AP 1179: How Do I Niche Down and Better Serve My People?

Pat Flynn:
What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here. And welcome to episode 1,179 of AskPat 2.0. You're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur just like you. And today we're talking with Erica James from Erica James Travel, as well as the Erica James Travel Show Podcast, which I highly recommend you check out if you are into travel. And today we're talking with Erica about her situation, right? She is a travel agent, and she posts content online, but she's having some issues with picking a lane in a niche. And you'll hear, there's a moment in this episode where boom, you hear things click, and boom, we're just moving forward.

And it's so great because when you discover the lane that you should be in and the niche that you should really focus on, everything becomes more clear. The clouds part, the sun comes down on you, and you can now bask in the sun of the world that you should be in. I don't know if that made sense, but I was trying to make a travel analogy, and I don't know if that worked or not. But anyway, hopefully you're traveling and having some fun this summer. And I hope that you can also check out EricaJamesTravel.com and this episode. So let's just not wait any longer. Let’s get into it right now. Here she is. Erica James.

Erica, welcome to AskPat. Thank you for coming on the show today.

Erica James:
Thank you for having me, Pat. I am super excited.

Pat:
This is going to be a lot of fun. First of all, let's just get to know you a little bit, Erica. What do you do? Tell us about yourself a little bit.

Erica:
I am a travel agent, a blogger, and a podcast host. It hasn't even been a year yet on the podcast, but thanks to you, Pat, I am a podcast host, and I'm so excited about that. Everything travel. That is my life. I absolutely love travel. I love to talk about it. That's why I started a podcast. That's why I'm a travel agent and a blogger, and I have a YouTube channel. So my whole life is travel.

Pat:
All the things. And we've gotten to know each other pretty well as you've been on the Income Stream quite a bit, in the audience and in the crowd and just in the website and YouTube channel reviews that we've done for you. You've done such an excellent job. I've seen you put in the hard work and effort to continue to level up, which is absolutely fantastic.

First of all, I think everybody's curious because at the time they're listening to this, many of us know the pandemic happened. Travel is a little bit difficult right now. How has that affected the business that you have?

Erica:
It has affected my business so much. I have been a travel agent for 15 years. I have never experienced what I experienced in 2020 before in my life. Even when there were issues with the cruise industry, when there were deaths in Punta Cana, nothing could prepare you for the pandemic and having absolutely no bookings whatsoever in 2020 plan. No one's traveled in 2020. And because 2019 is when you do all your work for 2020. So have all the work you've done in 2019 go away. It was a really hard hit, and it's such a struggle to come back from the pandemic, and it's still going on. So it's still a struggle today.

Pat:
Are you optimistic about the future?

Erica:
Very optimistic. I have never stopped being optimistic.

Pat:
Good for you. And that's so important, though, especially in the dark time. You’ve got to still consider the possibilities. You've got to still consider what's coming. And I think that we're all going to be celebrating with travel in all of our lives coming up very soon, hopefully. And I know my family and I are looking forward to it and think that's a good sign for all the travel agents and other people in that industry.

What have you been doing now that bookings are available right now? How have you been trying to keep up the business, or what positions or what pivots have you made?

Erica:
2020, my main concern was staying relevant. How do you stay relevant in an industry that has been totally wiped out by a world pandemic? That was my goal. I think that was really my main purpose of starting the podcast. What can I do to stay relevant? I wasn't traveling. I wasn't taking pictures. I wasn't showing destinations I was going to. So doing a podcast had always been on my mind. So I was like, "Let me start a podcast." And I know people think that's insane during a pandemic, but I think it helped my business so much, of starting that podcast and continuously putting myself out there. It helps so now that people are starting to think about travel, they're starting to come to me because I never went away. I was always there.

Pat:
Good for you. That's so great. And a podcast is a great way to do that because number one, it's easier than YouTube, as I'm sure you and many people know. You're just talking, having conversations, and there's no better way to build a relationship, I feel. A lot of people had a lot of time to listen and to crave travel. And here you are showing up and providing information. What did you talk about? If you weren't going anywhere, I'm curious, what did you talk about on your show? Or what are you talking about on your podcast?

Erica:
I did a lot of travel tips in the beginning. I started off with, how do you plan a vacation? What are travel tips? How can you get ready when it's time to travel? Things like that. And then I did begin to travel, I would say probably in July of 2020. So therefore I had extra information. I also brought guests on who had inspirational travel stories, who had things that happened to them when they traveled. So it gave people not only something to look forward to, but things they can do to get ready for travel and things they can learn to help themselves be a better traveler when it was time to travel.

Pat:
Amazing job. Way to make lemonade out of lemons, right? Like how they say. Wonderful job. How can I help you today? What's on your mind? Where do you want to point this conversation toward?

Erica:
About a few months ago on the Income Stream you had mentioned to me about niching down. And so I haven't done that ever. And believe it or not, in 15 years of doing travel, I have never done that because I've been afraid of giving a business, giving away business. But during the pandemic, I realized what my passion is, what I enjoy. I enjoy beach vacations. I enjoy all-inclusive resorts. I enjoy... I know nothing about traveling with kids. That's an easy niche: helping people travel with kids. I don't have kids. I'm single. I don't know anything about traveling with kids, but I do know about solo travel. I do know about traveling with your friends and groups and beach, all-inclusive and partying and having a good time internationally. So I don't know how to communicate that, translate that into a niche. And also not... I think I'm afraid of offending people or losing people because that's the lane I want to go in.

Pat:
Well, I'm curious if somebody were to come to you and they had kids and they had a lot of questions for you about traveling with kids, would you still be able to help them a little bit? Or would you just feel like, "I can try to help you, but this isn't really my thing." Do you think it would be more genuine to make stuff up as you go? Or even from a person who's not an expert on kids to tell this person? Or do you think it would be helpful to go, "Well, you know what? I'm not the expert on that, but here is somebody else that can help you with that. I focus on this, and that's it." Are you serving people best if you try to help everybody, is basically what I'm asking.

Erica:
No, I do not feel like I'm serving people best if I try to help everyone, because there are times when people come to me about different destination vacations, it takes me an extremely long time to get back to them, put something together because that's not my area of expertise.

Pat:
You got to discover new things to help them. I didn't even think of that. Oh, that makes complete sense. I mean, I think that the answer is clear from my end, but I understand the apprehension because here's what can happen. It's like, you could either try to help everybody, which is going to take a lot of time, a lot of extra research and maybe provide a mediocre to average service to everybody, right? Because you're just spread thin. Or for the people who do find you, what might happen is you become known for that thing. They keep coming back for that thing. They share with their friends and their relatives, "Hey, if you're going on this kind of vacation, you’ve got to go to EJ because this is where you go to get that information."

To me, correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like you might be like me. You want to please everybody. Is that true?

Erica:
That is true.

Pat:
That's both a blessing and a curse because if you're a business owner and you're trying to please everybody, you're going to please nobody in the fullest extent that you could. Now, here's how I've been able to combat that by niching down and by saying, "I am this and I am not this." I can still help the people who don't fit with me because EJ, maybe you have a friend in the travel industry who you can work with, who is a specialty in families and destinations like Disney travel and whatever. And you can basically say, and you actually might be able to create some commission based on this, "Hey, I'd love to partner with you. Anybody who comes my way, who has a family, I'm going to send them to you. Anybody who comes your way, who is single, who wants to party, you send them to me. We'll just help each other out."

Have you had or have thought about building relationships like that? Because you're still able to serve—you're better able to serve a family by going, "Nope. I'm not your girl. This person here can take care of you." That is to me, if I was to come to you because I have a family and I'd want to go on a family vacation, that would save me the most time. I would trust your recommendation. That's still service to me.

Erica:
I totally agree. And for example, Disney vacations, I'm not an expert in Disney vacations. It's so much to know and learn, so many timelines and things that you have to do to book a Disney vacation. I do have a friend who's an expert in Disney vacations. So what I would normally do if someone came to me, then I would call her. She will work with me. She will help me. Then I provide that. No one sees her behind the scenes, but it's still taking my time. I'm using someone else's time. And of course I will compensate her. I'm giving a lot of my time and energy to something that I'm not an expert at, but you want those people to come to you for something else. And I think that's my fear is that if I don't plan this vacation for this person, they may not come back for a different kind of vacation with me. And so I'm trying to balance, how do I do that?

Pat:
So I love that we're going a little bit deeper here. We're starting to discover more things. So now it's like, okay, how might we still get that business from somebody who we first turn away? And I think part of it is you becoming known for something and owning that. "I will give you the best time if it's you and a bunch of other young adults or adults with no kids, I will give that to you. So hey, you have a family right now. You're going on this Disney vacation. This person I know is going to take care of you, but here's my card. Because when you guys want to take a break from the kids, I'm going to give you the best time in the world." Then you still have their contact, right? You still have their info.

Few months after that vacation, either an automated email or you reach out, or maybe even more direct, a direct message on social media. Like, "Hey, how was that Disney vacation?" Right? You just stay relevant. You stay on top of their mind, just like you know how to do with your podcast. So that you can just say, "Hey, and by the way, if you ever are going to plan a vacation with just you two, you know where to go. I'm here for you. Just let me know." And again, that's just at least as a touch point for that.

I think if you take that approach that you just want to stay on top of people's minds, then you won't lose out on that business. Because number one, by sharing that recommended person, who's going to help them, that is still of service, right? I will get a lot of people to click on affiliate links on my website, right? As you know. I get people who reach back out to me later to say, "Thank you for that recommendation. What else do you have?" Or, "Hey, if you come out with something like this, let me know," because by helping them, it's just not my own product, but I'm still helping them. It's still of service to them. And it's still, you can be remembered and reminded about for that.

There was an episode of the Smart Passive Income Podcast with Jordan Harbinger who had talked about this thing called the layoff lifeline, where he's a master at this. He has a Rolodex like just contacts for days it seems. And he purposefully takes the time to just reach out to see how people are doing for no other agenda than to just keep that connection. And at one moment in his life, he got kicked out of his own business, kicked to the curb, had nothing, but because he kept those relationships there, he was able to reach out to me and several others to get some help when he needed it.

And that was his layoff lifeline. The relationships that you build, because he's just staying in connection. I think a lot of people in real estate know how to do this very well because people don't buy homes every single week. But because of that great experience that a person had when their friend is going to come into, to move to the neighborhood too, you recommend the friend, because that's who gave you that experience with relation to real estate back in the day. And I think the same thing as travel because people often when they're taking vacations, aren't vacationing every week. But the cool thing is you start to get to know the people who are going to take care of you. And that's what you do. You take care of people one way or another.

Erica:
Funny that you mentioned about the referral, because I mean, that is our lifeline as well, is referrals as a travel agent. And not only that, it is the biggest compliment you can give to a travel agent is to refer them to someone else. And so that is also my other dilemma too, is if I niche down to this, how do I communicate that to my current clients, that this is what I'm going to start doing. This is what I'm going to niche down to. Because right now, when they refer me, I get all kinds of stuff. I get stuff I don't even want to do. Someone just wants a plane ticket, me just getting somebody a plane ticket does not serve them well, or me. It's, how do I communicate that so that my audience, my clients, my current base, is not putting me out there to just anyone?

Pat:
Well, there's a couple things. Keeping track of all the incoming inquiries, just to get a sense of which ones are most popular, which are happening, can give you insight on what other partners or other kinds of people that you can bring into your network to serve those people that aren't you, if you, in fact, you want to focus. And the other thing about this is on your podcast, on your YouTube channel, it's just about the way you talk about it, right? And you don't even necessarily have to go, "Hey, I'm not taking any other business other than this," but you could just say, "This is my specialty. And if you want this, this is what I'm doing."

And that in and of itself is going to attract those kinds of people to you without basically cutting people off if you will. It may even inspire those who are working with you more on the outer rings of what you do to want to go into the inner ring of what you do now that you were saying that “This is what I do best.”

"Oh, I want the best from EJ. I just would normally get a plane ticket from you. You focus on that? Tell me more about that." "Oh, well, there's this special deal we have with this all-inclusive resort where literally you'll show up, I'll take care of everything else." "Wow. That sounds amazing. Okay. I'm interested now." So you can actually use a lot of these external things to actually drive more business to that, but it's just about the way you talk about it. So I think that on one hand, yes, it can feel scary to take ownership of a specific part, but at the same time, it doesn't necessarily mean you are closing off the other things. It just means let's just put the focus on this thing instead.

Erica:
Okay. I got it. Because in my mind I was thinking I got to make this grand announcement and I got to let everyone know. But what I hear you saying is I need to start working it into where I am already marketing myself, my podcast, maybe my blogs. If I start focusing and niching those areas down to my specialty, then it would naturally progress out to the other people.

Pat:
Yes. And that way you get to dip your toe in the water instead of just like, "All right, let's just jump in," and then you leave everything else behind. I think that there is a middle here that you can experiment with. And this is just human nature to go... It's not to your fault. It's just how we think. We think “yes or no” or “all in or all out.” It's just a binary thing that we have as humans, versus what is actually true is there's probably a nice middle ground, right? Maybe when the season comes back and we can all travel again, you do a huge promotion specifically for all-inclusive beach resort vacations specifically for people without kids. It doesn't mean you don't do the other stuff. It just means, "Hey guys, look at what I'm focusing on right here."

And you get a sense of what that's like. You get to bring a whole bunch of people together, however you want to do it. And that can teach you a lot about what that was like. And maybe at that time, you're like, "Wow, I love that so much. That's literally all I want to do from this point forward." And you can choose to do that. Or you might go, "Wow, that was cool. I'm going to do that every summer." And have a campaign to focus on in on that. Otherwise, everything else will remain the same. Or you might hate it. You might be like, "Well, I thought that was the niche I wanted, but that's actually not what I wanted. So I'm glad I didn't make this huge announcement and then have to retract and go back." So I think that would be the best way to move forward.

Erica:
Okay. I think I like that idea. And I'm going to start working that into things that I talk about, things that I do, and also an event or a campaign. Virtual Vacation Day is coming up March 30th, so that would be a good time to do some kind of event or something all-inclusive-ish to kick that off.

Pat:
National Virtual Vacation day. I had no idea. Look it up. It's there, everybody. That's really cool. I have a couple more questions for you, but really quick, in case people are interested in all the things that you have going on, where should they go to check you out?

Erica:
Well, you can check me out. I'm very active on Instagram, EJTheTravelDiva. I have a YouTube channel, EJTheTravelDiva. Everywhere you can find me, EJ The Travel Diva. And of course my podcast, the Erica James Travel Show. And that's on all streaming platforms, thanks to you, Pat, and Power-Up Podcasting.

Pat:
You're doing so good. I love it. I'm so proud of you and the way that you kept your head up during this time. And you've not just survived, but you've created something that's going to probably provide you a lot of great business down the road. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Where are you going next? I'm curious. What's your next trip?

Erica:
My next trip is actually, I'm going back to Jamaica for pleasure. A friend's birthday. I'm also taking several people to Cancun, to the brand new Planet Hollywood that opened up. I just left. It was amazing. And so I shared my experience with everyone. And so now I'm taking a group with me back. So I do have travel on the horizon.

Pat:
Would you recommend that for me and April? When the kids are a little older, we can leave them at home.

Erica:
You could take the kids with you, Pat. This resort has absolutely everything. I mean, it has everything. And I'm a kid at heart. It has everything for kids that you can imagine. All the characters, all of the superheroes, everybody is there.

Pat:
That's cool. Well maybe the second time we go, we'll bring the kids because I'm trying to get me and April to get somewhere alone. So anyway.

Erica:
Well, they have an adult only side. So you can have both, family side and the adult side. So two vacations in one.

Pat:
Well, EJ, it's just such a pleasure to chat with you. And again, thank you for your support in the Income Stream. And I'm looking forward to seeing you more in the further Income Streams down the road, and just keep up the great work. EJ The Travel Diva. Have you gotten some good help today? You got what you need?

Erica:
I did. I feel a lot better about it. I don't feel as afraid or intimidated as I felt in the beginning of niching down. I feel a little comfortable, and I feel like I have a roadmap on how I'm going to ease my base into knowing what my new specialty is without putting it in their face.

Pat:
Awesome. Mission accomplished. Thank you so much, EJ. We appreciate you.

Erica:
Thank you so much for having me.

Pat:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Erica James. You can find her at EricaJamesTravel.com. I know her as EJ because she's been a part of the Income Stream for so long and so supportive. And I'm so grateful that she gave a shoutout to the podcasting stuff that I've helped her with and I can help you with too.

So anyway, thankful for you, Erica James. And thankful for you, the listener, for listening all the way through. I appreciate you. If you'd like to get coached on the show, just like Erica did today, all you have to do is go to AskPat.com and find the application button there. And I'd love to hear from you. And secondly, if you haven't done so yet, make sure you hit Subscribe because we've got a lot of great episodes coming your way, including next week or in the next episode, your monthly “Where Are They Now?”

So at the end of every month, we check in with somebody who's been on the show once before, and there's a lot of great success stories and there's another one coming your way from somebody who's been on the show who has implemented some stuff, taken some action, and we see how things turn out. So I hope you'll check that out the next time. So make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already. I appreciate you so, so much. And I look forward to serving you on next week's episode of AskPat. Peace out. Thanks so much. Team Flynn for the win.

Thanks for listening to AskPat at AskPat.com. I'm your host, Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess. Our series producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. AskPat is a production of SPI Media. I'll catch you in the next session.