Putting a positive spin on almost everything isn’t as hard as it seems – I’m here to help you out with five easy steps to making it happen.
Ooh, last week got all a bit too serious.
All that talk about CTS – argy bargy, here’s my position: they went broke and the travel agent apocalypse is nigh. In amongst all that I had to fit in a haircut.
What was missing? Where was imbalance in the force? A lack of positive spin. So to balance my digital ying and yang, let us look at how to generate it.
Positive spin, through lack of a better word, is making the most of the situation; whether that be a silver lined cloud or making a positive announcement really loud.
Here are five steps to making it positive, real, enduring and a platform to grow sales.
Sure, some people can positively spin their way out of a $100 billion deficit, but I’m talking more about day to day.
Specifically, it can be a tool to keep your customers on task and booking through you.
1. Make it real, baby
Ask any politician and they will tell you the days of getting away with a lie are long gone.
Ah, weren’t those the days, make a promise, win a sale (or election), don’t follow through on promise, rinse and repeat.
Then came social media and ‘trolls’ came into action, and they have a talent for dragging up something you said way back when you were in year seven.
These days, stake your claims on authenticity. Don’t even attempt to polish bullshit because it still comes out brown.
Be real, banana peel.
2. Word of Mouth
Hope you aren’t sick of this, because I’m not.
Word of mouth is authentic, real and by definition it’s bloody hard to fake and everyone knows it.
Ask Martin Bailey – he’s the guru.
Karry On’s Matt Leedham has also done some great work on crystalising what agents need to know.
How? Do a job worth talking about. Ask someone if they will talk about it for you (or write it down). Share.
People buy into comments like this – Thanks to Jessica Rendell from Travel Associates
“Super easy to book, amazing customer service, competitive prices and a large database of hotels. It’s a no brainer!”
So much better when someone else says it.
3. Make the choice to be positive
Favourite saying of the week:
“Bring me solutions….I have enough problems right now.”
It can be hard to grasp, but we learn more from defeats, more from failures and more from challenges.
I don’t mean to get all ‘grant me the serenity to…’ because I am not so good at serenity.
But these things sent to challenge us HAVE to be a way to move forward. Otherwise, you can just stand still. And get run over.
That positive mindset is a huge start; if you start ‘happy’ you’ll get a better response from every interaction.
4. Be informed, know the questions, promise the answers
There is nothing wrong with accepting you have a weakness, knowing there is a problem, knowing that you are going to be questioned – that’s just life.
Start by assessing the fact then by the grace of the forum god’s, see what the punters think of said facts.
Mostly, they won’t respond to ‘fact’ but to ‘feeling’.
Could well be VERY different from you think (look at the TCF vs ATAS discussion getting ready to fire up).
It’s amazing how different people draw from the different facts presented to them.
Astounding actually.
I’m not buying into it, but check out the thought provoked on Adam Goodes recently.
Trawl a forum on a topic and just watch what people say and how others react; a great way to model the real world
5. PPPPP
No, that’s not a spelling error.
PPPPP – has something to do about being prepared and preventing poor performance.
So be prepared, put some thought into it, practice, find the lighter side, inject some humour, release some pressure, have some fun with it, go through steps one to four, package that all up, release into the wild, observe mutations, bring them back in and refine, rinse, repeat.
Learn how to do with the humans.
Grow.