If you are asking this question, my assumption is that you have a strong desire to attract excellent, ideal clients. Lots of them. And preferably a nice, consistent, never-ending flow of them. Sound good so far?And if you are asking this question, you have probably tried a lot of things to attract good clients. Let’s see if this scenario is close to your experience. To accomplish your desire for a nice, consistent, never ending flow of ideal clients, you put yourself out there. You invested in 3 different bridal shows over a 6 month window. You committed to and delivered a weekly electronic newsletter for 30 weeks consistently. You’ve added all the new contacts from your bridal shows to your database and followed up several times with every person on the list.But you still have a weak and inconsistent flow of new inquiries. It appears your marketing efforts are not working. And you are frustrated. You followed all the rules. You implemented everything you were told to do.The reason why your marketing efforts are not working is that you fell into the most common trap of marketing your business: taking score. Probably the best way to understand this is to take what will seem like a totally irrelevant step sideways into the topic of love and relationships.What do love and relationships have to do with marketing your travel business? A LOT. The reason why is because, “how you do anything is how you do everything.” As human beings, we condition ourselves into behavior from a very young age. You’ve been “doing” love and relationships since the day you were born. You haven’t been marketing your travel business that long.A dear friend of mine and expert on the topic of love and relationships is Stacey Martino, co-founder of RelationshipDevelopment.org. Stacey is famous for saying, “a magnificent love affair is created not found. So stop searching and start building.” The explanation as to why your marketing isn’t working can be found in her explanation of the 4 levels of love.According to Stacey, level 1 love is very immature, and infantile-like. It’s one way. A baby cries and gets soothed. There is no return of the the soothing. Most of the human population naturally grows out of level 1 love by the age of 2 or 3.Level 2 love is much more co-operative. It operates on a give and take philosophy. It goes like this: “I will give you this and then you can give me that.” Level 2 love is a partnership. “I give and then you will give.” There is a sense of fairness and balance to level 2 love. It’s what most of us are taught to aspire to.Sounds like a great way to live, right? Wrong. Level 2 love sabotages relationships (and your marketing, which I will get to in a second). Why? Because partners inevitably end up keeping score. It’s impossible for the score to ever be equal and each partner always feels like they are on the losing side. A relationship cannot thrive in this environment. It might survive, but it won’t be happy. The antidote to a toxic, keeping-score environment is to shift into a level 3 love.When operating from a level 3 love, the scorecard is thrown out the window and partners come from a place of tapping into the love within them to give love without expectation. Instead of coming from a place of “what can I get from this relationship?” partners operate from a place of “what can I give?” Stacey challenges her clients to spend 3 months exercising their level 3 love muscle, even if their partner isn’t following her system, and to watch the incredible transformation. What they realize is that level 3 love is far more fulfilling once the muscle is strengthened because there is a never-ending source of love within each of us and we are in control of tapping into it. We don’t need to wait around for others to give us what we want or behave in a way that makes us feel better. And when we adjust to operating from a place of level 3 love, we naturally elicit the best out of others in our lives… especially our partners.This is a great lesson and can have a tremendous positive impact on a marriage. But the concept of Level 3 love can also be applied to marketing your travel business. But most people don’t apply this concept to their marketing and thus it doesn’t work. When you market from a place that’s comparable to level 2 love, constantly keeping score, looking for the direct correlation between your marketing efforts and the arrival of new clients, you will always feel like you are on the losing side. You focus on what’s NOT showing up and that’s the vibe you put out. Without realizing it, the vibe you put out when you market from a level 2 love place, is desperation. It’s the vibe of “I want to get more clients, or more bookings or more money.” Think about it, when a new car salesman approaches you on the 31st of the month telling you he can get you a great deal, all the while knowing full well he is desperate to make his monthly sales quota, what vibe do you feel? What do you do when you feel that vibe? Pull away!!!
“Neediness repels; Completeness Attracts”
It’s not your fault if you have been believing in a linear relationship in your marketing because you’ve been taught level 2 love in all your relationships (not just your intimate ones). Very few of us are made aware that relationships can only thrive long term when surrounded by a level 3 love environment.When it comes to marketing your travel business, you make the shift into a level 3 love when your marketing is inspired by your desire to give/share your brilliance. Read this following quote from Joel Osteen and change the word “people” to clients
“God has put people in your life on purpose so you can be a blessing to them. Don’t live to get, live to give.”
My tweak to his message for you is “Don’t market to get, market to give.” When you market to give, your marketing WILL work. If your marketing isn’t working, it’s because you are marketing to get.Make the shift. How? By tapping into the brilliance that resides within you. Fill yourself up with the knowing that you were born to help others and you were given gifts and talents to do that. Your desire to attract a nice, consistent pipeline of excellent, ideal clients actually comes from a deep knowing inside that you are brilliant, talented, gifted and have something to share. When you apply those gifts to your clients’ travel experiences they are forever changed and everyone wins.Realize that marketing is just how you make others aware of what you have to offer/give. And also realize that you can feel so fulfilled by sharing your gifts and talents with those that need it most.What if you took Stacey’s 3-months-of-Level-3-love-challenge in your business to exercise your Level 3 love muscle? This would mean reaching out to your clients and prospects just because you want to “share the love.” This would mean doing things for your clients, just because it feels good. This would mean marketing and nurturing relationships with no expectations. Imagine what that would do for your business. Worth a shot, don’t you think?Do you like this content? Are you looking for a step-by-step, guided program that will teach you how to become a travel agent AND a successful business owner? Check out Gifted Travel Network’s Travel MBA Program.
