Host Resources? Expansion? Finding a Niche?

0:00Well, hi everybody. Happy Friday, happy October 9th, happy birthday to me. All the things we love, we love October over here. So Friday 15, what is that? That's the more important thing here. The Friday 15, every Friday at 12pm, central time we go ahead, we take 15, sometimes 20 minutes to answer your questions about the travel industry that you've submitted on our website. If you have questions you would like to submit, or if you want to go watch past episodes, go to hostagencyreviews.com, slash Friday 15. We also bring in many special guests, so it's a really fun way to end the week. Also really fun when your building is doing fire alarm testing. If you hear any beeping in the back, that's me. But I'm really excited this week to introduce our co-host and sponsor today. We have KHM Travel Group and I'm so happy for the first time we have Jeff Cox joining us. Hi Jeff, how you doing?

1:04Hi, it's great to be here. Very excited. And like I said, it's a great opportunity for me to say hello to a bunch of great potential agents and help you in any way we can. Is that's what KHM is all about? I'm so excited. Well, if you're ready, if KHM and Jeff, you're ready, we're going to jump into the first question. Let's get cooking. Okay, so first question we have is, I joined a host agency because I wanted access to support tools, training and supplier relationships. But sometimes I wonder if I'm actually taking advantage of everything that's available to me. What are some of the resources you see successful advisors using that other advisors tend to overlook? That's an awesome opening question because again, it's one of our biggest challenges as a host agency. We have all these amazing tools that are available, but marketing these tools because there's so many things they have so many emails already being hit on a daily basis. They don't realize all the tools that are available to them.

2:05I'm a big believer and we're a people first organization. So we lean heavily into our support and that's our agent support team. We do an amazing job when we come down to talking with agents, coaching agents and doing our job, which is to really help them be successful at any level where they're coming in. So no question is considered, you know, a not a not a question. We want to take advantage of that opportunity to have that one on one support that we can offer anybody. So if you're not using your host agency support network, please do because there's a lot of amazing people there. I was a sales ref for 20 years before coming into this job and most of our agent support team have been around since they were my accounts when I was a BDM. So I've known some of those people in our support team for 25, 30 years and there are all travel agents and they all have amazing ideas and ways to help you grow your business.

3:05That would be first that coaching and aid support. We have an amazing the marketing hub that types of marketing tools that are available where you can come in. Most people come to us without passion for travel with little or no sales or marketing experience. So they're really starting from square one. And so them being able to be walked along in a very good training program to help them learn how to market themselves, how to promote themselves, whether it be social media or direct mail or doing events like trade shows and things like that. So taking advantage of all the marketing of opportunities that are available in your in at least in our portal where you can again learn things. And again, we are very big on understanding that most people come into this industry. They really need some basic knowledge and we're very good about taking our time and helping those people kind of learn from the ground up to be successful as travel agents. We're also really take advantage of the live trainings. I mean, I know everybody kind of leans in the idea that and we have our LMS or our online trainings, but there's just something different when you can get to a live training and you can sit in the room old school classroom style.

4:13And build connections with the trainers, but more importantly, build connections with the other agents that are in the same room issue and feel that support around you because everybody else is going through the same thing. So your ability to take advantage of those trainings. I know a K-1 thing we're really happy over the last two years, we've really expanded our streaming capabilities. So all our trainings are streamed. So for some reason, you just can't get the Cleveland Ohio. Because you got the kids in school, you got another job or anything like that. Everything is streamed so you can get all that great information from the comfort of your home by being able to watch it live or we can send you recording of one of our trainings. So again, we really want to make sure our agents feel confident and they understand when they go talk to a customer. Yes, they're passionate. Yes, they want to sell, but they really want to do an amazing job and we want to teach you how to do that job. So those are kind of my big ones. It's the tools that are there that I think every agent should be taken advantage of. I completely agree, especially when you kind of talk about the live trainings. For me, what I love about those is one of my, one of the things I talk about, one of my top three reasons to join a host, but also the one that you choose.

5:24My number one is community. It's the community of the other entrepreneurs, the other ICs, the community of the staff that work for that host is such a big reasons reason why to me you choose a specific host and you also join a host in the first place. And so to do the live trainings, you get to be within your community, but I also love the ability to ask live questions, right as the training is happening and there goes my alarm. So I'm going to mute myself for a moment. Okay. So as you're being mooted at this very moment, but I couldn't agree more. I think that's probably the number one thing of your, and it is interesting when people come to us and thinking about joining the first thing out of the mouth is how what's your commission split and how much are you going to pay per month. And we don't really see that as the most important thing is really finding the right home and finding that sense of community and having that support group because you are working most of your days by yourself in a room far away from the home office.

6:27And so we want to build that community so you can feel that support and you know, it's so funny when we, there's so many events that we go to that we're there, but the our agency to take over. There are best cheerleaders. They're the ones that are outgoing out the dinner with other cage and agents and making them feel a part of the family of cage. So they pretty much do our job before us. So that makes it really, really nice. But building that sense of community feeling that you've really found a place that's there to it's going to more than just the body or more than just an account or more than just an IC. And so it's really, you're part of something that you can grow into, you can support and we want that being back and forth and we really are thrilled when we have agents that join us and they give just so much as we give to them because they're active on Facebook helping other agents and there is a great sense of community. So I don't want to stop. So this is going to be fun. But I am going to jump into the second question so you can answer it and I can go back on you.

7:29Thank you for that. I couldn't agree with you more. Question number two. Let's see if this wants to go. I'm getting busier and reaching the point where I can't keep doing everything myself. But I'm nervous about the expense of hiring someone. I know when I'm actually ready to bring on health and what would you recommend first outsourcing or hiring? Great question. You know, it's been interesting. So I've been in this position for 15 years. And so when I was when I came over our top agent was doing this is 2011 was probably doing 300, $400,000 for the business. We now have 70 agents doing well over a million dollars within business every year. And I can tell you for a fact that not one of them expected that. It was something that hey, I'm going to start this small business. I have no expectations on where I'm going to go in this industry. I'm going to try. It's going to be a hobby. It's something I'm going to do on the side when I come home from work or something I'm going to do when I retire. And so they begin into the industry with very little expectation. And then all of a sudden they find themselves, oh my gosh, I'm really good at this.

8:37Oh my gosh, I'm doing a half million dollars of the business. You know, I'm going to have to quit my other job because now I'm doing so much, so much revenue. I don't have to have my other job or my spouse can quit their job and can stay at home with the kids because my I'm being so successful. And what happens is this is they call it off guard on how to scale their business, which is really at the core of what your question is all about. And we feel that's a tricky thing when you begin to try to scale your business because any industry, even outside the dry one industry, when you grow from a million to a three million, a lot of small businesses fail because they just don't know how to scale. Because they were built with mom and dad making pizzas and they did really, really well. And at certain point they want to open another location. Well now mom and dad can't make pizzas mom and dad have to manage people that are making the pieces and taking the money. And that's when mom and dad are like, wait a minute, they don't do it like I do it. And so they struggle with that. And I think most agents have when they reach a certain point, they have to really look at their business and where they want to go.

9:40And if they are looking at trying to scale, they're going to have to get help. And when it comes down to getting help, there are really two ways to go. You can hire an assistant. And I always encourage our agents to understand that most people think, well, I can't afford to hire an assistant. Keep in mind, assistant doesn't mean you have to have somebody eight hours, five days a week. It can only be three, four, five hours a week and you can hire somebody. And that's pretty affordable. And when you start thinking, when do I really need to have an assistant Jeff. It really comes down when you start looking at, is it going to free me up to do what I best, what I do best, which is probably sell. And if you're going to think about getting three, four more hours a week on the phones to close sales. And now you're closing three or four more sales and make an additional $1000 more in commission. And you're like, wait, that was all freed up because now I'm paying somebody $150, 200 bucks a week to handle some of my admin stuff. Then you're like, you know, the net profits, 800 bucks.

10:40And I make sense to me to go out and hire myself an assistant or begin to, again, go in a different direction where it's not an assistant, but maybe an associated agent or someone who can help you with the business. Or you can start dividing your business and saying, listen, I want you to handle all my crews. I'm going to handle all my land because that's what I do best. And again, trying to scale. And that's so it can be tricky. And I know a KHM. It's one of our things we do really well in our agency program. And we're all about trying to help agents scale their business when it gets to a point when it comes a little unmanageable. Because we're big believers in work like balance. I've had plenty of discussions with some of our top agents when they start to lose control. And they're like, boy, seven days a week. And I'm working and I'm losing time with my kids that I'm not home. And I'm stressed. It's like, that's not good. We care about the holistic approach to the human being here. It's not always about just making more money. It's having that good work like balance. And if that assistant is going to get you back on track where you can have a more manageable day, where you can spend more time at home, you can spend more time with the kids doing the things that are really important.

11:47And then it becomes very worthwhile. And I think that the again, I see this really being something that the industry that I know KHM is really going to focus on in 2027. We think there's a lot of people coming into the industry. There's a lot of great host agencies that are helping people start up their businesses. But very few of them specialize in scaling your business. Okay. Now you've made the first few steps. Now you are a half million dollars produce. Now where do you go? And we're hoping that they if they're looking for a place to go, KHM could be a great option because we helped our agency directors understand contracts and we give trainings on management. How to manage people, how to hire people, how to fire people. All things that a brand new agent never even considered when they clicked the button inside of become a travel agent. Well, now these are things they have to begin to consider. So I think it's a great move for those agents that are trying to look to scale that they have to look to bring in people. And hopefully we can help them hire the right people so they can continue their growth.

12:47Yeah, absolutely. I think there for me was such a key point where we think about, okay, we're bringing someone in to help. And if that person is an assistant of sorts or a coordinator, that they have to be full time. And that's not the case, right? There's lots of people that are looking for, you know, eight to ten hours a week. And I think to sometimes and we've had this question a lot from advisors about where they should be spending their time. And I think at the beginning, a lot of times, you know, advisors are spending a lot of their times training or developing marketing assets or using what, you know, what KHM or other hosts provide. But, you know, trying to personalize it and all of that. And that's, that's great. But that's a lot of busy work sometimes where it's not necessarily turning the needle for your business. Where bringing in somebody to help support some of that necessary, but busy work, if you will, and some of the administrative tasks that you have to do. But they take time and they're not your favorite tasks to do to bring someone in to help support that is huge. If I look at the cost time versus time that I'm spending and where, like exactly like you said, where I'm spending my time.

13:54And then you mentioned something around like an associate or we call it like a sub agent. I'm actually going to link an article for everyone. We have one about what are sub agents. How does that, how does that work? When would you look to bring a sub agent in? And that kind of works under you or for your business as an advisor and there, but they're also selling as well. So we'll link that article for everyone listening so that you can understand that type of scaling and expansion as well. That's great. And I would say I just had a great conversation with one of our top million dollar sellers, but she was one of our younger cage and people who were just starting reached out to her for her to be asking for her to be her mentor and to help her, you know, understand the business, let her come over because they've lived in the same neighborhood and kind of learn. And she was smart and say, well, if you're going to come over here and learn from me, I'm going to put you to work. And so she's like, I need for you to start entering these things into my CRM and doing some of this admin work and that's going to that helps the top selling agent gets some of that admin work out of her pocket while she's mentoring a future future traveling.

14:59So both it's a very, you know, a symbiotic relationship between both benefit. So I would encourage you to maybe look inside your own networks to see if there's people that are up and comers that would just like to have that mentorship and mother meant being mentored. They can be again, hopefully with some of those tasks that like you said, may not be the most exciting, but they are necessary. I mean, there's a lot of times where you got to set aside days to do some of that admin, do your accounting, do your social media. Do some of those little outreach things to your top customers that an admin person can very easily take off your plate and that frees up your time. Yeah. And we actually in our annual report, which will be launching our annual report in about a week for 2026, but our 2025 one actually talked about showed that over 3000 travel advisors responded. And why is one of the biggest, what's what are the reasons that you pick a host or you switch host agencies and in the top three was mentorship. This is a big reason why and it was a significant chunk of the answer. So yeah, you definitely called it out like that. That is a big reason why you as an advisor should look at and why other advisors, if you are listening and you are newer, why advisors pick a host, but also end up switching is because of mentorship.

16:16Yeah, it's a tough business, Shane. I mean, you know that as well. I mean, I've only got been around for 15 years. Those first couple of years are rough. Yeah, you've got to be able to establish yourself. You've got to learn the business. You've got to make enough money to stay alive. And then once it takes off, then you're golden. But those first couple of years, you do need extra support and you do that mentorship is really important. Yeah, absolutely. You ready for the third question? I'm ready. Yeah, thanks for putting up with my alarm. By the way, that was fun. You know, yeah, it keeps it interesting. Well, I always be known on the on the internet is yeah, that interview with all the alarms. Oh, that's the Jeff Cox guy. Yeah, so obviously, yeah, that's it. You remember my. So thank you. Thank you. You got it. I got your back anytime. All right, last question. We get a lot of questions about niches. So I really love it. I hear a lot about specializing and finding a niche, but I'm nervous about turning away business. Do you really see advisors with a defined niche, performing better and how narrow does that niche actually have to be?

17:20You couldn't come one more perfect guy because you know, if you talked to anybody here at K Jam Jeff's all about focus. He is very much in focus, focus, focus, focus. So absolutely, there is a big difference. If you look at every single one of our top agents here at K Jam, they have narrowed down their scope of who they work with, the types of clients they work with, and the types of suppliers and the things that they book. And as they've narrowed it, they get more and more efficient. I think any industry, you always go through. What would any small business, you do go through certain phases and the opening phase is always your consumer driven. You're going to give it all the way because you just need customers. And then you're going to move into a sales, the sales level where you're getting a little bit more focused. And then ultimately you go into yields where you've got to, there's only so much time in the day. And you've got all these customers. What are the customers? What are the products you're going to sell? They're going to get you to max yields in a day.

18:25So I think that's some, and when you go down that road of niches, it can be very, very small. We certainly have agents that say, hey, I only sell cruises, but we also have agents that say, listen, I only sell real Caribbean. And that's all I sell is real Caribbean. And they're very good at, there's enough product out there. There's enough business that you only have one particular supplier that you sell. You can be very, very successful. I find it again, very, very interesting. We worked with a lot of agencies over the years and the number of agencies or agents that have come that have closed their brick and mortar and said, you know what, I'm all done. I'm just going to take my very best customers and work remotely as an IC and three years later, they're like, you know, I'm making more money now than I was when I had my brick and mortar because I was only I have focused so much on my top, top, top, top people. And now when I make a booking, I'm making a $4,000 commission and I'm doing one or two of those a day, opposed to the old days where I was making $4,000 in a week dealing with all these things going on.

19:25So these people thought that they were downsizing and making more money because they understand the importance of getting more and more and more focused. So I would definitely encourage people in the beginning, I get it. Everybody's just looking, you're trying to stay alive, but as you get better, you have to try to find where you're passionate, where you're knowledgeable and where you think you can get the best yields for your time. Absolutely, as my alarm continues to go off, this is fun. It's just testing everyone. Oh, oh, it's just testing for everyone that's listening, doing the annual testing this week. So of course we had to do it while I was hosting this. Always fun. But I totally agree with you. Also, I find if you're trying to sell everything and you may not know right at the beginning what it is that you want your niche to be, but then you're constantly training, you're constantly spending time learning about all these different types of products, different styles of travel as well. And that can become very time consuming.

20:28For me, adventure would be my niche would be my specialty because I enjoy it. I love it. I've experienced it. I also happen to work for a supplier that was in the adventure niche. But that's what I get excited about and I sell it without selling it because I love it so much. Correct. That's the key right there. Exactly. I've always known as a sales guy and I don't see that as a bad thing because again, if you're really good, you're really passionate and ultimately all sales good sales people are there to help. That's the key. We're just here to help you make the right decision. And so the more confident you are, the more information that you have. And I was, we get, we always talk about this with our agents that, you know, was booking nine months out. And then people think they put the booking, oh, I may, I got the deposit and they set it away for nine months and they don't even look at the account until it's all it's time for final payment. And we encourage our agents, listen, you, that's six months worth of training or upselling opportunities for the next six months where you could talk to them about insurance.

21:32You could talk about, well, I know at the time you only want an inside cabin. But now it's four months later, I would be interested in maybe upgrading to a balcony and maybe short scursions and preimposed hotels and things like that. So you can continue to sell all the way up. So there's other revenue areas that you can grow your revenue with just that one booking in that one particular area. If you work the business all the way up until they step onto the ship. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to link. We have a guide to choosing a travel niche. So I'm going to link that article for anyone who is thinking about choosing one who's not sure how to go down that route and want some support. So that'll give you more insights as well. But more importantly, I'm going to link the two most important links of this entire podcast with your birthday card. That's it. Exactly. Everyone go and sign it. I should have had that prepared. I'm going to link K HM Travels directory on our website host agency reviews.com. And I'm also going to link directly to K HM Travel dot com.

22:37Go check them out. Learn more, ask questions. Reach out. We always advise asking questions, learning more about them. So please, if you if you're interested and want to learn more. The team is fantastic. If you want to submit questions directly through host agency reviews to K HM, you can do so. They are super quick to answer. All right. What's what's the schedule coming up for the rest of my favorite month? October 16th. We have Unigloved Travel Center joining us October 23rd. We can travel. We'll be back and then to round out the month on October 30th, October 30th. We can't speak anymore. Just adventures will be joining us. A reminder to everyone. Please submit your questions for the Friday 15 at host agency reviews.com slash Friday, one five. And you can listen to many past episodes here as well. We have the entire K HM team has joined us at one point or another on the Friday 15. So go listen to them. They're wonderful. Jeff, this was such a pleasure. Please come back and join us soon.

23:41I would love to maybe without the alarm going on the background, but you see what happens. But please know that we thank you for all that you do. Great organization. Certainly all the agents that are listening that are current travel agents. Thank you. Just for being in the industry. We're so lucky to be in such a thriving industry has done so well. And if you're not part of the industry yet, you think about becoming. And you know, it is a amazing industry with a lot of amazing people and opportunities to see the world. Maybe make some money and pay the bills. But more importantly, it's just a wonderful community as a whole. I mean, all the host agencies that are out there are good close friends. They're good people. So it's just it's unique. Our whole industry is very unique. I'm going to agree with you more. Thank you so much. Everyone enjoy your weekend for all the Canadian advisors listening. Have a wonderful long weekend and happy Thanksgiving to you all.

24:41And we will be back next week. Thanks everybody. Have a great weekend. Bye bye.