Going viral is not the point.

In fact, it might actually hurt your travel business, and in this episode Glenda explains exactly why. She breaks down the four ways people actually make money on social media (view revenue, collaborations, affiliates, and selling your own product) and why only some of those matters for a travel advisor. If you are not grinding out ten videos a day for ad revenue, then vanity numbers are a distraction from the KPIs that actually move your business. 

She shares the story of a bakery that hired a "go viral" consultant and ended up posting content that is off-brand, uncomfortable, and makes you question their food handling, while other bakeries go viral simply because people love watching cake decorating. She also calls out the business coach who went viral once with a chin-up video and is now selling a course on how to do it (yet hasn't repeated it herself).

The lesson in both cases is the same. When your focus becomes going viral, you lose sight of who you are creating for, why you are creating, and what you are actually selling. You end up attracting the wrong audience and pushing away the people who would have bought from you.

Then comes the reframe that changes everything. That video with 100 views? That's 100 humans in a room, silent, giving you their full attention while you tell them a story. How often do you get that chance? On social media, you get it every single day. Captivate those 100 and the algorithm brings you 100 more. Glenda challenges you to stop asking "how do I go viral" and start asking "how can I connect with even one person so they know without question they are in the right place."

This is exactly what the Building an Audience workshop is about. Glenda is flipping the traditional awareness, evaluation, sales funnel into community, connection, conversion, and tackling the gremlins that tell you nobody wants to hear your voice. Join us September 22, 23, and 24, 2026 at artofsellingtravel.com/grow.

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Let's just get this out of the way: your email list is not a nice-to-have. It's not something you'll "get to eventually." It is the one digital asset you actually own, and if you're not building it, you're building your business on rented land.

In this episode I'm making the case (loudly) for why email needs to be a non-negotiable in your marketing, why social media alone could leave you stranded, and exactly what makes a good weekly email work.

Spoiler: it's three pieces, one story, and always a PS.

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If marketing feels like a slog, I promise you it's not because you suck at it.

It's because nobody talks about the foundations, they jump straight to the shiney objects and magic pills. Which is like building IKEA furniture with half the parts and no manual.

This week, I'm getting into why "free" marketing from your host agency is quietly costing you clients, why AI content is setting off alarm bells for your audience, whether you realize it or not, and why the "faceless" trend was always going to die (I called it back then too).

In this episode, I also talk about the marketing funnel and why most advisors have it backwards, and why I ditched AI for my own writing.

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River cruises aren't cancelled this year, they're adjusting, and that distinction matters more than most advisors are giving it credit for. In this episode Glenda breaks down how to actually talk to clients about water level disruptions, whether they're already booked or still deciding, without panicking them and without torching your own sales down the road. She uses her own backyard as the example: an Alberta town that went from drought warnings and lake level maps in March to 19 inches of rain by June, proof that conditions change fast and your messaging needs to be built for that reality, not for the panic of the moment.

Listen to Angela Hughes on YouTube on water levels: https://youtu.be/STjy91agNfs?si=7JNGysjyqR1P9_9n 

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Glenda opens with the mantra of the episode: never hit send while you're angry.

It comes out of a TASS coaching call, where an advisor did everything right on a river cruise inquiry (fast turnaround, custom research, a proposal built around what the clients actually wanted) only to find out they'd booked elsewhere. Stung by the loss, she fired off an email listing everything she'd done for them. It didn't land the way she hoped.

Glenda unpacks what happened next: how to repair a client relationship after an emotional reaction, why the word "disappointed" does more work than anger ever will, and why the fix isn't about being right, it's about being the adult in the room.

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No one wants to talk about the "legal" parts of business, but in this episode, Glenda got to speak with Gunes Hopson, a travel lawyer and travel advisor. The biggest mistake a travel advisor can make in their business is not understanding their contract, or believing that their host is always going to do right by them. This is a business and you need to be sure that you're taking the right steps to know what you can and can't do. What leaving looks like long before you ever decide to leave and why ChatGPT is not your friend with legal advice. 

We talked about red flags in agency contracts, when you should consider walking away and why having an exit strategy from your first day is so important. 

Connect with Gunes:

https://www.gfhlawplc.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/gfhlawplc/

https://www.youtube.com/@GFHLawPLC

https://substack.com/@guneshopson

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On this episode, I'm talking about a recent shopping experience I had when purchasing a new mattress.

The story is the two salespeople I dealt with along the way, because they could not have been more different, and it's got everything to do with how you sell travel.

Salesperson one was kind. Genuinely lovely to be around. But every conversation she steered came back to price. She warned me off a mattress for being "too expensive." Told me a pillow and a set of linens were "very, very expensive" before I even asked the number. Never once asked what my budget was. She just decided, based on my ponytail and t-shirt, what I could afford and what I'd consider worth it.

Salesperson two never mentioned money until I brought it up myself. Instead she asked how I sleep. Side or back. Soft or firm. Had me lie down on each mattress and actually stay there, roll over, get comfortable, like it was real life instead of a showroom. Two mattresses ended up basically the same price, so the decision came down to how each one felt, not what it cost.

Here's what actually got me to say yes, though. It wasn't the mattress. It was that I didn't want to deal with hauling my old one to the landfill. She solved that problem for forty extra dollars, and that was the entire close.

Your clients do this too. They stall out, they say "let me think about it," and advisors assume it's the price. Half the time it's not. It's the thing nobody's answered yet: the logistics, the "what happens if," the fear sitting quietly underneath the budget conversation.

Next time a client hesitates, get curious before you get discounty. Ask what's really going on. You might find the real objection has nothing to do with money at all.

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I just wrapped the Groups Workshop, and I did it sick as a dog. Led the morning sessions, crawled back into bed, popped out for the VIP call, crawled back in. Three days of that, and I still call it one of the best things I've done all year. The workshop itself was great. But it's not actually done until the debrief happens too.

In this episode, I walk you through exactly what a debrief actually is (hint: it's your SWOT analysis after the fact) and why so many businesses, nonprofits, and event teams skip the hard parts of it. I shared a story about a nonprofit board I used to sit on, where the "debrief" turned into a pat-on-the-back session instead of an honest look at what worked and what didn't. Spoiler: that's not a debrief, that's a celebration, and celebrations alone don't make you better next time.

From there, I get specific about my own workshop. What I'd do differently (more ads prepped in advance), what surprised me (a picture of my dog outperformed every polished graphic I made), and the wild stat from my sales window: six people bought a ticket for every one person who unsubscribed. I get blunt about what that means if you're scared to sell to your list.

I also get into the unglamorous stuff nobody talks about: cost per hour on your own initiatives, the swipe file I'm building so the next workshop takes half the effort, and why "we could've changed everything" is usually the wrong instinct when something actually worked.

If something didn't sell, I go back to what Michael Vickers always says, price is never the issue, unless it's the issue, the it's only issue, but it's never the issue. The real problem almost always sits in the messaging around the price, not the number itself.

I close out with a peek at what's next: a marketing and audience-building workshop coming September 22 to 24. Priority access list is open now at artofsellingtravel.com/grow, tickets will go on sale in September and when you join the list you get first access ... plus a little bonus. 

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This week's episode is a little different. Glenda recorded it in the middle of launch week, almost no voice left, fresh off two days in bed with what a friend called "the breakthrough flu." Because of course the universe waits until you're mid-launch to knock you flat.

Here's what happened: Glenda hit a sales ceiling in her business that she's never broken before. And then, days later, sick as a dog, sales exploded even further, more than double what she'd ever hit before. The kicker? Friday-me was smart enough to pre-write and schedule emails for the days she'd be too sick to think straight, so the business kept moving while she was down for the count.

She gets real about the trade-off too. Yes, sending five or six emails in four days cost her some unsubscribes. But the sales she brought in absolutely buried that number. It's a solid reminder that showing up, even when it feels like too much, is what lets people actually find you and buy from you.

There's also a sweet moment where she opens a letter she wrote to herself months earlier at a conference, and it lands exactly when it's supposed to. Plus the question her workshop kicked off with this week: what's your level of believability? Because you cannot out-strategize your beliefs. If you believe it's not possible, you'll find every reason to prove yourself right.

Her challenge for you this week: show up one more time than you were already planning. One more email. One more offer. One more story. Consider this your permission slip.

Links to help your business:

We're halfway through the year. You've got two choices: throw in the towel and start planning 2027, or actually use the six months you've got left. Glenda's picking door number two, and she's dragging you through it with her.

July and January are the two biggest months of Glenda's year, and not because there's anything magic about them. They're the months she stops and takes stock: what did the last six months actually produce, and what needs to happen in the next six to hit the goals she set 12 to 18 months out. Throwing in the towel now and starting to plan for 2027 might feel tempting, but there's still six months of money-making time left on the table.

That starts with the expense audit nobody wants to do. Glenda walks through her own process for looking at every subscription, membership, and "I'll get to it eventually" payment, and asking whether it's still earning its keep. She just cut a piece of software from her own suite, not because it's bad, but because she isn't using it right now, so it isn't doing its job.

One of her favourite tools for staying on top of this is embarrassingly simple: a recurring calendar reminder on the 28th of every month that lists every payment about to come out of her account. It's not there to force her to cancel things. It's there so nothing sneaks past her, and so she can make an intentional choice about what stays and what goes.

That leads into one of the bigger points of the episode: more money coming in does not automatically mean more profit. If your expenses are climbing right along with your revenue, you'll never actually feel the growth. Profit comes from knowing where the money goes, not just how much of it shows up.

Glenda also talks about setting a real vision for where you want your business (and yourself) to go, and using that vision as a filter before you buy another course or sign up for another training. If it doesn't serve where you're actually headed, skip it, no matter how good the dopamine hit feels in the moment. Which brings her to a quick, honest plug for her Idea to Sold Out Groups workshop: if groups have zero place in your next 12 to 24 months, don't buy it. If they do, this is the roadmap she wishes had existed when she was building that side of her business by trial and error. Tickets are available through July 14th, and replays are included for anyone who can't attend live.

The bottom line... you've got six months of opportunity left. Spend July getting clear: what's working, what's not, what's draining your account for no reason, and where you're actually headed. No vision means you're just running in circles.

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