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In the Lounge
helping small businesses in travel & tourism with online technology

summer
It’s been a gorgeous summer….

In This Issue

If there’s a topic you’d like to see learn more about, just click reply and let me know.

In the Summer Sun: Keeping your Energy Up
Hi! – Hard to believe it’s been nearly a month since we last were having an In The Lounge discussion. My how time flies.It’s been a gorgeous summer here in Scotland – unusually so. And this month the Edinburgh Festival is in high gear – and the two together have posed me a few problems. The sun rarely shines here, so why not spend a few extra hours during the week soaking up the rays? And while I have some work-related business with the festival, wouldn’t it be nice to take a few days off and see some shows?

I struggled. I have so much work going on that I forgot the reason why I take time off in the first place: to recharge my batteries and bring that energy and ‘creative juice’ back into my business.

It made me think long and hard about the way my small business is running. Am I as efficient as I could be? Are there some things I should stop doing because they’re just in the way? Have I got my priorities in order?

The result is that I’ve done some “summer cleaning” to get my proverbial house in order. So I’m feeling a little less stressed about a day off here or there, knowing that the time I am in the office I’m working on what’s important.

Lesson Learned: Don’t forget to take some time off this summer – even a quick day here and there helps. And spend an hour having a look at your business overall. Everything looking the way you wanted it to? If not, write down 5 small things you could do to fix it. Now decide how and when you’re going to make them happen.

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Is your blog dead?
I can’t tell you how many times in the past month I have heard a story about “the death of blogs” or “blogs are no longer effective.” Nothing further could be from the truth – so if you’re thinking about killing yours or feeling like starting a blog is a waste of time, you’d be wrong. There’s no way to communicate a story, describe an experience, or communicate your vision and passion on a short Twitter message. Or a quick post on a Facebook page. A blog is a platform for expression on your terms – your length and your style. You can have lots of pictures or just a couple. You can have videos, guest speakers, a single writer or have your customers talk about their experiences. No matter what happens in the wild world of the Internet, your blog will serve as an excellent communication tool for your business at least for the immediate future.

Moral of the Story: I’m not saying blogs are right for everyone. But if you’ve got one, don’t throw it away because of some trendy news sites have given it the death knell. If it’s not delivering what you want it to, it isn’t dead. It’s just broken. But most broken blogs are easy to fix. Re-evaluate what you want from the blog in the first place and make sure a blog is the right tool to deliver those results.

If you need some external advice, I’m happy to help – I’ll be releasing a blog coaching program next month. It will be a multi-week review tackling the various issues that are preventing your blog from thriving. Click reply to let me know if you’re interested when it comes out.
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Get Your To Do List Organised
Let’s be realistic — the small travel business owner’s to do list is Never finished. Mine never is, anyway. But after taking stock of the situation as I mentioned earlier (as well as thinking long and hard about blog effectiveness), I re-read my copy of Nick Cernis’s Todoodlist. It’s a fantastic, quick and easy read for:

  • great ideas on how to be more productive
  • great ways to reduce complexity in your professional & personal life
  • great systems to use to start (and finish) new projects quickly and easily

Quite suitable for our latest discussion, eh?

Check it out and get a copy! It’s now on sale for just $14 USD.

Note: I do get a few pennies if you buy Nick’s book. But that doesn’t reflect on my opinion of the book. It just works!

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Required Watching: United Breaks Guitars
You might have already seen this clip, but if not, please grab a cold tasty beverage and spend five minutes watching this video clip of United Breaks Guitars. It’s a wonderful example of a little thing I like to call an “online PR disaster.” A disgruntled United Airlines passenger took out his frustrations in a well-produced YouTube video that as of this writing has had 4.5 million views. That’s a lot of negative press, and it has even been picked up by print media and TV news stations.

Go ahead, watch the video, I’ll wait…. Ok, so, if you were United Airlines, what would you do? (A lot of things, I suspect, but just in relation to this video.) More difficult question: what would you do if the company was yours?

United has had a fairly weak public response to the issue. Westjet (a small budget airline, I believe), on the other hand, published their own video response endearingly entitled “Westjet Loves Guitars.” Their video wasn’t as professionally done, and no it didn’t get quite the viral response, but I thought it was a by far more fitting response.


Moral of the Story: By exposing your brand to the world online, you have a broad reach. But you also expose yourself to reviews and criticism. You must be prepared to deal with them, both good and bad. Sometimes no response is appropriate (such as bullying or unethical/slanderous commentary) and sometimes you have to respond (4.5 million pageviews is a pretty good indicator a response is needed!). What will your response be? You should have an idea before the time comes.

We’ll be covering this issue more in the future, so stay tuned.

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What is the hardest part about online business??
I’ve been really busy working some fantastic new eLearning products and coaching packages that I’ll be sharing with you next month. I’m really excited about them, but as I’m writing them there’s one thing I’m still curious about.

What do you find the hardest part about online business?

Is it keeping up with the blog? Deciding what to do about “online PR” as per above? Not enough time? All too complicated?

Tell me by filling in this quick, one answer questionnaire. It will take 60 seconds, I promise. Just click here and share your view.

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When you’ve finished reading this month’s newsletter, be sure to:

  • whitelist emails from “www.travelonlinepartners.com” so that they don’t end up in your Spam folder!
  • forward a copy to a friend who might enjoy these tips and tricks – I’d love to see them here with us next month.
  • click reply and let me know if there is anything I can do to help or if there is a topic you’d like to hear more about.

Otherwise, thanks for listening. See you soon.

-Andy