It’s halftime, 15 minutes to evaluate your travel business | Travel Research Online

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It’s halftime, 15 minutes to evaluate your travel business

Independence Day has come and gone, and now we are looking down the barrel of the second half of the year. It’s halftime, if you will; and a perfect time to take a minute to look at what went well the first half of the year and what needs to be adjusted to make sure the second half performs as planned to make your goals.

In a football game, the coaches take the 15 minutes at halftime to formulate the next 30 minutes of play and so should you.

Look at finances

Where do you stand? Are you about halfway towards your projected revenues? If not, what can you do to try and make it up? What about expenses? Break it down by category and by month so you can truly see where the money is going. Is everything where it should be? Are you over (or under) budget in any areas? If so, you will need to make corrections to keep in the black. Remember, sometimes it is cheaper to outsource and delegate—believe it or not.

Look at marketing

Tracking marketing efforts is hard. There is no simple way to do it and at best, it is a SWAG (silly wild ass guess), but a SWAG is better than nothing. Look at all of your marketing vehicles for the past six months. Did the Facebook ads perform better than Google ads? Did a magazine display ad do amazing things for you? Perhaps it was a trade show or travel night you hosted. Make a diligent effort to pinpoint the source for all of your bookings and adjust accordingly.

Look at your attitude

Are you fit to be in this business? It is not as dumb a question as you might think. People will do business with people they like. If you are not likable, your business will suffer—period. People change. Industries change. Periodically evaluate them both and see if you are still a good fit. If travel still enthralls you and you thrive on speaking to people about their dreams, you are probably OK. But, if you are pining away for the days gone by when your IATAN card was the key to the red carpet, then maybe you need to re-evaluate your position in the industry or your own business. Maybe a less people-facing role might be appropriate.

And finally, hit the ground running. Your 15 minutes of halftime are over. It’s the first full week of the second half of the year and there are only 26 more weeks to make all the magic happen. Look at what you did. Adjust to stick to your plans—or adjust your plans to meet reality and make the second half of 2015 a banner year for you!

 

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