. I love coaching you. I love teaching and educating travel advisors. I am the most passionate about anything I've ever built, but it's not always easy. And there are copycats out there and there's people selling some of my templates on Etsy. There's courses being written that are exactly like mine. There are coaching offers and you just have to deal with it. There's nothing I can do. I have sent the cease and desist. In the past, there's always going to be somebody who wants what you have, and there is so much room for coaching and educating and teaching in our industry. I want that to be available to you. I want you to find the right person to teach you. I want that for all of us. What I would love for things to stop doing is copying, literally sometimes word for word, sometimes taking something they purchased from me and then trying to resell it to you all, and. It's been a, it's been a journey of craziness in the background and lost colleagues because of unethical behavior and not having integrity. It's a disappointment, but it's just part of the boulders in front of you. And you have to decide how you're going to break through, whether it's the mental game, it's the let them theory, it's the fuck them theory, it's whatever. Every day is a new day and There are some weeks that are really hard. There are some weeks that are just, you can't believe how beautiful the business is. Either way, I am grateful for all of it. I don't know if you all realize how much time and energy and effort goes into educating you and being there for you. And I'm a workaholic. I am the thing that I often tell you guys not to be because I want to show up for you. It's not going to go away anytime soon. I'm just going to keep scaling and, and building a team. And I have some really cool ideas for 2027. I'm Super pumped about my retreat coming up next year, and if you're interested in that, please DM me about the retreat. Today is August 5th, 2026, and I'm hoping that it sells out by the end of August. So we're going to be sending out some emails about that, and I'll post about it in Maximize. Lots of stuff happening in the coaching business. I will keep you updated here. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast so that you know when I've released a new episode, and then also get on my newsletter. I do send a lot of emails. I'm not going to lie. So don't unsubscribe, just scroll past, delete the ones you don't need. But every Monday, I also send out the No BS Week Guide to Your Business. I've changed it a little bit from maximize your money to every week sending out a little story sharing about how to make your week better with an affirmation. I've been getting really good feedback. That's all the updates on the coaching business. Now, sometimes I don't always have one topic to discuss in my podcast episodes. So occasionally I ask you to drop some of your questions and I'm going to answer some of them this week in live time. I have not read these questions. I've scanned them, but I have not read them, but I am going to chat through them now. I did turn off commenting. I'm going to do this monthly from now on. Okay. Heather Thompson wants to know how to stay focused during slow times. Such a great question. Slow times can be so challenging. It can be difficult to do the job that you want to do when it is slow. So my advice is, I know you're not going to like hearing this, create more content. Sit down with the content. If you need business, You have to be marketing more than once a day even. And I know you, Heather, so I know you have a couple of spaces that you do that in. You absolutely have to sit down and either take the content you have from First Class Community and repurpose it, or spend some time engaging with and growing your network on social media if you don't want to go out and do that in person. The other thing I think you should do during slow times is Nothing. When it is slow, it is meant to be slow. And there are going to be times when it is so busy and so crazy, and you're going to be craving those slower moments. So once you've done a little bit of networking every morning, go have lunch with a friend, go for a walk, or join a run club if that's your jam. I would never run, but this is just some things off the top of my head. I want you to take time for yourself, do something for yourself when it's slow, lean into that slowness. That's what's beautiful about our job is we don't have to work 24/7. We don't need to create unnecessary work. If you want to stay on task, obviously there's always automations you could be setting up, organizing your CRM, making sure that all of the emails you have are up to date, the addresses, the birthdays are plugged in so that you can send some sort of birthday newsletter to people whose birthdays are in 6 months. There's all kinds of busy activities you can be doing as a travel advisor. But I don't think that we should have to do all that busy work all the time just because we're slow. It's okay to sit back, binge watch a Netflix documentary, or read a book. We're reading Go for No for our September book club. It's a really short book. You could read that. I also think focus is overrated. I know that sounds crazy, but Focus is overrated. It's something that we think we have to do because we've been doing it for so long in corporate America and school, but there's something beautiful about not being focused, and that is when all of my ideas come to life. I love to take a hot bath, float in my pool, go to the beach when I am slow because I know I'm going to have a creative idea. I encourage embracing The doing less when we're not super busy. I think it's the world's way of telling us, hey, I got you. You need the soft landing. Listen to that by leaning into the slow times. Beth Weingart says, what do you think is a realistic income potential for someone who truly goes all in on my programs, which I assume are my signature courses? She says, I know there are no guarantees because everyone's situation is different. Still, for someone who follows your systems, hires a VA, runs their business professionally, and consistently executes, what kind of income range have you seen? She wants to know what's realistically possible. I love talking about money. I love talking about income potential, and I do know anywhere from $75,000 to $200,000. If you do everything, if you embrace all of the systems and strategies that I teach you, if you are charging the fee Upselling every client. If you are at the top level of commission with your travel agency host, have a minimum spend so that you are making commission with a comma on every single reservation. That can be really challenging, especially in the early days. I know you're very new to travel, so it's all about building that network, which I know you also do because you have your own networking group, but it really is About building enough trust that people will spend a much higher amount with you per vacation. It took me about 6 years to get to a place where the majority of my reservations were commission with a comma. And now they're almost 100% a commission with a comma, unless people are traveling for less than 5 days, going to the Caribbean, doing like a quick weekend, even at a 5-star for, you know, 4 nights, you're not always going to have a comma there. But it's all about making sure that experience is so incredible that they refer and come back for more. Those are your most valuable client assets. The people who trust you explicitly with one option that you give them that is perfect for them. So they feel so taken care of and you're providing white glove service consistently that charging a fee makes the most sense. I also think not charging enough is really killing the business. If you want a secondary stream of income as a travel advisor, charging a fee makes the most sense. And in, I wanna say it was '22, I charged $24,000 in just research and concierge fees. That was a game changer for my income. I think that year I made right around $170,000 before taxes, and I am working very part-time as a travel advisor. People call me a liar all the time, and I feel like maybe I should get my, my income statement out for them from the government. That has slowed down for me in the last year, but it is because I have poured into coaching and I prefer it over the travel advising now. That said, I do know the sky is the limit. The issue is time, energy, consistency, and building up a network that is flowing to you all the time. That requires a lot of show up. It will require some hustle on certain days because I don't think you should work 24/7, but I do think networking and building that network that would get you to a place where you are well into 6 figures requires more effort than if you are doing this business part-time and you're just looking at it as supplemental income. Anything is possible, and I encourage you to go after it, girl. April Peter. Hey girl. Hey, I'm so excited. I know everybody on the thread so far. What other sources of income do you, or would you even suggest for a travel advisor trying to go full-time that has hit the slow season? She's like asking for a friend eyeballs. And then there's a comment underneath that says, I have the same question. It seems like multiple streams of revenue is the way to make above average. And that's from Tiffany Caro. These gals were in my Lead the Manifest last semester along with Heather and Beth is in this semester. So you guys are all up in my business today. Uh, girls, when I first was a travel advisor, I was a barista and I became a shift manager at Starbucks. Insane. It, I literally worked 4:00 AM to 1:00 PM and then would do the travel advising. If you want another stream of income, taking what you've already created, itineraries, proposals, doing something with them. Especially on like a platform like Etsy, could become a nice supplemental income. If you have something you're already good at, turning it into another business is smart. The issue becomes though, how are you going to market it? How are you going to make sure that it gets to the people that you want it to get it to? And how much should you sell that stuff for? But that's all secondary to, is this another feasible way to spend your time? Is this a valuable way? Does that make sense for how much time you have to give to it? And as someone who is a coach and mentor and creates templates and creates courses, that type of stuff, it's exhausting. It can be just as hard of work and just as much marketing. So how much time do you have to give to a secondary business? There's also Instacart, DoorDash. There are other types of gig jobs that allow flexibility where you can make some income and do it on your own schedule. Dog walking, like Upwork has the opportunity to help people building websites, creating graphics. There's all kinds of ideas out there that aren't even just for travel advisors that you could potentially lean into. But is that how you want to spend your time? It's the time. If you took all of that and turned it into consistent networking, if you have time to build a second business, you could make networking in person a second business. You could show up to BNI, join the Chamber of Commerce, find women's groups, start a book club, volunteer at PTA or your church. Or any other philanthropy. There are other ways to get your name out there, to become a trusted individual that you can be all in. Maybe you decide you're going to start attending bridal shows twice a month. Slow time is when those are happening. So right now is when you can start to register for trade shows, bridal shows around the country. Pouring back into the business that you're already growing makes more sense. You haven't been a travel advisor very long. It takes a while to get the flow and the funnel of good quality clients coming through. And in the meantime, instead of thinking about all the different things you could be doing with that time to make money, you could be out there actually focused on growing your business. The only reason why I had a second or third job at the beginning of the travel industry business for me was because we were flat broke. And Eric has always supported our family with his income, but It was when he was making the least amount of money, and I had to have something coming in. But if you don't have to have something coming in, like super seriously coming in, then focusing on your travel business, if this is your passion, needs to be the top priority every day. And instead of making excuses for not growing it or complaining that you don't have enough business coming in, you have to go pound pavement. And again, I am not all for hustle. I am not for 24/7, but sometimes times in our business when we need it to move forward and we aren't patient, you have to get outside. You have to get face-to-face with your community and you have to grow it from a different point of view. And that requires you going out of your house. That requires you showing up in places you wouldn't normally show up, but trying to find like 50 other ways to make money does not necessarily make sense to me until you've been doing this for 5 or 6 years and You know exactly how long it takes you to do everything. You have a regular system of referrals coming through the door that you could potentially start a secondary income. However, if you're like, I need money right now, go get a second job. Go be a barista, go be a waitress, go do something where you have some flexibility, not the typical 9 to 5. That's where you can also meet people. When I was a bartender and a barista, I met so many people and I have done trips For some of those people. It is a great way to network. It is a great way to get your face out there and be in the community, build relationships with other people who are building businesses on the side as well. What numbers do you track every month to know if your business is healthy? This is a really good question, and it's the profit and loss statement. My husband created it for me, and it basically shows How much I'm spending and how much is coming in, and that is what is estimated to come in as well as what actually comes in. So I have a spreadsheet for that. Those numbers tell a really strong story, but it's not the whole story. While yes, I need to see those numbers, especially when I'm operating from the negative that new travel advisors need to have five to ten thousand dollars in a business bank account. A business is healthy when it starts to get close to even those first couple of years, as you start to make more money in commission and you're able to track that and how that's pouring back into that $5,000 to $10,000 bucket, because that's going to be emptying, right? You're going to be spending that money. I think the first 18 months you will probably spend close to $10,000 if you are doing this business correctly. If you're setting up your LLC, getting your E&O insurance, building out your terms and conditions with an actual lawyer and not ChatGPT. You're probably also spending money on lots of subscriptions, potentially fees to your host, and other investments into the business like courses, conferences, FAMMs, other pieces of travel, even going to lunch with a group of travel advisors. That's an investment into your business because you have to spend money getting there and on lunch. All of that needs to go on your profit and loss statement. The more you spend, the more you need to be thinking about how to get back to even those first couple of years. If you see yourself consistently going into the red, you need to evaluate whether or not those investments in the extras beyond what you need for your baseline business are necessary. So that might be looking at your Claude or Canva subscription to start to offset Some of those costs, because if you don't, you're going to just get deeper and deeper and deeper into the red. And a lot of travel advisors, in my opinion, rob themselves, like the robbing Peter to pay Paul. You're literally robbing your own personal accounts to keep this business going instead of starting with an amount of money that can turn into quality business investments that you have a budget for. If you're not budgeting in your business, then you can get so deep into the red so fast. It feels like all of a sudden I have just spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, and I don't know how I'm going to make the commissions to make up for that loss. It is incredibly challenging, and it's one of the reasons new advisors burn out because they never track the income. They never track what's estimated to come in. They don't know how much they're paying out to their host agency. On that commission, and they're expecting more to come in than actually does. So they cannot refill their business bank account. And if you can't fill that business bank account, you'll never be able to pay yourself. And if you never be able to pay yourself, you're going to wonder why you're even fucking here. And I talk to advisors every day that go through that because they're afraid of the numbers. So we have to be running our numbers, and we have to be looking at the math. And as someone who avoided that for Almost two whole decades. When I decided to come back to travel in 2018, Eric said, "Please tell me that you are going to keep track of the numbers," and I still didn't for a couple of years because it stressed me out. But if you're willing to look at this, being in the know is half the challenge. Like it's like a lot of us just don't want to look at it. We don't want to know how much we're spending. We don't want to do the math of the estimated income on our sales, and therefore it can be really disappointing in a couple of years when you find out, oh my gosh! I have spent so much money. I have made very little money, and I have not been tracking this. But if we're cognizant of what's going out and coming in, we're going to be in a much better situation. I also want to answer your other questions. What do you think new travel advisors waste the most time on? Whew! What don't they waste time on is the question. Travel advisors waste the most time on. Misusing social media is probably one of the bigger ones. I see it every day. I see fake-ass AI ugly flyers going out, which means they're plugging that all into their AI of choice, and then they're posting some shit that nobody cares about. Nobody's gonna see. I think that's a huge waste of time. I also think they waste too much time worrying about what other people think of this business. So they're gonna be on social media, but they're not gonna market themselves. I always tell people in First Class Community Facebook Groups course, if you have time to scroll, you have time to post. And if you're not marketing yourself 80 to 90% during a growth phase, if you're in a growth phase, you need clients, you are unable to network in person, you don't have time to be out in the world volunteering and building up a face-to-face community, then you have to be marketing online and you need to be doing so Way more than you are. So I also think this is not going to be popular. I think people spend way too much time attending webinars that don't actually produce anything in their business. I think that because you guys are so afraid of niching down in any capacity that you're focused on learning all the things, but not implementing what you learn or using what you learn from those webinars to create content that someone else will see it and say, she Totally gets me. That is the kind of content you need to be creating and you're not doing it. You're not talking to your aligned client. You're also on webinars and going to conferences and FAMMs and then not doing anything with them when you get home. So there's so much time wasted. You need to be learning how to actually operate your CRM before you get clients. You need to know exactly how you're going to get paid from your host before you get clients. You need to take all the host back office training and learn how to actually operate your business. And you waste so much time learning product and you have no systems or workflows set up for that moment when a client comes through your DMs. If you did have a system and workflow, those situations would be a lot more seamless for you and you'd be learning as you went, of course, but it would be smoother than playing from behind. We're all focused on the wrong things. Especially in the early part of the business. I'm not saying don't go out and try to get clients. I'm saying, make sure you understand your CRM. Like some of you have no clue how to input a new client or create automations for that client should they decide to book with you. So you're bouncing from idea to idea to idea, and you're never actually learning the thing that you need to learn so that you can actually implement the thing you need to implement. One of the things I believe that advisors need to be doing is actually taking the course, the training, the webinar, and then focus on implementation. What is the plan to make sure that I actually start using this in my business? A lot of you buy things, including my courses, and then never actually learn how to do those systems and workflows. When you invest in something, take the time, put the out of office on and focus on it and get it. Operating in your business. Your third question is: How many travelers would I want before considering a group worth the effort? Well, I like to make a profit, and I like to travel for free. It really will depend on the group size because it depends on how much the net cost of that trip is for me as the advisor in both time, energy, and actual travel. But I build things out very differently than other people when it comes to group trips, and I make sure my profit is first and built completely. Completely in before I ever start quoting it. You definitely will want to come over to the Maximize Your Escorted and Hosted Travel Advisor Group Business because we will be talking about how to do that. Every group trip is worth it if you want to go, if it's a place you want to travel to. If you take the time to build something out and you are marketing it well to a network that's interested, that you've already, you know, built relationship with, it's always worth it. If I don't want to go, I'm not going to do it. So It's not ever just about the money. And if I believe the experience is worth it, I'm gonna go regardless of who comes with me. I think that's the mindset you have to have when you're planning something, but you also need to know what your risk is involved, how much your deposit is, when can you cancel, what can you afford to lose if you do decide to cancel because you don't have enough people. All right. Alyssa Bratz. Hi girl. An evil sorcerer puts a spell on you where you are only ever allowed to give one piece of advice to TAs forever. She says, don't worry. Though the film has a happy ending, you discover that spell will be broken after you drop 10,000 F-bombs. So it, this spell will be broken very soon. But what is that one piece of advice? It would be absolutely making sure that you are being paid appropriately by your host and that you have not signed a shitty contract because you will want to be able to make changes and decisions in your business that you don't want anyone to be controlling eventually, maybe not in the early days, and clear terms When you sign a contract with a travel agency host is a game changer. There was a conversation a couple of weeks ago about a travel advisor who turned her travel agency owner into the IRS for misclassification. And this travel agency owner was quote unquote cleared. And she has a lawyer and, you know, it was expensive for this owner to deal with. It's all in how she was treating that IC while she was there. So when you are looking at your contracts, both owners and advisors, you need to make sure you understand 1099 policies so that you're not reported to the IRS. This owner stated in one of the comments that this agent is bitter or something like that. Why was she like that? What happened that this advisor felt the need to turn this owner in? This is going to keep happening. If you're putting out controlling vibes, you're going to have issues like this over time as advisors become more educated on what is allowed. And only the IRS can decide. And I'm glad for this owner that her contract held up. I'm still super curious about why this advisor decided, hey, I'm going to turn her in and why this got so big. I don't know the owner or the advisor who did this. The owner accused me in a group. Of coaching this person, everybody needs to be in charge of their own business. I say it all the time: you have to have a lawyer. I've been accused of not saying that, and I say it all the time: I'm not a lawyer. You need a lawyer. Secondly, your contract needs to be looked at by a lawyer before you sign it. My number one piece of advice for TAs forever is don't sign a shitty contract. Have a lawyer look at it. Make sure you know what the terms are. If anything happens at any point, you can go back to that. lawyer and decide what to do next together. If you believe something is a misclassification, you absolutely need to talk to your lawyer and gather all the documentation and all the evidence so that you're not wasting your host agency's time and you're not wasting your own time. Get with a lawyer who understands 1099 law and do what's right for you. But if you don't ever sign a shitty contract, none of you would be in this situation. All right, Liz, I cannot pronounce your last name, so I'm not going to try. I don't want to disrespect you, but thank you for your question. She says, I've got proposed to close but haven't started because she's finishing First Class Community Facebook Groups course. What is my process from consult to close? So my process starts the minute someone slides into my DM, sends me a text or an email, maybe even calls me, in which case I would then text them my consultation link. If I want to take the appointment, so the first thing is what do they say in this message? Either way, whether I want this prospect or not, I will say to them that sounds like an amazing trip. I'm very excited for you, and to pursue the conversation, I send my consultation link for a complimentary consult. If I don't want this business, if it doesn't align with my niche, if If it's, if I don't have time, I will do what I call help and release. And I teach this in Propose to Close. How to do that, how long that should take is very little time. So both sending the consult link and helping and releasing, both of them take less than 30 seconds. That's the goal. So you're not wasting a ton of time in the DMs. If I decide to have a consultation and they make the appointment, great. I have a 30-minute consultation. I do explain at the end. How much their trip is going to cost. And my averages always start with my minimum spend. So if it's a trip to Italy for 2 people, you're going to need at least $20,000 to create this vacation for 7 to 10 days. That is about the average my clients spend, and that's what I would want them to spend. That's the budget I want to work with minimum. Finding your own minimum on each kind of trip is huge here because you will be telling them, not asking them for a budget during the consultation. And this is A shift in mindset away from saying, hey, what's your budget? To, you just described an amazing vacation. My average client spends $20,000. How do you feel about that investment? That's how I deliver that information. I look at their face because we're always on Zoom, read the room, see how they're doing. And then I usually have somebody say, oh my gosh, sounds great. Like, how do we get started? In which case then I explain my fees and what is going to happen next. The consultation should always end. with you sharing your fee schedule. And that doesn't mean like tiers, like 5 options. Offer one flat fee that it's like when you order a big steak dinner and it comes with 2 sides, it comes with 2 sides regardless if you eat the sides. My fee starts at $250 per person for FIT Europe. And I say to them, there's 5 of you. I charge $1,250. To get started, I will be sending you an email follow-up to this consultation so that we are on the same page. You want to send this follow-up email because you need to cover your ass. Want to make sure that you have told them in multiple places, not only on the recorded Zoom, but also in writing, this is the fee. This is what we talked about. This is the budget I gave you. And now I ended. With a couple of different options on how to get started with me. So everything is next steps. This is the expectation. And then I text them after I send that email and I say, hi friend, it was great chatting with you, whatever day it is, and say, I just sent you an email with the follow-up to our consultation about Italy. I would love for you to look at it as soon as possible and let me know if you receive the email. That's all you're asking them at this point. You just want to make sure it landed in their inbox. Sometimes my stuff goes to junk or spam, depending on how you send it. If you send it through your CRM, especially you'll want to do this. Um, but even my professional email ends up going in spam. So from there they get to make their decision, but I always give them deadlines. And this to me is the difference between somebody who knows how to close a reservation and somebody who lets their clients take the wheel at this point. And I call it on and off the train. Like you're the conductor and you need to get them on and off the train with these different deadlines and these different options throughout the process. You will totally understand all of this a lot more when you get to Propose to Close. And I highly recommend blocking your calendar to actually take these courses. And then again, implementation. Don't wait 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks spreading out all that information and then expect to be able to easily implement it. You need to start practicing it as soon as possible. New advisors. Who implement my strategies are actually doing better and selling more and setting boundaries in ways no veteran does. It takes veterans longer because they are breaking habits versus advisors who are taking my advice early in their career. This is the consistent feedback that I get from advisors who go all in on my courses and all in on my strategies, who do not have bad habits and have not been taught wrong how to do this job. And they are making money faster. They are closing deals and getting rid of tire kickers, and they're charging fees. Like it's so cool to watch new advisors really embrace the proposed to close strategy specifically, and I'm so proud of them. So get to it. I know you're busy with FCC, but you definitely want to make sure that you dive into proposed to close and start implementing it right away. Because once you get the go-ahead to start the proposal, you collect your fee and you're only sending one proposal. You're not sending 3, 4, 5 options. That is where the game changer is for people because they're able to reduce the amount of time they are spending on proposals and they're communicating quickly and effectively with their prospects right after they send those things out. So they're still sending them via email, but then they're following up each email with an immediate, and I mean immediate, not Not a day from now, not 3 hours, 15 minutes after a proposal goes out, I send a text. Sometimes I send a text 3 minutes after a proposal goes out saying the same thing. Hey, the proposal's in your inbox. Can you please check to make sure you received it? Because I will need your deposit by Friday. If it's a Wednesday, it's by Friday. If it's a Friday, it's by Monday. You tell them the day that you are going to collect the deposit. You assume they're going to fall in love with your first impression. But you do all of that via text. I call it closing via text. The things that have to be in email are still in email, but every single time I send an email, I text my client every single time so that they can go look at it because so many people get hundreds of emails a week. You do not wanna get lost in there. And saying, let me know, is not a closing strategy. That is not a good sales strategy. Waiting around for them to decide is allowing them to drive the train. So get back on the train, y'all. Okay, Mira, you've said you don't go to conferences. How did you build a network of other travel advisors for support? Well, you're in it. You're looking at it. I was very active from 2018 on in Facebook groups that I enjoy. I got kicked out of a few that I really like, but it's because there's just too much Marcie going around, too many links being dropped, but I truly enjoy spaces where I can collaborate and have conversation with and find like-minded travel advisors. For that reason, I started the Maximize Your Travel Agent Business Group because I really wanted more of that every day. And it was before I was a coach. It was before I had written anything. I really wanted to make connections. I really wanted to make a few friends in the industry. I haven't been to a conference since 2013. I don't plan on going to any conferences. I've been to President's Club retreats with Vacation Express, but I went with Eric and I spent most of my time with him. I love making connections online. I'm actually quite the introverted extrovert. A lot of people would be surprised to hear that, but I prefer smaller intimate spaces in person and larger online spaces. Creating something of my own was much better for me. And many of the other travel advisor groups that are out there, it is hard to make real connections. And in my opinion, they're not run very well. There's not a lot of integrity in running them. The owners of those groups don't show up very often or at all, and they just sort of quote unquote run themselves. I don't like that. So I like to set the tone in my groups. And over the last 4 years between, you know, coaching one-on-one and getting to know the travel advisors in my DMs, I have been able to build a support network that I think will last a lifetime, you know, unless you're out there trying to steal my shit, in which case I will ban. Block and never speak to you again. Uh, luckily there's so many advisors to get to know, and I feel like it's going to be a wonderful long-term journey with a few bad eggs in there. Get in there, start communicating, start making connections. People's comments that you like— as far as like with BDMs and DMCs, I show up. I don't have to show up in person though. I show up to webinars. I talk to them. I make appointments with them. I reach out privately via email, introduce myself. I did a podcast on how to build relationships with BDMs. I know all of my favorite BDMs just from reaching out to them privately one-on-one. If you have taken any of my classes, then those communities are more intimate and they're like-minded. So they're interested in the same style of learning and you can connect over that. Heather Lowe, I've talked to so many advisors who sell mostly through TikTok, she says. I just freaking Hate making videos and marketing that way. Facebook is much more my jam, but I can't seem to grow outside of my city. For someone that truly hates marketing videos, do you suggest that I push myself? That is up to you. I know I don't think you should push yourself. I think you should start a Facebook group. I think that you need to learn the skills so that you can stay in a space that makes more sense for you. I believe that there is a market on TikTok for some advisors to do well. But yeah, if you want that, you're going to have to show up in a very different way than you're going to have to show up on Facebook. And the reason I wrote First Class Community Facebook Groups course is because I didn't want to dance on screen. My aligned clients for travel have always been and will always be on Facebook. And I believe for the most of us, that's true because if you're over the age of 30 or under the age of 80, that's the majority of Facebook now. It will continue to be that way. The millennials, age group, that is where we are. And many of us are doing very well now. If you're in your 40s and 50s, you're at the cusp of having children gone and being in a position to spend a little bit more on travel and yourself. You know, I think in my early 30s, I spent most of my money on my kids. And now I really prioritize my own needs. And so do my aligned clients. And my clients are spending more and more to go away because they want to have the experiences that I show them. And that's come from both finances and in how I like to travel. I am almost completely over all-inclusives. I don't like to drink as much. I don't want to lay by the pool all day. I want to be immersed in more authentic experiences. And so switching over to Italy a few years ago has done nothing but wonderful things for both the way I enjoy travel, but also So showing Italy to others is such a huge passion for me. It's not the busy, busy, go, go, go lifestyle that a lot of Americans do when they're in Europe. I don't sell that kind of trip. And the more I market this out in my Facebook group, the more they want it. And that's also how I've grown my group business. Cause I'm like, I love it so much. I want to take you with me. And now I'm doing that and I'm making really good money doing that in travel. You don't need to be on TikTok. You don't need to be everywhere. You need to find a focus. And pour into that. And yes, you have to market 80 to 90% more than you think you should have to market. I used to say 10%, but I think 10% is for the likes of us that have a foundation, that have a good referral business, that have good repeat business. But if you're new and you're trying to build this business, you need to spend 80 to 90% of your time marketing in a place where your aligned client exists. Why would you go to TikTok and make a bunch of stupid-ass videos if that's not where your people are, or it's not where you want to be. If you want to be on Facebook, be on Facebook, but invest in yourself, invest in first-class community, learn how to run a Facebook group. A private Facebook group would also give you an exclusivity feel where you don't have to be public and out there doing dumb shit to get attention for your business. You can just show up as you educate, engage, have fun, enjoy marketing. Your business needs to also be somewhat fun. I was talking to someone yesterday and she said, I just hate marketing so much and I don't enjoy it, but your Facebook group makes it so easy for me. And I do see client acquisition from it. And I asked her, you know, what do you attribute to that? And she said, well, you've made it easy, but also the conversations are fun. I've learned so much about my community. And I'm like, that is why I do it. That is why I teach it this way, because I want you to get to know your community, which is very hard to do on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook page. You need a private group where the conversation can easily flow back and forth and really listen to what they're saying. But if you don't know how to create content, none of it is dancing, by the way, then it's going to be more and more challenging to do that. So that's why I wrote my course. That, that's why there are 600 prompts so that you can actually get to know your community. The more you get to know your community, the more likable you become, the more trustworthy you are in their eyes and why wouldn't they choose you as a travel advisor? While I'm saying all that, I also want to say that your private group will not be huge. Also, only 20% will probably ever convert into actual business. So you do have to grow it, but it doesn't need to be quote unquote viral. You don't need thousands and thousands of people in your Facebook group for it to convert. You have to know how to grow it with intention and run it with intention and create content with intention. And have fun. If they can feel that you're just slapping things up there just to do it, they're not going to trust you. So you have to bring your personality to the conversation. You have to bring your honesty, your authenticity, and your story. You have to tell your story. Try it out. Invest in yourself. Grab First Class Community. If you use PODCAST11, you'll save 11%. All right. Aaron Koffer is asking, I am starting to think about hosting a group trip in the future. Either a safari or river cruise, and I know my circle is not big enough yet. What are some things I can start doing to build a circle of potential clients? Love this question. I've already covered a little bit of it here. You have to get out there. You have to start networking in person. If you want to connect with more business owners, I would find local coffee shops, wine shops, and other small businesses where it might be of interest to their clients if you have any overlap. I think river cruising might be a little bit easier here because of the wine tastings. But even in the safari, you can definitely start talking to them about South African wineries and vineyards. I genuinely think you have to get into more groups on Facebook, more social groups where you're giving advice that isn't travel related, that has nothing to do with your business, but being yourself, showing up, making friends, and then adding people to your personal network as much as possible, not other travel advisors, but people you have in common with your clients or your potential clients, people from high school, college, church, school in your community, but also outside of that community. Even one person in common is worthy of investigating. Making more personal connections that can then grow into business connections. And yes, this takes time, is the most ideal way to grow to the second layer of your network and the third layer of your network. And you probably know a lot more people now than you think. If you're anywhere over the age of 40, they say— they, I don't know who they are, but I've read the statistic that you've met 4,000 to 5,000 people. Just the fact that your network could be a lot bigger and you're just sitting with whatever you're comfortable with. The more you're willing to do the uncomfortable thing, the faster your network will grow and the faster you're able to find the right people to fill your group trips. Uh, Nikki Tipton says, not a question, But she wants to say, "I love your solo podcasts, and I've been listening to the new ones." Shout out to Nikki and anyone who's been listening to my podcast. I love podcasting. It is so much fun. It's a lot of work, but I love it, and I'm so glad you're here listening, and I appreciate you so much. And that was a great comment to end this episode on. I hope you learned something today. Please like, follow, and give me a five-star review. I need all the reviews. The more support this podcast can get, the more likely somebody might eventually. Eventually give me a shot at sponsorships and things like that. I don't want to be begging or desperate, but this does take a lot of time. It takes my team a lot of time, and I really appreciate the support so much. I'm so glad you like listening, and I will keep investing in the podcast so that you can keep enjoying it. But the more you're willing to share it and follow it and download it, the better for me. I really appreciate all of my listeners. Thank you for all of your questions this week. I really hope that we continue to grow as a community and do so in ethical, beautiful ways that support us as an industry. Have a great day, y'all. Hey y'all, this is the end of another No BS Travel Advisor podcast. Thank you so much for listening. I am Marcie Muensterman and I am not your lawyer. I am not your accountant. That is my disclaimer. I am a coach and mentor with 20 years of sales experience. And if you love this episode, please leave me a five-star review because it means so much to me. If you have any questions, you also know you can hit me up in the DMs at any time. All right, guys. Love you. Bye.