Ever wondered how travel advisors are upgrading their game with tech? Let's unravel that mystery with Stephanie Grice from Travefy, as she takes us through the ins and outs of their system designed to bring precision and flair to your travel business. From reminders to form submissions, Stephanie breaks down how Travefy's automations are a game-changer, saving time and preventing those pesky hiccups that can trip up even the most meticulous planner. If you find technology daunting, fear not—our conversation emphasizes Travefy's user-friendly interface that makes crafting spectacular travel experiences a piece of cake for anyone, irrespective of their tech skills.
We also trace Travefy's journey from a lightbulb moment at a bachelor party to its current stature as a robust platform that's reshaping the travel industry. It's not just about piecing together itineraries; Travefy sets you up with a suite of tools that can turn browsers into bookers with attractive websites and integrated marketing magic. And don't get me started on the perks of their CRM system—it's like having a personal assistant who knows your clients as well as you do! Whether you're a seasoned travel pro or new to the scene, Stephanie and I cover all the bases, including hands-on support and educational resources to help you harness the full potential of Travefy for your business.
Ever wondered how travel advisors are upgrading their game with tech? Let's unravel that mystery with Stephanie Grice from Travefy, as she takes us through the ins and outs of their system designed to bring precision and flair to your travel business. From reminders to form submissions, Stephanie breaks down how Travefy's automations are a game-changer, saving time and preventing those pesky hiccups that can trip up even the most meticulous planner. If you find technology daunting, fear not—our conversation emphasizes Travefy's user-friendly interface that makes crafting spectacular travel experiences a piece of cake for anyone, irrespective of their tech skills.
We also trace Travefy's journey from a lightbulb moment at a bachelor party to its current stature as a robust platform that's reshaping the travel industry. It's not just about piecing together itineraries; Travefy sets you up with a suite of tools that can turn browsers into bookers with attractive websites and integrated marketing magic. And don't get me started on the perks of their CRM system—it's like having a personal assistant who knows your clients as well as you do! Whether you're a seasoned travel pro or new to the scene, Stephanie and I cover all the bases, including hands-on support and educational resources to help you harness the full potential of Travefy for your business.
And that's the whole. Idea is to create systems so that you can have time and you can be accurate and you don't drop the important stuff that you want to make sure you do every time, because it's in the template, it's in the system that you've built inside Travefy and it seems to be real easy to do. I haven't done that part yet, but it sure seems to be easy to do it right.
Stephanie Gries:
Yeah, and we actually released what's called automations earlier, a few months ago, and we've been building. Oh yeah, the automations are really cool because they're to do exactly what you said is where you never drop the ball. You know you always have, so whether you need to remember if they are, you know, 90 days before the trip, you need this, or you need to send them a form at this time.
Morris Sims:
Welcome to the Travel Masters podcast. We're here to help travel advisors and travel agency owners get what they really want from their business. I'm Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for our podcast. I'm an ex-chemical engineer turned life insurance agent. I got to tell you selling life insurance was a lot more fun for me than being an engineer. After a few years, they asked me to teach other people how to do what I was doing. And well, long story short, we wound up in New York City for 20 years. That was quite a change for a young Alabama boy. I retired after 20 years as the vice president and chief learning officer, where my team and I trained over 12,000 agents and their managers to be independent business owners and sales professionals. Now I'm not one to stop working, so I started my own business and I was blessed to find a sweet spot with travel professionals that I was able to help. Now I've got several travel agency consulting clients and I'm the co-founder of the Travel Masters Learning Community, where we provide opportunities for travel professionals to become more effective, efficient and to get what they want from their business.
Morris Sims:
On this podcast, I'm going to be interviewing guests that I believe are going to have a message that can be of help to you, our travel professional community, and I'll do some solo episodes as well with some other stuff that I really think can help you and your business. So, with all that said, hey, let's get this party started with today's episode. What do you say? Technology can be a pain in the you-know-what, can't it, and it's just absolutely incredible. There's so many things out there to choose from. Which do you choose? What do you do? I don't know, but I know somebody that does.
Morris Sims:
Stephanie Grice is with us today. Stephanie is the Senior Education Manager at Travefy and I got to tell you y'all know I'm not a travel expert, but even I've been able to get into this thing and use it without much more than you know an occasional look at some of the educational videos they have online, and it just seems to work so easily and simply. I wanted Stephanie to come share with you some of the really neat things about Travefy, because it sure looks like a great piece of technology to me. Stephanie, welcome to the show. We're so glad to have you here.
Stephanie Gries:
Well, thank you for having me, and I love that intro. It's the perfect way to encapsulate technology.
Morris Sims:
Well, it is I mean, you know how many different things are out there that somebody that's trying to run a business like a travel advisor. There are so many things to choose from and everybody wants the, you know, the best of the best. And I don't know, Stephanie, it's just, it's crazy right now it is, it really is, totally it is.
Morris Sims:
But you know it's not new. I mean, back when word processors were all brand new, there were a bunch of them on the market and everybody that had one thought theirs was the best, because they knew how to use it, and because I know how to use it and I took time to learn it and it's easy for me, then certainly you should do it too, but I don't think that's the case with Travefy. It seems to be really easy to use.
Stephanie Gries:
And, as I say, I'm not an expert in this, but it's heck. Even I was able to get in and do a proposal. Yes, oh, that's awesome. Well, and that's what we hear, too from many users that it's just, it's very user-friendly and that's what's great about it, and our team is actually over 50% developers, so there is a reason behind it. Like on how there's constantly we have people dedicated to make sure. Is this making sense? Would somebody get in here and know where to go? You know, and we're always refining everything and taking feedback all the time, so that is one of the things that we always strive to make it user-friendly and easy to save you time, which is the goal at the end of the day.
Morris Sims:
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean because if I'm a travel advisor, heck, I can go into Canva and build my own stuff and do a word processing document or Microsoft Word document or Google Doc and I can do all the rest of it. But it all takes time. It all takes time and great businesses that scale are built on systems that you do repeatedly, over and over again, because when you use a system, the outcome is positive and it can be repeated over and over and over again to give you that positive outcome. Travefy helps you do that, so you get it all done. Well, it is, it is. It is a way to create systems that you can use over and over again for every trip you do right.
Stephanie Gries:
Yeah, exactly Well, and that's why there's so many features and tools, like what we have called the library, where you save information to reuse and if you create one itinerary, guess what? You can copy it. So there's all these little elements to it too, that is there to help save you time.
Morris Sims:
And that's the whole. Idea is to create systems so that you can save time and you can be accurate and you don't drop the important stuff that you want to make sure you do every time, because it's in the template, it's in the system that you've built inside Travefy and it seems to be real easy to do. I haven't done that part yet, but it sure seems to be easy to do it right.
Stephanie Gries:
Yeah, and we actually released what's called automations earlier, a few months ago, and we've been building. Oh yeah, the automations are really cool because they're to do exactly what you said is where you never drop the ball. You know you always have, so whether you need to remember if they are, you know, 90 days before the trip you need this, or you need to send them a form at this time, you know you can automate all that now within Travefy, which is really, really amazing.
Morris Sims:
So I could like, I could like send them something to say you know, don't forget, we got to do your insurance for your trip.
Stephanie Gries:
Yep, exactly, yeah, so you can do that now. So you can create. You can either do like a one-off task, so if you have a client, you can say I need to get this at this time from them, and it'll either, you know, send them off a form at this specific date and time. But you can also do what's called trip task lists, and so it's where you create a trip task list and you can attach it to every trip. So the moment that somebody you know approves a proposal and they start that booking process, you can import one of your task lists to it. So that way it says okay, next on the list is getting insurance. So then you know it might send a form off to them or give you a reminder that you need to contact them about it. So, yeah, you can set it up however you want.
Morris Sims:
Oh, that is so cool I know it's a game changer. Because I can't remember anything.
Stephanie Gries:
See, that's the beauty of this. See, that's why I love the task list because you can it's like a dump just a dump all the things you can think of that you need to do, and then you can import it every time.
Morris Sims:
Well, what's more? What's worse is you've got well, I don't know, maybe you've got 10 different trips that you're working on right now, or 10 different proposals, and, and on top of that, you've got eight people traveling right now. You know, I can't remember which one I started when, much less what point in the process they are at and what I need to do. So this kind of stuff, these systems, make it possible for you to do more trips, and when you do more trips, you make more commission. When you make more commission, you make more income. When you make more commission, you make more income. So that's what this is all about is helping you build your business and grow your business with not only more trips, but maybe even bigger and better trips, or trips that are bigger and better for the clients that you're talking to, because they've got the ability to go on the bigger and better trips you know.
Stephanie Gries:
Exactly, I mean, that's our mission too. Is power the success of travel professionals?
Stephanie Gries:
And so that's just that. And the cool thing is, with Travefy, we've grown so much over the years that we used to be just the itinerary side or the you know where you present them the beautiful proposal. But now it really is from start to finish, where, if you look at the marketing side, you can create landing pages, you can, you know, create forms that are used as lead generation, and then you organize it all, you create your task list and then you move through the flow, and so it really does help you just continue to grow and grow that business.
Morris Sims:
So when was Travefy first offered to the world?
Stephanie Gries:
Yeah, so it's actually a really funny story. So it started in 2012 as when it officially launched, but it was launched as a consumer platform, so it was more so. Our CEO, david this is this is his story that he was going on bachelor trips at the time and and it was just like this is so unorganized. There has to be a better solution. So that's really kind of the where Travefy was born, but then in-.
Morris Sims:
That's when somebody shows it. David, you need a travel agent.
Stephanie Gries:
Yeah, I know Right, so that was and that's that's like. It's like, well, you can build this software, but there's an easier way. But the funny thing is is we had travel advisors using Travefy.
Stephanie Gries:
And so we were like wait a second, hold on, maybe we're looking at the wrong people. And so that's when in 2015 is actually when we officially launched we called it Travefy Agent I believe it was Travefy Pro or Agent and this is I started in 2015. So I literally was right at the time of this starting and it went really well and we're like, wow, this works. But then it was also kind of the pivot of, well, we need to grow in the way for travel advisors, so they need certain things that we can give, we can deliver, and so that's really where it was. And so now I mean we might still have some personal like travelers, but not many. It's all advisors and professionals.
Stephanie Gries:
And we even have like DMOs who work with us and tour operators and um all kinds of yeah, it's really cool, it's really grown um, you know so many into the audience, uh, but yeah, that's that's really where it came from. Was a bachelor party is the beginning where it all happened.
Morris Sims:
Oh, we could go down so many trails here that we shouldn't go down, but that's okay, that's all right. I love it. It started with a bachelor party and it's grown so much and there's so many things that it's capable of doing to help a travel agent run their business. It just impressed me tremendously. And again, it seems to be fairly simple.
Morris Sims:
When you get in there and you don't know anything, stephanie, how do you begin to really learn Travefy the right way? I mean, I just went in and started pushing buttons and looking at stuff. But for somebody out there that says, okay, morris, I'll try this, and if you'd like to try it and you're a member of Travel Masters, we'll be happy to give you a referral code that can get you in and get you a little discount. But beside that, once you get in, however you get in once you get in, where do you begin? How do you learn all this stuff? Because I can imagine it takes a while to get to the systems, to the automations, to the landing pages and all the rest of this. I'm not going to learn how to do that on the first day. So where do I start and how do I progress through this?
Stephanie Gries:
That's a great question, because that is pretty much my job here at Travefy is to try to help train, so you're asking the right person. So I would say, because you're right, it is. It used to be, you know, years ago it was, like you know, mostly itinerary proposal, and you could learn quite a bit in one day, but now there's so many different paths you can go down. So what I always recommend is, depending on your learning style, we have something for you. So if you like to just jump in there, um, with a lot of people, do just click around. You really can't, you can't break anything. So totally jump around in there, um.
Stephanie Gries:
But we do have a live chat. So if you chat our team, so if you run into anything, feel free to chat our team. Just in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen, you'll be able to chat us, and that's a great way we can send you FAQs. The other thing, though, is we also have a ton of videos, video tutorials, like tons and tons, and so if you go to our help center so when you're in your account, you can click the help button in the top right-hand corner, or just go to Travefy dot com backslash support, and when you get in there. There's what's called a getting started guide and we have, I believe. There's like 26 videos in there and there's probably going to be more as we just keep adding. But they're short.
Stephanie Gries:
They're about three to five minutes in length and you can really dive into anything, so you could focus on just trip stuff and then you can say, okay, I want to go into the CRM side, and then you can look at those and that's what I would recommend. You can also check out if you want more video, go to our YouTube channel, which is also in that help center, and we put all of our trainings, webinars, in there that you can view. But then if you also, if you like, to a little more of a handholding situation, then we also support that very well, where, if you're like you know, I'm just going to wait till I have someone literally showing me what to do, then you can also do. We have weekly webinars, so we have a getting started webinar that goes on every day. It's by me, so you'll hear my voice again, so you can just ask us questions live, all that good stuff. But then we also offer training.
Stephanie Gries:
So I highly recommend this is something that a lot of users don't realize we have, but we have unlimited trainings for you and they're one-on-one. So they're one-on-one just over Zoom, where you get to meet with one of the members of our support team and you can choose. You can say, oh, I, you know I know how to do everything, but I just want to make sure I'm utilizing this and we can see what you've been working on and we can chat together. So I recommend that that's a big one, I think is just the training, but also if you like to do it on your own.
Stephanie Gries:
there's a lot of stuff available too.
Morris Sims:
Oh, that's wonderful. That is really really cool. Now, Stephanie, all this stuff is really really cool. For once, I get a client or a prospective traveler and I'm working on a trip and I need help to build this stuff and I want a system to do it all. But can Travefy help me create systems to find more people to work with?
Stephanie Gries:
Yeah, so there are some ways to do this, so one of them is the landing page. So the marketing side is the website and landing page builder, and so we call it. It's called Pages, so when you get in your account, you'll see.
Morris Sims:
Pages. Well, wait a minute. Time out here I just heard something that I didn't realize.
Stephanie Gries:
You're like what?
Morris Sims:
There's a way to build my website inside of Travefy.
Stephanie Gries:
Yes, yes, I know and here's the best part it's part of your subscription, so it's not an add on price, it's one of the I know I, and I'm glad you called it out, because there's so many times where I just drop that word. I'm like you can build your website and they're like wait what? I spend so much money on something else to have a website. Yeah, you can bring it together and yeah, so it's really cool, so you can use it. And what a lot of users will do is they'll either use it as their website or they use it as a secondary website, or they'll use it just to create landing pages and yeah, and so that's because you can create as many you know, single pages and you can connect them together to make one website, but they can be standalone too.
Morris Sims:
That was the one thing that helped me understand how a website is built more than anything, because I was clueless, absolutely clueless in paying people a whole lot of money to build a website. A couple of them that I didn't really like. I love my website now morrisempscom, really cool. But what I learned was a website is nothing more than a collection of landing pages that are tied together. And then it suddenly made sense. I don't know, it just did so. If all that's available in Travefy too, I mean, start the fireworks, ring the bell, do something, because woo-woo, that's cool.
Stephanie Gries:
So cool and here's the best part it's pretty easy to do. Now I will say the hardest part about it is just deciding the decision of it of like, how do I want this to look. But we do have templates so we make it as easy as it can. So we have four different themes that you can choose from. And you know just a quick about me section, so it has a picture and a paragraph. You know you can choose an element that does that. But then we have other elements that are like a contact me spot. So we try to make it easy, we try to navigate you to what it is you want it to look like and give you that tool.
Morris Sims:
And if you're just starting in this wonderful world of being a travel advisor and you'd like to have a website, but you're sitting there going.
Morris Sims:
Well, you know those things cost tens of thousands of dollars and I haven't got that kind of money, heck.
Morris Sims:
You can join travefy for a lot less than that and create your own website and have something out there.
Morris Sims:
It won't be as pretty and as clean and as sparkly as something that you paid, you know, thousands of dollars for, I'm sure, but it's going to be good, it's going to be useful and it's going to be a way that people can easily go. Then you can tell people to easily go to this link and be able to be with you and learn about you and what you do and then, most importantly, click to get back to you. You do and then, most importantly, click to get back to you and you put a lead magnet on the homepage that pops up and says, hey, if you'd like to get a I don't know a document that shows you the 10 things you need to do before you go to Walt Disney World or the 10 things you need to do before you travel internationally, and they click on that and give you their email address. Now you've got a contact point and you can go back and see those people and talk to them whenever you want to. It's amazing.
Stephanie Gries:
Exactly. Well, and that's what I was going to say too, is, since it is built in Travefy, you can import itineraries you create. So, if you want to, I see it all the time, especially when it comes like cruises, because we have a really easy way to build a cruise itinerary.
Stephanie Gries:
And they'll just put it in there. Yeah, they'll just be like here's what it is, or example itineraries. But then you can also import forms. So you can create a form in Travefy, which again, that's another service that people could be paying for, and you could just be using Travefy and then you import it. So it says like, oh, fill out, you interested, like fill out this inquiry, or you know, or you know so lead generation, like you said. So it's really pretty cool and it's simple and neat, and you can put your own domain in it, so you can domain mask it for free. So if you have, like your company namecom, you can actually set it up in Travefy for free as well. So that way the website is actually domain, has your domain.
Morris Sims:
That's amazing. That is incredible. And if they, if you said, I create a form, create a form and at the end of the form they finish filling it out, they, they click on something and it goes somewhere else.
Stephanie Gries:
Yeah, so it just goes into their Travefy account so they can save their contact information in there. So then that way, then you can do. We then back to the automations again, where you can start setting up tasks to follow up with them. Or maybe you are sending them a proposal at that point and everything is just staying in that one place organized so you can easily go into your Travefy account and see all interactions with that person, which is really cool.
Morris Sims:
Oh, that's cool. That is so cool, Stephanie. I don't even know what else to ask.
Stephanie Gries:
I mean, this is so neat, there's so much.
Morris Sims:
Yeah, there's so much, but it sounds like it's so easy to get started and so easy to get profitable use from the tool rapidly. I've got right now I've got several different technology tools that are sitting in my systems just waiting for me to go learn how to use, and I've been paying for them for a couple of months and I just haven't had the time to sit down and begin to use it. So that's like Travefy with an hour or so I can start using this thing and have it be profitable for me and my business.
Stephanie Gries:
That's correct. Yeah, it's totally true. I mean, there's a lot that you can learn. I mean, again, we can go down the website route or the CRM, but the thing that I would say is just go over and start playing around in whatever you need to do first Like a lot of times it's usually itinerary building or something, or maybe you're just trying to get your form set up. So just start with that and then start getting yourself in there and join, like our webinars I forgot to mention earlier, but we have a certification program too, and that's free and, honestly, it takes a few hours.
Stephanie Gries:
It's nothing strenuous, um and it's, and like you have like five question quizzes to get to the next one, and it was made by me. So I did not make it. I didn't add any trick questions or anything. I was like no, we, we want this, we want to make sure you learn, but we don't want to keep you held up. But the other thing that you'll have to watch for is, every year we do a virtual conference where it's all training for a week, and so that's coming up on March.
Stephanie Gries:
Look at my calendar March 5th through the 8th. So mark your calendars. We'll be sending out information. You'll see it on social media. We'll be pushing it out in a few or later into February. But that is really cool because, again, it's just multiple webinar sessions every single day and you can join them live or you can watch them after the fact. So if you're not able to join all of them, that's okay. But then we also do a lot of smaller bonus trainings. So that way, if you already are very experienced with Travify, we still have things for you. So we there's a lot. That way, if you already are very experienced with Travefy, we still have things for you. So there's a lot. That's, if you are new and if you're advanced, there's something for you. So highly recommend that too.
Morris Sims:
Oh, that's fantastic, Stephanie, I think we're about to the end of our time. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us today? About Travefy, first of all, I guess how do you find Travefy?
Stephanie Gries:
, that's exactly it. Yeah, so just Travefycom. And then, when you get in there, you can do a free trial. So your trial is 10 days. Now, if you do need more time, it's okay, our team, you can reach out to our team and because again, you start and then you know a customer calls and then you you know 10 days has passed before you know it. But I would also recommend do a demo with our team so you can do those. Jump on that weekly webinar, check that out and then that referral code as well that you mentioned. You can apply that at the end of checkout. So that's how you apply that. But also, if you have questions or need help doing that, just again let our team know and we can help apply those as well.
Morris Sims:
Oh, that's fantastic. And again, if you're a member of Travel Masters, there'll be a way for you to find that referral code and get a discount to join Travelify through Travel Masters and be able to, as I say, get that discount. That'll be a wonderful thing. Stephanie, thank you so much for being with us here today and enlightening me and our audience about travel finance T-R-A-V-E-F-Y right.
Stephanie Gries:
Yep, that is correct yeah.
Morris Sims:
Yeah, you spelled that with an I-F instead of an E-F and I promise you it doesn't work. I tried it.
Stephanie Gries:
Oh, I know it happens Well and we have it. Look out for your spell check because it unfortunately does tragedy a lot of times. Oh really, yes, we're like, oh no, so sad, but yeah, so yeah. T-r-a-v-e-f-ycom.
Morris Sims:
All righty, that sounds great. So you guys give us a shot. We'll be happy to help you in any way we can. Thanks for listening to to the Travel Masters podcast. I'm Morris Simms and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Same place, same time.