Jonathan: Welcome back to charting the course. We were talking about intro music. She wants Taylor Swift. The answer is no. that's how we're gonna do this. That's true. That's gonna slip in
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm. But I edit, so we'll see what happens.
Jonathan: welcome, welcome back to charting the course. We got the the term correct this week. It's week two. We're obviously green and getting going here, but Jonathan Morris, one of the owners and president of Legato, and Kelli Hayes Smith, who is Legato's marketing manager and marketing extraordinaire. Let's go with that.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I try. Sometimes it depends on the day. It depends on the day.
Jonathan: No pressure.
Kelli Hayes Smith: yeah. So Jonathan, first p I I said last week, maybe it was in the intro too, but I twisted your arm to create a podcast. Real feedback. What are we thinking? How do you feel about it?
Jonathan: You know, I actually woke up today excited to record a podcast.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Okay, guys. Today I'm gonna put Jonathan on the hot seat about something that I think agents struggle with. And that is Jonathan. Today's topic is he texted me earlier. Y'all need to know this. And he's like, what are we talking about? And I said, I'm not telling you because you're way better off the cuff than you are when you're prepped. So I'll tell you when we get on a call. so
Jonathan: This reminds me of open mic earlier this week when it was almost felt like catch Jonathan off guard type of and I was like, I will not be caught. I will hit whatever you throw at me. So mm-hmm. It's a horrible game to play.
Kelli Hayes Smith: It's a fun game we play. but we're gonna talk about are you busy in your travel business? Are you actually productive? And I think this is a big one.
Jonathan: Yeah. Busyness can feel like productivity until you analyze it and you realize you're running around the the the block too many times and not actually doing and gaining traction. So and I'm guilty of it. Yeah. Yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So am I. Like and I I like to chase a shiny squirrel. Something new happens and it's like, ooh, this sounds fun. And then I'm like, what are you doing? Like what did you do today? And I was I did something all day and I did nothing all at one time. So but
Jonathan: Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've had whole days like that where I'm like, I did stuff. Don't ask me what I did though. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I don't know what I did. Yeah. I didn't cross anything off, but I somehow spent the whole day doing things. The the reason this came up for me as I'm writing out topics is you have been spending a lot of time meeting with legato agents. Tell me a little bit about that.
Jonathan: Yeah, so Agent Advisory Board, we kind of, you know, we pitched the idea that Montis Pro two point the Pikes Peak edition, because we're mountain folk, legit mountain
Kelli Hayes Smith: Hmm.
Jonathan: folk up in here. And so yes, we're naming it after Real Mountains called Pikes Peak, which is America's mountain, Colorado Springs. Just throwing that out there. going through Montis 2.0 and figuring out what can we
Kelli Hayes Smith: Time out.
Jonathan: do
Kelli Hayes Smith: What is Montis? Because remember that this is not just Logato that's listening. So Montis is Yes. Yeah.
Jonathan: Montis Pro is our proprietary software. Thank you. It is the it is the source of all things Legato. So it's got your CRM, it's got your training, all that type of stuff, your community support, supplier information, so on and so forth, help center. so if you're gonna operate at Legato, you'll get real familiar with Montis Pro real quick. but it's time to strip it down to the studs and take it to two point and that's what we're working on right now. So Met with Agent Advisory Board a couple months ago and now it's just going through meeting with dozens of our agents just to get their feedback on not only what can we do better on the technical side, but what can we do better as an agency at large? What do we need to do to make sure that they're successful? Because ultimately, if they're not successful, we're not successful, suppliers aren't. It's it's that natural partnership. And I gotta say, I love it. I love to just go hang out with the agents, get to hear what they're saying, what the challenges they're facing, what successes they are, or what they're, you know, experiencing all that type of stuff. And it's been really fun to hear where the industry is going directly from the agents and be able to see, you know, here's the challenges, and then what can we do to overcome these challenges? And I gotta say, none of it least from what we're hearing is is necessarily earth shattering. It's just getting back to the basics and making sure that you service your customer well and make sure technology works for you and keeps you present with your customers. That way, those are medial tasks that kind of suck the life out of you after a while. Let's automate those. Let's stay fresh when talking with the people.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. So as you've had these conversations with agents, have you seen anything that's coming up for them that is making them feel overwhelmed? Like in their business? What are they spending time doing that they're like, I'm overwhelmed by this?
Jonathan: You know, I think it depends on people's backgrounds a lot. Cause like for instance, I'm I'm extremely comfortable building a system and a workflow, and that's that's pretty, pretty natural to me. Ask me to market. Won't don't even put me in that category. Ask you to market all day long. Don't ask you to build Jack Dilly Squat. It's just how we work together really well. So
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jonathan: I find that most folks are kind of it's either on the kind of the we'll call it the technical side, whether that's putting workflows together, just their processes and things like this, night this idea of building a foundation, or it's on the marketing side. It's it seems to be one of those two. And the idea that marketing is is only done a way, not multiple ways, or how do you play to somebody's strengths and weakness? Yeah, it's it's so that's what I've really kind of come to discover here has been it's kind of those two parts because The industry has a lot of good training. we have good training and we're we're constantly under development, of course, but that seems to be an area that's relatively strong in the industry. So we're good there. But there's been this tech revolution that's come out in the last several years, and it's it's a long time coming and it's it's
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah.
Jonathan: long overdue. And I think sometimes agents get overwhelmed with, okay, there's this, you got new toys to play with, you got, you you
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: got Turn, you got Travefy that are just like cooking right now in their respective areas. you got AI coming in and if you're not somebody who's worked with tech, it can that can be overwhelming,
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah.
Jonathan: quite frankly. So
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. So I I think that's super important because you mentioned workflows. Like that you're comfortable making workflows. What I think I have heard, tell me if you are hearing this as well. Workflows everybody wants to say, I don't really know what my workflow looks like until I have a client. And then I have a client, I don't have a workflow, and now I'm trying to build plane while I'm flying it. And really and truly, we need to be mapping this stuff out before we're busy.
Jonathan: Agreed. I it's it is that catch twenty-two. Chicken or the egg came first, you know, pick your team on that one. this is where I encourage folks, and it's good if if you feel like you're getting overwhelmed, one of the things that I do, if if I start to notice I'm slipping, I'm not being as productive, because if I can't end the day and know, okay, I completed one, two, three, or I worked on this big project, whatever it is, right? If I can't answer that question to somebody who asked me how my day was. Then that is kind of for me kind of an orange sign, an orange flag that I'm maybe getting a little too busy and less productive. So
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: what I'll do is I'll just sit there and write down actually have a to my to-do list within arm's reach, personal side, professional side. So I keep track of everything because if I don't write it down, it will not get done. Period. So I'll write it down and then what I what I'll do is I'll actually audit myself for it could be a day, it could be three days or a week or something like that. Just say, okay, what did I do? today. So I wrote this email. Okay. If I wrote this email and answered the question, then what can I do to answer the question for, you know, proactively next time? What can I do to better deliver the well, question, answer in that case, right? Audit yourself and just take that self-assessment. It doesn't have be anything crazy. You don't have to go down the rabbit hole, but just to be a little bit aware of what am I doing? Why am I doing it? Who am I doing it with, you know, just the who, what, when, where, how of
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan: What in the world am I doing? Ask yourself that question.
Kelli Hayes Smith: And those things go in a workflow, right? Like, I mean, it doesn't really matter if it is the same. Your process should be the same every time, regardless of the client, regardless of the the destination, the trip, the supplier. There's a portion of that that should be the sub that should be the same every time. Am I cr like am I cr listen, I I have been a travel agent, but I was a travel agent before my the host I agency I was with did not have a CRM. I don't think people understand that. I had no CRM. None. I used Mail or Light, which is a mail, like an email marketing thing, as a CRM. That's wild for me to even consider now. But that's the truth. So as an agent, an advisor who was in this before my before well, not before CRMs, but did not use a CRM.
Jonathan: I'll say, how old are you? You're not that old.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Let's shut up. Now, listen, Jonathan, let's just not, okay? I don't have my unicorn mug out today, or I would show that to you. But the but like that is what your CRM is for. Is cor am I wrong in saying that? Like we should be building some sort of workflow and things in that workflow are going to look different depending on things, but essentially the process should remain very similar throughout this.
Jonathan: Great. And it's that consistency. And that's what customers want. They want to know if I'm booking with Kelly's travel, this is what I expect because of my first trip with her or my tenth trip, I know I'm gonna get this type of support. She's gonna call or email. She's she's this is what to expect. It's like, you know, when you're on a road trip and you get hungry and you you typically go to like your safe restaurants and you're like, okay, what what do I know? Like I enjoy eating,
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm.
Jonathan: sets well with me, doesn't drain me, whatever, right? And you're like, okay, I know subway. Like you can go to virtually any subway and it all tastes the same across the board. Good food, bad food, it doesn't matter. There's consistency. And that's where as an agent, working on that consistency. So that way your
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: customers don't feel like, man, you you nailed it on trip one with me. But then it seems like by trip three, four, or ten, as we're rebooking that, you're just kind of taking it for granted because I got a lot of hand holding on one and it went down from there. Because that to me is a workflow type of thing where you you can provide a level of hand holding and service that really sets you apart without having to do every single click and every single correspondence.
Kelli Hayes Smith: And I think too, on that note, when it comes to that workflow, if you don't have that in place, you are gonna waste a lot of time because you're either trying to remember what you need to do next or you or things fall through the cracks. Like if it's not kind of set up where it can just run muscle memory, now you are spending your time in the weeds doing things you don't need to do.
Jonathan: Hundred percent the number of times I would close a sale without a workflow and forget things. Forget
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: or have to go through my emails and be like, okay, I remember the answer was somewhere buried over here. And you're like, my goodness, I got folders. Horrible, horrible place to be. Yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: God, that drives me crazy. I cannot, I cannot. Yeah. yeah. I know my inbox currently needs to be worked on right now. Yeah, as we speak. But but on that same note, is this like where in this workflow are they creating unnecessary work for themselves? Like where, where could they find time back in their day if there's just a workflow there?
Jonathan: You know, the first thing I would look at is what I call like kind of the dry stuff. And it's the things, you know, just the typical advisories of, you know, make sure your passport's good and get travel insurance, register for the STEP program, you
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: know, just those types of logistical things that are standard and almost dry in nature. Like there's not a lot of sales to it. I that's the first thing I would look at. Yeah, it's
Kelli Hayes Smith: Or humanness, right?
Jonathan: like we're just communicating. Click here to register for step if you're traveling international.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Right.
Jonathan: You shouldn't have to type that out. Go get the link, copy and like that, those little things,
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah.
Jonathan: like, you know, before you go, like save yourself on the
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: service side, like, okay, hey, you're you're getting ready to go for your trip. Now let's talk about, hey, here's if you're six months out during that service window when you you got them under deposit and they're waiting to travel for six months, then what can you do to keep them excited? You know, here if Go into Australia or something, like send them some ideas of things to do in Australia. Not even sales, like buy this, do that. Like just, hey, this is a teaser. This is really cool. This send them a news article or something that's happening down there. You can set up again AI to go scour this type of stuff and bring the content to you.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Was on the Travefy podcast like several years ago, and Stephanie and I had this conversation. And she said an advisor, an agent had told her at one point that they sent reading lists to people. So, like
Jonathan: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: of books that were that their setting was the area they were traveling to. And I thought that was like a really cool idea of like having those different things. I that's such a cool idea. like just thought process through, especially in those six months, if they had a TBR to be read for those of you who are not book talk, of list of of books that are going to be within like where they're going, how cool is that? And because we know that like in movies, then you could add that in or TV shows that were
Jonathan: Yeah, yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: shot in this area, because that is a huge travel thing right now is like going to some place that your favorite shows were either sat in or filmed at. And so adding those things to it is going to be such a cool that's the personal chu touch that I would add. Not
Jonathan: Yes.
Kelli Hayes Smith: like, here's a link to register for this boring government thing.
Jonathan: Correct. So mentally split it with like, what's my boring, dry logistics type stuff?
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm.
Jonathan: Automate that as much as you possibly can. Keep yourself fresh on the customer engagement, keeping them excited. Show them that, yeah, you you in essence, okay, you got them under a deposit. You you took my money. Now I'm not going to hear
Kelli Hayes Smith: Now what?
Jonathan: from you for six months or a year. They probably aren't going to come back many times after that. You got to.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Right. And they may be skeptical. Like there's
Jonathan: Building. Yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: crap in the news right now about travel agents taking money and then not booking. I mean, like it's been all over
Jonathan: Yep.
Kelli Hayes Smith: recently. And so if somebody gives you they're not giving you, I get that. Like, don't at me in the comments. I know they're not giving you the money. They shouldn't be giving you the money, which is part of the problem in some
Jonathan: It shouldn't be, yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: of these news stories, is they're Venmoing the agent for this stuff, but they they see that they handed over eleven grand for this trip. And then they don't hear from the person for six months. I'm gonna be skeptical. I'm gonna be skeptical of
Jonathan: I'm your pissed. Yeah. Yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: what did I do? And what are you doing in this time
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: period? And so I think that that is a big piece of this. The other thing that I like, what in this same area when it comes to this workflow, but not even just that, in the travel business as a whole. I have one, but I wanna see if you say the same thing I think. What task like what gets pushed aside that they don't feel like is urgent and then it gets pushed aside until it is urgent? I have one. I'm gonna pro
Jonathan: Mm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I'm gonna say mine first and then you give me yours. But mine is books, money. Keeping track of the your bookkeeping, your taxes, things like that. Cause that is not sexy. And ask Tim Smith. He will tell you Kelli is not good with the accounting portion of anything. But I think that gets pushed back because it's easy to not think about that until you absolutely have to think about it. And now you're screwed.
Jonathan: Yeah. Or you get the the letter from our our friendly IRS over there and it's like, by the way, and you're going, crap. I that I would say yes, the the books, especially this time of the year, you know, we're getting close to end of year and make sure everything's buttoned up and tightened up and and I say that as the not the budget person in my relationship either. I am very clearly the spender. it's a it's a joke, and I fully own my ability to spend money, especially other people's money. I'm really good at that.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Same.
Jonathan: I would say yes, this time of the year.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I'm good at spending our money too though.
Jonathan: Absolutely. So like the as we're so at Legato, we're getting ready to prepare for like our end of year audit and we'll we'll train our agents and talk through like, okay, this is what you should be doing. And it's really for me, it's all about the foundation. And then annually, at least annually, more if you're growing quickly. Like maybe it's quarterly if you're really cooking or twice a twice a year. But at this time of the year, come, let's say after Thanksgiving, yeah, like last six weeks of the year. Go through it. Make sure you got all your tax preparations. If you changed your business account or did any like you did anything, need to do W9 or whatever, like, let us know so we can make sure we get 1099s issued properly. Any any company out there, is your marketing setup? Like think through the disciplines of your business, the marketing, the tech, the training. If you're wanting to, maybe you're selling all inclusives today, but you've always wanted to do Europe and FIT. Great. Then what training are you gonna do to start getting proficient in that destination? To prep you have to prepare for your incoming customers. Don't wait for your customers to show up and then go, yay, I have a customer that I've always wanted, but yet, crap, I have a customer. What do I do? You know, like
Kelli Hayes Smith: Now what do I do? Yeah.
Jonathan: that doesn't that doesn't track very well.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah.
Jonathan: So get think think ahead. You need to be ahead of your customer. And you said something like, you know, if if somebody's gonna give you eleven thousand dollars for a trip, don't view it as money. Yeah, I get it's technically money. These are people's dreams. It's their savings, it's
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan: their it's their vision for what makes that a perfect trip. Be empathetic that what would you do if somebody told you their dream and you say, hey, I'm not gonna really listen to you. That's what it comes across. So really.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I don't really care. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan: You know, take that and actually protect it. Be be aware of it.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. I think that's so important to change that mindset. And you mentioned marketing and like one of my bullet points on my notes over here is what do you where do you see agents creating unnecessary work for themselves?
Jonathan: Mm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: And I'm gonna scream from the rooftops marketing and I know this is people are going to marketing is necessary. My issue with the way agents are creating marketing and honestly the way the industry is teaching agents to create marketing is that we have separated it from the job. We have separated marketing from Being a travel agent. Like it's two separate things, except it's not like in this business, you're the product. We I've we've said this, our agents just finished, and I said ours, like I, but I didn't legato agents. We just finished a be the product marketing challenge in the month of September, where we went through how to turn your messaging into highlighting your value as the actual product, right? But if you are the product, how are you separating? The product, i.e., doing the job and the service from marketing the job and the service. I this is the part that just infuriates me. And we've created this as an industry because suppliers are like, here's your marketing. And now you're out there marketing supplier content instead of your content. And suppliers
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: don't care where you buy it. And I love our suppliers. I don't mean it like that, but like their goal, their product is different than your product. And so if all you're using is Their marketing, you're selling their product, not yours. And the idea that we have just separated it makes it feel like you have to have two full time jobs instead of marketing just being part of your job. And I I I get that people are gonna say, yes, but it is a different job, but it's not. Because if you just talk about, if you just showcase what it is that you do and you just tell the stories that you're doing every day. You're not having to separate it anymore. And now you no longer have to sit down and be like, what do I post? What am I gonna talk about? You're gonna talk about what you're doing. That's the marketing. And and so this un for me, an unnecessary piece of work that they're doing for themselves is trying to completely separate, like it's two different pieces. And I feel like that's adding unnecessary work to their plates.
Jonathan: Agreed. And and from the marketing perspective, from the from the tech perspective, it's people I think it's it's easy to look at the overall job, if you will, being being a travel agent, a travel professional. And then you can easily say, okay, here's my disciplines. And those disciplines equate jobs. And it's like, mm, not necessarily. The job is servicing and supporting and selling your customers and making sure they have a a good time on their trip, right? But what disciplines do you need? And you're right. It has to be a Collaboration, and I say collaboration, it's typically a one person, you got to be collaborative with yourself. But
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan: understanding that even I think for me, and I say this full of marketing ignorance. So if I'm wrong, you'll correct me. I know that. marketing needs it needs to be intertwined, but I think there's this misnomer that marketing gets people in the doors, and then when they're in the doors, you stop marketing once you've got them landed, and it's like, No, no, no. Marketing is as simple as during that six month gap between money and travel, deposit and travel, what are you doing to
Kelli Hayes Smith: How about upselling?
Jonathan: market the the destination, market the an upsell? Like just market
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yes.
Jonathan: the fact that you're still excited on with them, not
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah.
Jonathan: on behalf of them. Like you're excited for their trip. What are you doing to keep them excited? That's still marketing.
Kelli Hayes Smith: It is. It absolutely is. And when I say upsell them, I'm not talking about upselling them for the fact of upselling them. If you are not sharing information with them about things they can do on their trip, you're not giving them the best trip. Period. Right. Like if you aren't looking at these are the things they've talked about that are important to me and there here are ways that that that you can do these things, then you're not doing your job. Your client experience is going to suck. And you're costing yourself money. So like it's a lose all around. and Jonathan, did you like I I'm I'm gonna plug the other podcast that I do because the social takeoff this week was about loyalty marketing and understanding that if you want to repeat client, you can't just drop them on a newsletter list and send them once a month, here's every single travel deal in the world right now and expect them to come back. Unless you've absolutely killed it on client experience. But honestly, it's that personal marketing that happens from the time that you they become a client as a booking for the rest of forever. Because
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: if you remember that they, that their kid is a junior in high school and they mentioned just in passing that they thought they would like to take him to Rome for his senior trip, and you don't start talking to them about Rome within that, like what are you doing? That is that's the repeat business. And so the marketing can't stop. But the this idea that there's silos, right? I think disciplines and collaboration is exactly correct. But I think that we have got to stop thinking about like this is my CEO work and then this is my travel planning work and then this is my marketing work and putting them in silos because they should all be talking together. So if you're doing the travel planning, And while you're doing that, you're not also auditing the workflow in the way that it's in your CRM to make it more efficient, or you're not doing the travel planning and thinking about, this would make a really great story for social media at the same time. Now you're working in silos and you've created different jobs for yourself. But if you are seeing how they collaborate and how they all work together, now you've created a more streamlined, not just client experience, but work experience for yourself.
Jonathan: Absolutely. And it's it's going back to the question of why am I doing the things that I'm doing? And if you can't answer that question quickly
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan: and sharply and intelligently, if you kinda fumble through it, then it's worth just saying, Okay, time out on the field. Let me let me go back and figure out how why can I not answer that question? I do this job forty plus hours a week, and if I can't answer it, that's on me. I have to figure out what's going on.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. And the other part is like priorities. I feel like we I I feel like not just agents, I feel like humans struggle with prioritizing. Because number one, we
Jonathan: Mm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: want to do the stuff we wanna do first. Like it it's very difficult to make yourself do the stuff you don't wanna do. I am the world's worst. Like literally. Ask my mother. She's I would get like I I'm the girl who was writing papers at 10 p.m. for one that was due at 8 a.m. the next day, right? Like this is yeah, exactly
Jonathan: Yep.
Kelli Hayes Smith: like performing, I need that anxiety rush to make it work. And that works sometimes. But I think if we can't understand how to prioritize things, one of the things I see agents do all the time is they overtrain and undersell. Like they are going to trainings daily, but we're not doing anything to actually get out there and then talk about what we've learned. Or they they are so educated in the industry, they're taking all of these classes. And it could it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be supplier training. It could also be like a marketing training or join this group or this particular person that I like is opening another group and I need to join that too. Like, are we doing this thing where we are consuming more information and we're not really giving any output?
Jonathan: It's the whole, you know, paralysis by analysis and just getting it
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm.
Jonathan: it's like, yeah, you've got a really you built a nice car, but you've never driven it. At some point, you need to go drive the car and do it. Just
Kelli Hayes Smith: Gotta put the motor in it, like or the gas in it, whatever. Yeah.
Jonathan: and it's and it's scary, like especially if you're not, you know, sales extroverted, you're not, you know, it it can be it can be a daunting test to take that jump and and put yourself out there. But I also think it helps if If you, as the agent, is getting overwhelmed and with all the information, we have access to really good tools in the industry that the customers don't have. Imagine where your customers are coming from and how frazzled they are when they start listening to information outside the trade that may have varying degrees of authenticity or accuracy. They're going to come to you rather frazzled. And if you are going to people can pick up on, you know, like desperation and if you're rushed and just frazzled. And if they pick up on that, that that's not giving them that that soothing, secure professional experience of okay, this person, they know what they're doing. I can trust my trip, my money, my savings, all the hours of overtime I work, whatever it is, right? That trip is more than just the trip to that customer. It is all the work behind the scenes to make it a reality, all the dreams and hopes and aspirations. You need to do a good job of protecting that and showing your customer that. I heard you. I listened to you. Like we're we're gonna execute to the best of our ability. And doing that in a professional, calm manner. They don't need to see underneath the surface. You might be freaking out. That is perfectly fine. Getting a hold of like I will question questions for days, asking agents, how do I do this? That's fine. Just don't let your customers see. And you can protect that kind of visibility by having those systems in place, whether on marketing side, the tech side, the service, the intake, it doesn't doesn't matter. They feel secure. If they feel secure, that's the hardest part. That first lock in is getting them to feel secure.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. And I think what you just said is it's hard to show up, it's hard to do that, but find, you know, ask people these things. Here's the other thing I think that is a big issue and it's not just in the travel industry. In this world of social media, which I work in, if with
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: my my aunt was on the phone with me today, there's that new Facebook movie and they're like what is I don't remember what it's called, but anyway, and it's like, you know, how social media is evil and I'm like, Yeah, remember this is how your nephews eat. So like Not let's not hate on it too much. But like also in this world of social media, I think one of the things that you have to do to protect your time and your peace is you need to audit who you're listening to and who you're following. And what
Jonathan: Mm. Yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: is the vibe you get from that? What you know, because if they are and I have muted and blocked so many people on socials. Both for the fact that I don't want to hear what you have to say, but also for the fact of I have to protect my peace. And sometimes it's not about them at all. Sometimes it's about me. Sometimes it's about imposter syndrome. And I see somebody else do something and I'm like, I wish I was that good. I wish I like and I have to block that because they don't get my peace. They don't and then the other thing is. Highlight reels, man. You don't know what's real and what's true
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: and what's not. People can show you loads of numbers and they may or may not be telling the truth or the whole story. You don't know. And so this comparison that we do, comparison is the thief of your joy. Stay on your path and mute and block people on socials or in real life that take that away from you or make you second guess yourself. And one of the things I've tried to do in my socials is show up very authentic. And I am not just talking about like talking like I normally do or showing my real life, but also showing highs and lows, showing when things don't go as planned, when a when I if I talk more I mean, I talk marketing on socials, showing when something bombed, showing this is why I think it happened, but like it happens to everybody. And showcasing that it's not all sunshine and rainbows. And I'm not saying come follow me. I am saying look for people who you can connect with because they're not trying to just tell you how perfect everything is, because that's fake.
Jonathan: Agreed. People want authenticity. And they
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah.
Jonathan: don't most people do not expect perfection. They do expect excellence. They expect you that when when something goes wrong, you step up, you advocate for you you you own the mistake if it's yours and you bring remedy to it as much as you possibly can and do your best the next shot. And it's you know, when you're growing up and and your mom's telling you, you know, watch who you're hanging out with. That tracks.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Hmm. Yeah.
Jonathan: As much as you didn't want to hear it as a teenager. It did track and it was accurate and we tell the same thing to our kids and it's don't be careful of the lowest common denominators in your life. Yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah, that and I think that that's part that drains your time. Because if you were people can be a time suck as well, right? Like, I mean, and making sure that you are being a good steward of your time with the people and the communications that you listen to. And you'll find your people. But I I think that's as important when it comes to busy and productive. as anything because it can get real easy to get caught in a scroll hole or listening to all the people and saying that because everybody's out there telling you you what you should do. And the thing is what they're saying does not work for everybody. And I like fully understand that. When I teach marketing, I'm like, look, this is the way I did it. This is I'm showing my numbers right now on Instagram. And I tried to preface it before every time, like understand it took me 12 years to get these numbers. If you started six months ago, two years ago, please don't judge your numbers by this. This is not, I'm not showing you this because these numbers are big. I'm showing you this because I'm learning what's working. And I want you to go around and be around and watch and listen to people who are making you feel like you can do it, not like you should be doing something different because that's gonna suck your time out. Because then what you start doing is you start. patchworking different systems together and you end up never getting to that finish line because you're not following your path. You're trying to take pieces from everybody's. And you've got to know yourself and your business and your gut well enough to know this is going to work for me or this doesn't.
Jonathan: Absolutely. It's going back to the original plan and heart that you had. And
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: it's not saying that plans are rigid and don't get adjusted because that's that's not the case, but going back to the basics of why did I start my agency? What how did I want to separate myself from others? What type of experience do I want to, you know, provide my customers? What do I want to be known for? Because I'm putting my name on it on this trip. I'm helping build it and support it and all the customer stuff. Like I'm there's an element of there should be a proper element of. Pride that I'm proud to build this and thank you. And I'm gonna honor that request when it comes in. And if people pick up on that, you you got them locked in and you're fine. But going back to the plan, because there is, like you were saying, Kelli, there's just there's a lot of noise, whether in the industry or outside, it doesn't matter. Life is full of noise today. And going back to that original plan of why am I doing the things that I'm doing, the who, what, when, where, how. And we've had to do that numerous times at Logato over and over, just constantly refining and asking. we got off the path over here to get back to the basics, back to our roots. And every time we do it, good things happen. And it's like no matter how many times we leave the path, it's like, goodness gracious, I just did it again. Are you kidding me? And but those paths, I have noticed over the years, the deviance from the paths is getting longer in between and shorter. So it's like as you master your stuff, it's easier to stay in that
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: lane. You stick to your plan, leave the proper level of flexibility as as the world changes, economies come and go, politics, the whole kit and caboodle, right? There's things outside of our control. What can you do to weather the storm? And that's what the plan should have built in is a certain level of flexibility. But the heart behind it should be static. And that is, I want to provide a good custom you know, good service to my customer. I want to be viewed as a professional. When people think travel, they think. Kelly's agency in this area. Like they're gonna go through Europe through Kelli, like there's no questions asked. What can you do from a training, a marketing, a service side to get there? And that's where, again, go back to the plan and build systems and processes and foundations so you don't have to rebuild.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. And I mean, honestly, we started this talking about busy versus productive, but honestly, that is a hundred percent it because we can get busy doing stuff that doesn't matter. If we are focused, laser focused on the goal and why we did this, it becomes easier to be productive because you don't have unlimited time. And so if you don't have a clear vision of why you're doing what you're doing. it becomes easy to just do a bunch of tasks. But if
Jonathan: Correct.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I know I am I'm going for something and this is why. And the why, yes, like you have to have a why you want to do why travel specifically, but also why did you start a business? Why and you know what about not just about this business, but what do you we talked about this last episode? What's success look like for you? So are you getting closer to your success goal? And if not, Now I know I'm doing tasks and not anything that's productive.
Jonathan: Yeah. And that's like this the great time of the year to do that end of your audit. Like where did I start the year? Where am I ending? Is the arrow in the up or down direction? If it's in the down, what can I do? If it's in the up, what can I do? Right. And then setting some plans, some some nice bite-sized plans for twenty seven. Okay,
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm.
Jonathan: here's here's one goal. It might be sales related, passenger related, might just be I want to automate my marketing. I want to get better at systems automations. I want to get trained in this area or I just want to travel to this area because it validates my training. It it doesn't it doesn't matter what the goal is, but set some bite sized goals. That's how we're wired as humans. Don't don't look to get up there every time and swing a home run. It just it ain't happening. So
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Well, then you just feel defeated.
Jonathan: correct.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Like it you need to have winnable goals so that you can build momentum. And if because
Jonathan: Mm. Yep. Absolutely.
Kelli Hayes Smith: if you're just trying to get to that, it's real hard to build momentum if you're like 20 years away from the goal that you're setting and it's like I'm never getting anywhere. And I think that
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: when it comes down to busy and productive, the exactly what you just said bite-sized pieces that are moving you forward. That's how you know whether or not you are busy or productive, right? Like, and sometimes it feels busy. Sometimes it but then it's like, okay, what was the bigger picture in this? And sometimes you have to do the busy work, but your time should not be consumed by it if you want to build a sustainable business. And I don't mean sustainable just in the sense of making you money, but sustainable in your energy levels.
Jonathan: Correct. I mean you're you're going to be busy no matter what you do. The question is, are you going to be productive? And that gets measured
Kelli Hayes Smith: I busy.
Jonathan: against are you doing the things in your plan and moving in the direction that you outlined? And bring accountability people into spouses, friends, family. It it doesn't matter. Bring a fellow agent in, right? Just say, Hey, hold hold me accountable. I'm starting here and I want to go to B. We'll meet six months later. Let me know how I'm doing. Meet quarterly, you know?
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. So I started this. I think I shared this with you. I am meeting with another business owner in this area. And while we do very different things, they kind of overlap, but we both work from home and we are doing accountability together where we talk once a week and then we meet
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: once a month. And then we then once a quarter, like all of the things so that we're counting and being accountable to each other and we're turning in the lists of things we need to accomplish. To check in with each other on that. And I think accountability partners are could be a huge piece of making sure you stay productive as well. I love that idea.
Jonathan: It is, especially if, you know, one person agency, it's easy to feel like it's you're truly alone at that point.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Alone. Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: so there's a lot of value. Doing this without a community is infinitely harder. Find your community.
Kelli Hayes Smith: And pick pick someone who is going to be supportive of what you're doing because there's been a lot of these like v
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: viral reels and TikToks going around of like people you've never met on the internet cheering you on and it's like all like like cheers and then
Jonathan: yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: you've got people who you actually know in real life and it's crickets from. And that's
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: that's real because a lot of people don't understand this the way that we the things that we do and in this this business and this. Business ownership. So make sure when you are choosing someone that it's someone who is going to cheer you on and not tear you down.
Jonathan: And and challenge you at the same time. You know, it's it
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Honest, yeah.
Jonathan: being honest, straightforward with you. you know, you think about like if you're doing like more of a mentor role, make sure they've got experience that you want, like follow in their track. If you're just looking for somebody to run and do life with, then yeah, pick pick a good person to hold be honest and be a cheerleader, you know.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Can you tell that we both take criticism differently? He's like, I want somebody that's going to be honest. And I'm like, I want somebody to cheer me on. That's very so find the right person. And
Jonathan: If I suck at life, I wanna know about it quickly, you know, so
Kelli Hayes Smith: I do too, but I need you to tell me gently so that I don't spend the next three days in bed about it. So, Jonathan, this was a good episode. We keep saying
Jonathan: Yep. That's true. You know what?
Kelli Hayes Smith: 30 minutes, and it's been 4236, but that's okay. I don't care. No, we won't. No, we won't.
Jonathan: That's okay. We'll eventually get it down to thirty ish. next Wednesday, which will be October fourteenth for those of you on the calendar. I can do math really good. I did six plus eight, bam, done.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I can't. Nope.
Jonathan: Next Wednesday, October fourteenth. See you on the flip side.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Bye guys. See y'all then.
Jonathan: See you later.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm. But I edit, so we'll see what happens.
Jonathan: welcome, welcome back to charting the course. We got the the term correct this week. It's week two. We're obviously green and getting going here, but Jonathan Morris, one of the owners and president of Legato, and Kelli Hayes Smith, who is Legato's marketing manager and marketing extraordinaire. Let's go with that.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I try. Sometimes it depends on the day. It depends on the day.
Jonathan: No pressure.
Kelli Hayes Smith: yeah. So Jonathan, first p I I said last week, maybe it was in the intro too, but I twisted your arm to create a podcast. Real feedback. What are we thinking? How do you feel about it?
Jonathan: You know, I actually woke up today excited to record a podcast.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Okay, guys. Today I'm gonna put Jonathan on the hot seat about something that I think agents struggle with. And that is Jonathan. Today's topic is he texted me earlier. Y'all need to know this. And he's like, what are we talking about? And I said, I'm not telling you because you're way better off the cuff than you are when you're prepped. So I'll tell you when we get on a call. so
Jonathan: This reminds me of open mic earlier this week when it was almost felt like catch Jonathan off guard type of and I was like, I will not be caught. I will hit whatever you throw at me. So mm-hmm. It's a horrible game to play.
Kelli Hayes Smith: It's a fun game we play. but we're gonna talk about are you busy in your travel business? Are you actually productive? And I think this is a big one.
Jonathan: Yeah. Busyness can feel like productivity until you analyze it and you realize you're running around the the the block too many times and not actually doing and gaining traction. So and I'm guilty of it. Yeah. Yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So am I. Like and I I like to chase a shiny squirrel. Something new happens and it's like, ooh, this sounds fun. And then I'm like, what are you doing? Like what did you do today? And I was I did something all day and I did nothing all at one time. So but
Jonathan: Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've had whole days like that where I'm like, I did stuff. Don't ask me what I did though. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I don't know what I did. Yeah. I didn't cross anything off, but I somehow spent the whole day doing things. The the reason this came up for me as I'm writing out topics is you have been spending a lot of time meeting with legato agents. Tell me a little bit about that.
Jonathan: Yeah, so Agent Advisory Board, we kind of, you know, we pitched the idea that Montis Pro two point the Pikes Peak edition, because we're mountain folk, legit mountain
Kelli Hayes Smith: Hmm.
Jonathan: folk up in here. And so yes, we're naming it after Real Mountains called Pikes Peak, which is America's mountain, Colorado Springs. Just throwing that out there. going through Montis 2.0 and figuring out what can we
Kelli Hayes Smith: Time out.
Jonathan: do
Kelli Hayes Smith: What is Montis? Because remember that this is not just Logato that's listening. So Montis is Yes. Yeah.
Jonathan: Montis Pro is our proprietary software. Thank you. It is the it is the source of all things Legato. So it's got your CRM, it's got your training, all that type of stuff, your community support, supplier information, so on and so forth, help center. so if you're gonna operate at Legato, you'll get real familiar with Montis Pro real quick. but it's time to strip it down to the studs and take it to two point and that's what we're working on right now. So Met with Agent Advisory Board a couple months ago and now it's just going through meeting with dozens of our agents just to get their feedback on not only what can we do better on the technical side, but what can we do better as an agency at large? What do we need to do to make sure that they're successful? Because ultimately, if they're not successful, we're not successful, suppliers aren't. It's it's that natural partnership. And I gotta say, I love it. I love to just go hang out with the agents, get to hear what they're saying, what the challenges they're facing, what successes they are, or what they're, you know, experiencing all that type of stuff. And it's been really fun to hear where the industry is going directly from the agents and be able to see, you know, here's the challenges, and then what can we do to overcome these challenges? And I gotta say, none of it least from what we're hearing is is necessarily earth shattering. It's just getting back to the basics and making sure that you service your customer well and make sure technology works for you and keeps you present with your customers. That way, those are medial tasks that kind of suck the life out of you after a while. Let's automate those. Let's stay fresh when talking with the people.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. So as you've had these conversations with agents, have you seen anything that's coming up for them that is making them feel overwhelmed? Like in their business? What are they spending time doing that they're like, I'm overwhelmed by this?
Jonathan: You know, I think it depends on people's backgrounds a lot. Cause like for instance, I'm I'm extremely comfortable building a system and a workflow, and that's that's pretty, pretty natural to me. Ask me to market. Won't don't even put me in that category. Ask you to market all day long. Don't ask you to build Jack Dilly Squat. It's just how we work together really well. So
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jonathan: I find that most folks are kind of it's either on the kind of the we'll call it the technical side, whether that's putting workflows together, just their processes and things like this, night this idea of building a foundation, or it's on the marketing side. It's it seems to be one of those two. And the idea that marketing is is only done a way, not multiple ways, or how do you play to somebody's strengths and weakness? Yeah, it's it's so that's what I've really kind of come to discover here has been it's kind of those two parts because The industry has a lot of good training. we have good training and we're we're constantly under development, of course, but that seems to be an area that's relatively strong in the industry. So we're good there. But there's been this tech revolution that's come out in the last several years, and it's it's a long time coming and it's it's
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah.
Jonathan: long overdue. And I think sometimes agents get overwhelmed with, okay, there's this, you got new toys to play with, you got, you you
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: got Turn, you got Travefy that are just like cooking right now in their respective areas. you got AI coming in and if you're not somebody who's worked with tech, it can that can be overwhelming,
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah.
Jonathan: quite frankly. So
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. So I I think that's super important because you mentioned workflows. Like that you're comfortable making workflows. What I think I have heard, tell me if you are hearing this as well. Workflows everybody wants to say, I don't really know what my workflow looks like until I have a client. And then I have a client, I don't have a workflow, and now I'm trying to build plane while I'm flying it. And really and truly, we need to be mapping this stuff out before we're busy.
Jonathan: Agreed. I it's it is that catch twenty-two. Chicken or the egg came first, you know, pick your team on that one. this is where I encourage folks, and it's good if if you feel like you're getting overwhelmed, one of the things that I do, if if I start to notice I'm slipping, I'm not being as productive, because if I can't end the day and know, okay, I completed one, two, three, or I worked on this big project, whatever it is, right? If I can't answer that question to somebody who asked me how my day was. Then that is kind of for me kind of an orange sign, an orange flag that I'm maybe getting a little too busy and less productive. So
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: what I'll do is I'll just sit there and write down actually have a to my to-do list within arm's reach, personal side, professional side. So I keep track of everything because if I don't write it down, it will not get done. Period. So I'll write it down and then what I what I'll do is I'll actually audit myself for it could be a day, it could be three days or a week or something like that. Just say, okay, what did I do? today. So I wrote this email. Okay. If I wrote this email and answered the question, then what can I do to answer the question for, you know, proactively next time? What can I do to better deliver the well, question, answer in that case, right? Audit yourself and just take that self-assessment. It doesn't have be anything crazy. You don't have to go down the rabbit hole, but just to be a little bit aware of what am I doing? Why am I doing it? Who am I doing it with, you know, just the who, what, when, where, how of
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan: What in the world am I doing? Ask yourself that question.
Kelli Hayes Smith: And those things go in a workflow, right? Like, I mean, it doesn't really matter if it is the same. Your process should be the same every time, regardless of the client, regardless of the the destination, the trip, the supplier. There's a portion of that that should be the sub that should be the same every time. Am I cr like am I cr listen, I I have been a travel agent, but I was a travel agent before my the host I agency I was with did not have a CRM. I don't think people understand that. I had no CRM. None. I used Mail or Light, which is a mail, like an email marketing thing, as a CRM. That's wild for me to even consider now. But that's the truth. So as an agent, an advisor who was in this before my before well, not before CRMs, but did not use a CRM.
Jonathan: I'll say, how old are you? You're not that old.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Let's shut up. Now, listen, Jonathan, let's just not, okay? I don't have my unicorn mug out today, or I would show that to you. But the but like that is what your CRM is for. Is cor am I wrong in saying that? Like we should be building some sort of workflow and things in that workflow are going to look different depending on things, but essentially the process should remain very similar throughout this.
Jonathan: Great. And it's that consistency. And that's what customers want. They want to know if I'm booking with Kelly's travel, this is what I expect because of my first trip with her or my tenth trip, I know I'm gonna get this type of support. She's gonna call or email. She's she's this is what to expect. It's like, you know, when you're on a road trip and you get hungry and you you typically go to like your safe restaurants and you're like, okay, what what do I know? Like I enjoy eating,
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm.
Jonathan: sets well with me, doesn't drain me, whatever, right? And you're like, okay, I know subway. Like you can go to virtually any subway and it all tastes the same across the board. Good food, bad food, it doesn't matter. There's consistency. And that's where as an agent, working on that consistency. So that way your
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: customers don't feel like, man, you you nailed it on trip one with me. But then it seems like by trip three, four, or ten, as we're rebooking that, you're just kind of taking it for granted because I got a lot of hand holding on one and it went down from there. Because that to me is a workflow type of thing where you you can provide a level of hand holding and service that really sets you apart without having to do every single click and every single correspondence.
Kelli Hayes Smith: And I think too, on that note, when it comes to that workflow, if you don't have that in place, you are gonna waste a lot of time because you're either trying to remember what you need to do next or you or things fall through the cracks. Like if it's not kind of set up where it can just run muscle memory, now you are spending your time in the weeds doing things you don't need to do.
Jonathan: Hundred percent the number of times I would close a sale without a workflow and forget things. Forget
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: or have to go through my emails and be like, okay, I remember the answer was somewhere buried over here. And you're like, my goodness, I got folders. Horrible, horrible place to be. Yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: God, that drives me crazy. I cannot, I cannot. Yeah. yeah. I know my inbox currently needs to be worked on right now. Yeah, as we speak. But but on that same note, is this like where in this workflow are they creating unnecessary work for themselves? Like where, where could they find time back in their day if there's just a workflow there?
Jonathan: You know, the first thing I would look at is what I call like kind of the dry stuff. And it's the things, you know, just the typical advisories of, you know, make sure your passport's good and get travel insurance, register for the STEP program, you
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: know, just those types of logistical things that are standard and almost dry in nature. Like there's not a lot of sales to it. I that's the first thing I would look at. Yeah, it's
Kelli Hayes Smith: Or humanness, right?
Jonathan: like we're just communicating. Click here to register for step if you're traveling international.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Right.
Jonathan: You shouldn't have to type that out. Go get the link, copy and like that, those little things,
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah.
Jonathan: like, you know, before you go, like save yourself on the
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: service side, like, okay, hey, you're you're getting ready to go for your trip. Now let's talk about, hey, here's if you're six months out during that service window when you you got them under deposit and they're waiting to travel for six months, then what can you do to keep them excited? You know, here if Go into Australia or something, like send them some ideas of things to do in Australia. Not even sales, like buy this, do that. Like just, hey, this is a teaser. This is really cool. This send them a news article or something that's happening down there. You can set up again AI to go scour this type of stuff and bring the content to you.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Was on the Travefy podcast like several years ago, and Stephanie and I had this conversation. And she said an advisor, an agent had told her at one point that they sent reading lists to people. So, like
Jonathan: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: of books that were that their setting was the area they were traveling to. And I thought that was like a really cool idea of like having those different things. I that's such a cool idea. like just thought process through, especially in those six months, if they had a TBR to be read for those of you who are not book talk, of list of of books that are going to be within like where they're going, how cool is that? And because we know that like in movies, then you could add that in or TV shows that were
Jonathan: Yeah, yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: shot in this area, because that is a huge travel thing right now is like going to some place that your favorite shows were either sat in or filmed at. And so adding those things to it is going to be such a cool that's the personal chu touch that I would add. Not
Jonathan: Yes.
Kelli Hayes Smith: like, here's a link to register for this boring government thing.
Jonathan: Correct. So mentally split it with like, what's my boring, dry logistics type stuff?
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm.
Jonathan: Automate that as much as you possibly can. Keep yourself fresh on the customer engagement, keeping them excited. Show them that, yeah, you you in essence, okay, you got them under a deposit. You you took my money. Now I'm not going to hear
Kelli Hayes Smith: Now what?
Jonathan: from you for six months or a year. They probably aren't going to come back many times after that. You got to.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Right. And they may be skeptical. Like there's
Jonathan: Building. Yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: crap in the news right now about travel agents taking money and then not booking. I mean, like it's been all over
Jonathan: Yep.
Kelli Hayes Smith: recently. And so if somebody gives you they're not giving you, I get that. Like, don't at me in the comments. I know they're not giving you the money. They shouldn't be giving you the money, which is part of the problem in some
Jonathan: It shouldn't be, yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: of these news stories, is they're Venmoing the agent for this stuff, but they they see that they handed over eleven grand for this trip. And then they don't hear from the person for six months. I'm gonna be skeptical. I'm gonna be skeptical of
Jonathan: I'm your pissed. Yeah. Yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: what did I do? And what are you doing in this time
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: period? And so I think that that is a big piece of this. The other thing that I like, what in this same area when it comes to this workflow, but not even just that, in the travel business as a whole. I have one, but I wanna see if you say the same thing I think. What task like what gets pushed aside that they don't feel like is urgent and then it gets pushed aside until it is urgent? I have one. I'm gonna pro
Jonathan: Mm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I'm gonna say mine first and then you give me yours. But mine is books, money. Keeping track of the your bookkeeping, your taxes, things like that. Cause that is not sexy. And ask Tim Smith. He will tell you Kelli is not good with the accounting portion of anything. But I think that gets pushed back because it's easy to not think about that until you absolutely have to think about it. And now you're screwed.
Jonathan: Yeah. Or you get the the letter from our our friendly IRS over there and it's like, by the way, and you're going, crap. I that I would say yes, the the books, especially this time of the year, you know, we're getting close to end of year and make sure everything's buttoned up and tightened up and and I say that as the not the budget person in my relationship either. I am very clearly the spender. it's a it's a joke, and I fully own my ability to spend money, especially other people's money. I'm really good at that.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Same.
Jonathan: I would say yes, this time of the year.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I'm good at spending our money too though.
Jonathan: Absolutely. So like the as we're so at Legato, we're getting ready to prepare for like our end of year audit and we'll we'll train our agents and talk through like, okay, this is what you should be doing. And it's really for me, it's all about the foundation. And then annually, at least annually, more if you're growing quickly. Like maybe it's quarterly if you're really cooking or twice a twice a year. But at this time of the year, come, let's say after Thanksgiving, yeah, like last six weeks of the year. Go through it. Make sure you got all your tax preparations. If you changed your business account or did any like you did anything, need to do W9 or whatever, like, let us know so we can make sure we get 1099s issued properly. Any any company out there, is your marketing setup? Like think through the disciplines of your business, the marketing, the tech, the training. If you're wanting to, maybe you're selling all inclusives today, but you've always wanted to do Europe and FIT. Great. Then what training are you gonna do to start getting proficient in that destination? To prep you have to prepare for your incoming customers. Don't wait for your customers to show up and then go, yay, I have a customer that I've always wanted, but yet, crap, I have a customer. What do I do? You know, like
Kelli Hayes Smith: Now what do I do? Yeah.
Jonathan: that doesn't that doesn't track very well.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah.
Jonathan: So get think think ahead. You need to be ahead of your customer. And you said something like, you know, if if somebody's gonna give you eleven thousand dollars for a trip, don't view it as money. Yeah, I get it's technically money. These are people's dreams. It's their savings, it's
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan: their it's their vision for what makes that a perfect trip. Be empathetic that what would you do if somebody told you their dream and you say, hey, I'm not gonna really listen to you. That's what it comes across. So really.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I don't really care. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan: You know, take that and actually protect it. Be be aware of it.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. I think that's so important to change that mindset. And you mentioned marketing and like one of my bullet points on my notes over here is what do you where do you see agents creating unnecessary work for themselves?
Jonathan: Mm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: And I'm gonna scream from the rooftops marketing and I know this is people are going to marketing is necessary. My issue with the way agents are creating marketing and honestly the way the industry is teaching agents to create marketing is that we have separated it from the job. We have separated marketing from Being a travel agent. Like it's two separate things, except it's not like in this business, you're the product. We I've we've said this, our agents just finished, and I said ours, like I, but I didn't legato agents. We just finished a be the product marketing challenge in the month of September, where we went through how to turn your messaging into highlighting your value as the actual product, right? But if you are the product, how are you separating? The product, i.e., doing the job and the service from marketing the job and the service. I this is the part that just infuriates me. And we've created this as an industry because suppliers are like, here's your marketing. And now you're out there marketing supplier content instead of your content. And suppliers
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: don't care where you buy it. And I love our suppliers. I don't mean it like that, but like their goal, their product is different than your product. And so if all you're using is Their marketing, you're selling their product, not yours. And the idea that we have just separated it makes it feel like you have to have two full time jobs instead of marketing just being part of your job. And I I I get that people are gonna say, yes, but it is a different job, but it's not. Because if you just talk about, if you just showcase what it is that you do and you just tell the stories that you're doing every day. You're not having to separate it anymore. And now you no longer have to sit down and be like, what do I post? What am I gonna talk about? You're gonna talk about what you're doing. That's the marketing. And and so this un for me, an unnecessary piece of work that they're doing for themselves is trying to completely separate, like it's two different pieces. And I feel like that's adding unnecessary work to their plates.
Jonathan: Agreed. And and from the marketing perspective, from the from the tech perspective, it's people I think it's it's easy to look at the overall job, if you will, being being a travel agent, a travel professional. And then you can easily say, okay, here's my disciplines. And those disciplines equate jobs. And it's like, mm, not necessarily. The job is servicing and supporting and selling your customers and making sure they have a a good time on their trip, right? But what disciplines do you need? And you're right. It has to be a Collaboration, and I say collaboration, it's typically a one person, you got to be collaborative with yourself. But
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan: understanding that even I think for me, and I say this full of marketing ignorance. So if I'm wrong, you'll correct me. I know that. marketing needs it needs to be intertwined, but I think there's this misnomer that marketing gets people in the doors, and then when they're in the doors, you stop marketing once you've got them landed, and it's like, No, no, no. Marketing is as simple as during that six month gap between money and travel, deposit and travel, what are you doing to
Kelli Hayes Smith: How about upselling?
Jonathan: market the the destination, market the an upsell? Like just market
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yes.
Jonathan: the fact that you're still excited on with them, not
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah.
Jonathan: on behalf of them. Like you're excited for their trip. What are you doing to keep them excited? That's still marketing.
Kelli Hayes Smith: It is. It absolutely is. And when I say upsell them, I'm not talking about upselling them for the fact of upselling them. If you are not sharing information with them about things they can do on their trip, you're not giving them the best trip. Period. Right. Like if you aren't looking at these are the things they've talked about that are important to me and there here are ways that that that you can do these things, then you're not doing your job. Your client experience is going to suck. And you're costing yourself money. So like it's a lose all around. and Jonathan, did you like I I'm I'm gonna plug the other podcast that I do because the social takeoff this week was about loyalty marketing and understanding that if you want to repeat client, you can't just drop them on a newsletter list and send them once a month, here's every single travel deal in the world right now and expect them to come back. Unless you've absolutely killed it on client experience. But honestly, it's that personal marketing that happens from the time that you they become a client as a booking for the rest of forever. Because
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: if you remember that they, that their kid is a junior in high school and they mentioned just in passing that they thought they would like to take him to Rome for his senior trip, and you don't start talking to them about Rome within that, like what are you doing? That is that's the repeat business. And so the marketing can't stop. But the this idea that there's silos, right? I think disciplines and collaboration is exactly correct. But I think that we have got to stop thinking about like this is my CEO work and then this is my travel planning work and then this is my marketing work and putting them in silos because they should all be talking together. So if you're doing the travel planning, And while you're doing that, you're not also auditing the workflow in the way that it's in your CRM to make it more efficient, or you're not doing the travel planning and thinking about, this would make a really great story for social media at the same time. Now you're working in silos and you've created different jobs for yourself. But if you are seeing how they collaborate and how they all work together, now you've created a more streamlined, not just client experience, but work experience for yourself.
Jonathan: Absolutely. And it's it's going back to the question of why am I doing the things that I'm doing? And if you can't answer that question quickly
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan: and sharply and intelligently, if you kinda fumble through it, then it's worth just saying, Okay, time out on the field. Let me let me go back and figure out how why can I not answer that question? I do this job forty plus hours a week, and if I can't answer it, that's on me. I have to figure out what's going on.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. And the other part is like priorities. I feel like we I I feel like not just agents, I feel like humans struggle with prioritizing. Because number one, we
Jonathan: Mm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: want to do the stuff we wanna do first. Like it it's very difficult to make yourself do the stuff you don't wanna do. I am the world's worst. Like literally. Ask my mother. She's I would get like I I'm the girl who was writing papers at 10 p.m. for one that was due at 8 a.m. the next day, right? Like this is yeah, exactly
Jonathan: Yep.
Kelli Hayes Smith: like performing, I need that anxiety rush to make it work. And that works sometimes. But I think if we can't understand how to prioritize things, one of the things I see agents do all the time is they overtrain and undersell. Like they are going to trainings daily, but we're not doing anything to actually get out there and then talk about what we've learned. Or they they are so educated in the industry, they're taking all of these classes. And it could it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be supplier training. It could also be like a marketing training or join this group or this particular person that I like is opening another group and I need to join that too. Like, are we doing this thing where we are consuming more information and we're not really giving any output?
Jonathan: It's the whole, you know, paralysis by analysis and just getting it
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm.
Jonathan: it's like, yeah, you've got a really you built a nice car, but you've never driven it. At some point, you need to go drive the car and do it. Just
Kelli Hayes Smith: Gotta put the motor in it, like or the gas in it, whatever. Yeah.
Jonathan: and it's and it's scary, like especially if you're not, you know, sales extroverted, you're not, you know, it it can be it can be a daunting test to take that jump and and put yourself out there. But I also think it helps if If you, as the agent, is getting overwhelmed and with all the information, we have access to really good tools in the industry that the customers don't have. Imagine where your customers are coming from and how frazzled they are when they start listening to information outside the trade that may have varying degrees of authenticity or accuracy. They're going to come to you rather frazzled. And if you are going to people can pick up on, you know, like desperation and if you're rushed and just frazzled. And if they pick up on that, that that's not giving them that that soothing, secure professional experience of okay, this person, they know what they're doing. I can trust my trip, my money, my savings, all the hours of overtime I work, whatever it is, right? That trip is more than just the trip to that customer. It is all the work behind the scenes to make it a reality, all the dreams and hopes and aspirations. You need to do a good job of protecting that and showing your customer that. I heard you. I listened to you. Like we're we're gonna execute to the best of our ability. And doing that in a professional, calm manner. They don't need to see underneath the surface. You might be freaking out. That is perfectly fine. Getting a hold of like I will question questions for days, asking agents, how do I do this? That's fine. Just don't let your customers see. And you can protect that kind of visibility by having those systems in place, whether on marketing side, the tech side, the service, the intake, it doesn't doesn't matter. They feel secure. If they feel secure, that's the hardest part. That first lock in is getting them to feel secure.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. And I think what you just said is it's hard to show up, it's hard to do that, but find, you know, ask people these things. Here's the other thing I think that is a big issue and it's not just in the travel industry. In this world of social media, which I work in, if with
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: my my aunt was on the phone with me today, there's that new Facebook movie and they're like what is I don't remember what it's called, but anyway, and it's like, you know, how social media is evil and I'm like, Yeah, remember this is how your nephews eat. So like Not let's not hate on it too much. But like also in this world of social media, I think one of the things that you have to do to protect your time and your peace is you need to audit who you're listening to and who you're following. And what
Jonathan: Mm. Yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: is the vibe you get from that? What you know, because if they are and I have muted and blocked so many people on socials. Both for the fact that I don't want to hear what you have to say, but also for the fact of I have to protect my peace. And sometimes it's not about them at all. Sometimes it's about me. Sometimes it's about imposter syndrome. And I see somebody else do something and I'm like, I wish I was that good. I wish I like and I have to block that because they don't get my peace. They don't and then the other thing is. Highlight reels, man. You don't know what's real and what's true
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: and what's not. People can show you loads of numbers and they may or may not be telling the truth or the whole story. You don't know. And so this comparison that we do, comparison is the thief of your joy. Stay on your path and mute and block people on socials or in real life that take that away from you or make you second guess yourself. And one of the things I've tried to do in my socials is show up very authentic. And I am not just talking about like talking like I normally do or showing my real life, but also showing highs and lows, showing when things don't go as planned, when a when I if I talk more I mean, I talk marketing on socials, showing when something bombed, showing this is why I think it happened, but like it happens to everybody. And showcasing that it's not all sunshine and rainbows. And I'm not saying come follow me. I am saying look for people who you can connect with because they're not trying to just tell you how perfect everything is, because that's fake.
Jonathan: Agreed. People want authenticity. And they
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah.
Jonathan: don't most people do not expect perfection. They do expect excellence. They expect you that when when something goes wrong, you step up, you advocate for you you you own the mistake if it's yours and you bring remedy to it as much as you possibly can and do your best the next shot. And it's you know, when you're growing up and and your mom's telling you, you know, watch who you're hanging out with. That tracks.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Hmm. Yeah.
Jonathan: As much as you didn't want to hear it as a teenager. It did track and it was accurate and we tell the same thing to our kids and it's don't be careful of the lowest common denominators in your life. Yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah, that and I think that that's part that drains your time. Because if you were people can be a time suck as well, right? Like, I mean, and making sure that you are being a good steward of your time with the people and the communications that you listen to. And you'll find your people. But I I think that's as important when it comes to busy and productive. as anything because it can get real easy to get caught in a scroll hole or listening to all the people and saying that because everybody's out there telling you you what you should do. And the thing is what they're saying does not work for everybody. And I like fully understand that. When I teach marketing, I'm like, look, this is the way I did it. This is I'm showing my numbers right now on Instagram. And I tried to preface it before every time, like understand it took me 12 years to get these numbers. If you started six months ago, two years ago, please don't judge your numbers by this. This is not, I'm not showing you this because these numbers are big. I'm showing you this because I'm learning what's working. And I want you to go around and be around and watch and listen to people who are making you feel like you can do it, not like you should be doing something different because that's gonna suck your time out. Because then what you start doing is you start. patchworking different systems together and you end up never getting to that finish line because you're not following your path. You're trying to take pieces from everybody's. And you've got to know yourself and your business and your gut well enough to know this is going to work for me or this doesn't.
Jonathan: Absolutely. It's going back to the original plan and heart that you had. And
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: it's not saying that plans are rigid and don't get adjusted because that's that's not the case, but going back to the basics of why did I start my agency? What how did I want to separate myself from others? What type of experience do I want to, you know, provide my customers? What do I want to be known for? Because I'm putting my name on it on this trip. I'm helping build it and support it and all the customer stuff. Like I'm there's an element of there should be a proper element of. Pride that I'm proud to build this and thank you. And I'm gonna honor that request when it comes in. And if people pick up on that, you you got them locked in and you're fine. But going back to the plan, because there is, like you were saying, Kelli, there's just there's a lot of noise, whether in the industry or outside, it doesn't matter. Life is full of noise today. And going back to that original plan of why am I doing the things that I'm doing, the who, what, when, where, how. And we've had to do that numerous times at Logato over and over, just constantly refining and asking. we got off the path over here to get back to the basics, back to our roots. And every time we do it, good things happen. And it's like no matter how many times we leave the path, it's like, goodness gracious, I just did it again. Are you kidding me? And but those paths, I have noticed over the years, the deviance from the paths is getting longer in between and shorter. So it's like as you master your stuff, it's easier to stay in that
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: lane. You stick to your plan, leave the proper level of flexibility as as the world changes, economies come and go, politics, the whole kit and caboodle, right? There's things outside of our control. What can you do to weather the storm? And that's what the plan should have built in is a certain level of flexibility. But the heart behind it should be static. And that is, I want to provide a good custom you know, good service to my customer. I want to be viewed as a professional. When people think travel, they think. Kelly's agency in this area. Like they're gonna go through Europe through Kelli, like there's no questions asked. What can you do from a training, a marketing, a service side to get there? And that's where, again, go back to the plan and build systems and processes and foundations so you don't have to rebuild.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. And I mean, honestly, we started this talking about busy versus productive, but honestly, that is a hundred percent it because we can get busy doing stuff that doesn't matter. If we are focused, laser focused on the goal and why we did this, it becomes easier to be productive because you don't have unlimited time. And so if you don't have a clear vision of why you're doing what you're doing. it becomes easy to just do a bunch of tasks. But if
Jonathan: Correct.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I know I am I'm going for something and this is why. And the why, yes, like you have to have a why you want to do why travel specifically, but also why did you start a business? Why and you know what about not just about this business, but what do you we talked about this last episode? What's success look like for you? So are you getting closer to your success goal? And if not, Now I know I'm doing tasks and not anything that's productive.
Jonathan: Yeah. And that's like this the great time of the year to do that end of your audit. Like where did I start the year? Where am I ending? Is the arrow in the up or down direction? If it's in the down, what can I do? If it's in the up, what can I do? Right. And then setting some plans, some some nice bite-sized plans for twenty seven. Okay,
Kelli Hayes Smith: Mm.
Jonathan: here's here's one goal. It might be sales related, passenger related, might just be I want to automate my marketing. I want to get better at systems automations. I want to get trained in this area or I just want to travel to this area because it validates my training. It it doesn't it doesn't matter what the goal is, but set some bite sized goals. That's how we're wired as humans. Don't don't look to get up there every time and swing a home run. It just it ain't happening. So
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Well, then you just feel defeated.
Jonathan: correct.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Like it you need to have winnable goals so that you can build momentum. And if because
Jonathan: Mm. Yep. Absolutely.
Kelli Hayes Smith: if you're just trying to get to that, it's real hard to build momentum if you're like 20 years away from the goal that you're setting and it's like I'm never getting anywhere. And I think that
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: when it comes down to busy and productive, the exactly what you just said bite-sized pieces that are moving you forward. That's how you know whether or not you are busy or productive, right? Like, and sometimes it feels busy. Sometimes it but then it's like, okay, what was the bigger picture in this? And sometimes you have to do the busy work, but your time should not be consumed by it if you want to build a sustainable business. And I don't mean sustainable just in the sense of making you money, but sustainable in your energy levels.
Jonathan: Correct. I mean you're you're going to be busy no matter what you do. The question is, are you going to be productive? And that gets measured
Kelli Hayes Smith: I busy.
Jonathan: against are you doing the things in your plan and moving in the direction that you outlined? And bring accountability people into spouses, friends, family. It it doesn't matter. Bring a fellow agent in, right? Just say, Hey, hold hold me accountable. I'm starting here and I want to go to B. We'll meet six months later. Let me know how I'm doing. Meet quarterly, you know?
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. So I started this. I think I shared this with you. I am meeting with another business owner in this area. And while we do very different things, they kind of overlap, but we both work from home and we are doing accountability together where we talk once a week and then we meet
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: once a month. And then we then once a quarter, like all of the things so that we're counting and being accountable to each other and we're turning in the lists of things we need to accomplish. To check in with each other on that. And I think accountability partners are could be a huge piece of making sure you stay productive as well. I love that idea.
Jonathan: It is, especially if, you know, one person agency, it's easy to feel like it's you're truly alone at that point.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Alone. Mm-hmm.
Jonathan: so there's a lot of value. Doing this without a community is infinitely harder. Find your community.
Kelli Hayes Smith: And pick pick someone who is going to be supportive of what you're doing because there's been a lot of these like v
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: viral reels and TikToks going around of like people you've never met on the internet cheering you on and it's like all like like cheers and then
Jonathan: yeah.
Kelli Hayes Smith: you've got people who you actually know in real life and it's crickets from. And that's
Jonathan: Mm-hmm.
Kelli Hayes Smith: that's real because a lot of people don't understand this the way that we the things that we do and in this this business and this. Business ownership. So make sure when you are choosing someone that it's someone who is going to cheer you on and not tear you down.
Jonathan: And and challenge you at the same time. You know, it's it
Kelli Hayes Smith: Yeah. Honest, yeah.
Jonathan: being honest, straightforward with you. you know, you think about like if you're doing like more of a mentor role, make sure they've got experience that you want, like follow in their track. If you're just looking for somebody to run and do life with, then yeah, pick pick a good person to hold be honest and be a cheerleader, you know.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Can you tell that we both take criticism differently? He's like, I want somebody that's going to be honest. And I'm like, I want somebody to cheer me on. That's very so find the right person. And
Jonathan: If I suck at life, I wanna know about it quickly, you know, so
Kelli Hayes Smith: I do too, but I need you to tell me gently so that I don't spend the next three days in bed about it. So, Jonathan, this was a good episode. We keep saying
Jonathan: Yep. That's true. You know what?
Kelli Hayes Smith: 30 minutes, and it's been 4236, but that's okay. I don't care. No, we won't. No, we won't.
Jonathan: That's okay. We'll eventually get it down to thirty ish. next Wednesday, which will be October fourteenth for those of you on the calendar. I can do math really good. I did six plus eight, bam, done.
Kelli Hayes Smith: I can't. Nope.
Jonathan: Next Wednesday, October fourteenth. See you on the flip side.
Kelli Hayes Smith: Bye guys. See y'all then.
Jonathan: See you later.
