Growing Versus Scaling

I hear the statement “I want to grow my business” every single day.

But is that really what you want to do? Or should you really be saying, “I want to scale my business.”

Do you know the difference?

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In many cases, an agency that grows is really just an agency that is staying the same. When you are growing your business, you are adding agents at the same rate that your sales increase.

Sounds logical, right? It is a very common business model in the consulting/professional realm. Your new business increases; you hire agents to manage the growth. Hence, you are increasing revenue at the same exact rate to which you are increasing expenses, whether it’s with independent or in-house agents.

While you’ve technically “grown” your agency, you haven’t even begun to substantially increase your profit.

Scaling your agency, on the other hand, is increasing your revenue without increasing your expenses. Scaling your business will enable you to put more money in your pocket, not just more people within your agency.

How is this possible in the travel industry? Automation requires thinking outside of the box and working smarter, not harder. Agencies that can speed up or automate their day-to-day processes are easily scalable.

Is your business ready to become more profitable?

Do you have a turnkey process for sending out quotes and closing sales quicker and easier? Do you work on every trip request that you receive no matter the budget or type of trip? Do you have to manage your marketing and social media on a daily basis?

Here are some tips on automating day-to-day processes:

—Utilize a cruise-booking tool as a research tool to move your clients further down the sales funnel before you touch their trip. This saves time, and time is money.

—Choose a website solution that has online booking capabilities. After all, OTAs created the self-booker; you need to compete and capitalize on this successful process.

—Use digital planning tools such as Travefy to set up templates for the different destinations you sell. Time is money, so invest the time in your business to set up templates that will enable you to create a semi-automated quoting process to turn around multi-week trips in a fraction of the time.

—Automate your marketing. Automate your social media. Automate your trip allocation process to funnel lower-budget trips to new or less-experienced agents because such itineraries tend to be more time-intensive to fulfill. This teaches new agents skills that can be learned only by doing, thereby enabling you to spend your time on more customized trips.

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My technology partners have enabled me to scale my agency to create a turnkey business model resulting in increased profits and a list of agents wanting to join my team. Choose your partners wisely; they will be a key factor in scaling your business! #WorkSmarterNotHarder #Agent4AllAgents