Hey, everybody, welcome back to Quantum Revenue Expansion, the podcast where we talk about turning your annual revenue into your monthly revenue. Today, I have a very special guest Anne Kulhanek. And she's going to talk about how to create quantum revenue while traveling in luxury, which is what she does every day for herself and her clients. And welcome to the show.
Hi, hello.
I'm so glad that you're here. And for all of you who haven't met, and yet, you're going to love her. She's been in our community for over a year. And she's also helping me plan my next Italy trip. So whether you're in the States, or you're somewhere else out in the world, the thing to know is that we're going to talk about how to have luxury not only while you're traveling, but every single day in your business, and really how to take those quantum leaps. So we're going to tie it all
together today. Before we do that, though, really quickly, if you feel the poll, and you want to hang out with us at the next 2x intensive. And by the way, like some of you have been hanging out with us for a while and you're kind of like I need help growing my revenue, I really want to grow my business, I could use some support, I could use someone else looking in on my business, we'd love to help you do that you can go to Ursula inc.co forward slash apply. All the details are there
regarding how you can send us a little bit of information. And we will schedule a time to reach out to you and set a time to see if the 2x is a good fit for you. All right. Let me tell you about an by the way, I geek out on this, I used to watch all the
travel shows, I don't watch it as much anymore. Because I think we have such a mix of different cable today, it's not as easy to go find the travel shows that I love that it was such an escape for me and I started traveling old was I when I first might took my first international trip, I was in college and I
went to Germany, and have loved traveling ever since. So this is especially near and dear to my heart, and is the founder and owner of Premier Travel, a boutique travel agency located in Luxembourg, Wisconsin, where luxury travel is designed by you which Ann's going to explain what that means to us. And helps people who are totally confused or unsure about how to plan for a trip of a lifetime to actually experience a perfectly planned trip and create a lifetime of memories, which is what we all
want. Because it's it's a little overwhelming when you think about that first European trip or that third trip that you're going on. But you would love some support. So and let's just let's dig in. So tell us a little bit like what what's your story? What, what brought you into the love of travel and into your own business?
I kind of came in sideways. I had a friend who wanted to open a travel agency and I said, Oh, why not? And had never really traveled before that. We were in business together for about two years and then decided to part ways. And I ended up finding an office space or a building in my hometown and put up a sign and started started premier travel.
So have you traveled much before that? Or was it just this
Desire to travel desire I was I love helping people. And a travel agent. That's what you're doing is you're helping people. And that was back in the time before everybody had a home computer. The internet didn't exist. Right? So you called on the phone and a travel agent traveled everywhere. So when you came, you know, when a client came in, you could say oh yes, I've been there. And this is what it's like and this is a good hotel or this isn't. So it was a very different world at that time.
Yeah. A more innocent world right in many ways. So one of the things in your bio and we talked about this at the beginning you said where did it go? You said you help people find their? Their their trip right their trip of a lifetime or create those memories. And you said we're luxury travel is defined by you and let me tell you I bought out this is one of my fine china cups. Okay, I don't I do drink tea out of these often or a little decaf coffee. I like
these. But I brought it especially because there's something about travel that feels so luxurious for me even like people complain about getting on a you know, a flight that's like a commercial. I don't care put me in the back of the plane. You put your back by the bathrooms and I don't care. That is a luxury experience. I love everything about travel. And so even in my workday, I like to bring a little bit of that luxury to it because it feels it feels like an
experience right and to me travels and experience. So what is that? mean to you when you say that about luxury travel?
Yeah, we believe luxury is defined by you. And what's luxury to one person isn't for another. And it's so funny. One of the first things I learned in working with clients is when they say they want luxury. And then you have to ask what is luxury? And one lady in my mind, I was thinking, you know, penthouse suite, you know, five star resort, just said, Oh, Luxury to me is having fresh squeezed orange juice in the morning. Oh, wow. Okay. So just like you got to get out of your
head and what you think of something. And when you're working with people, it's find out what it is that they see as luxury. And for every one is different. And it's not about the money you spend or level of service, it is what's important to you. And that's what we work on is helping to dig into what our clients want, and then make sure that we have that included in their trip.
Yeah. So beautiful. Thanks for sharing that. It's, it's so true. And it's like, it's just like in our business, right? I mean, we, I'm a big believer that in my day to day business experience, that I want to have that luxury included in different ways, whether it's a special coffee cup, or whatever it is, right? And so for our listeners, like how do you create luxury every day? And definitely leave it in the comments below. I'd love to hear like, what, what feels
luxurious to you. Like, what are those experiences? Because that's, you know, and and I'm curious about this too, because to me travel, travel, opens up the brain, it allows me to be a dreamer again, it, it gives me a different perspective of the world. But I find that the experience of travel begins when I book, not when I get on the plane, have like, what do you think about that? You know, the anticipation of that? Is that just me? Or is that kind of a common thing?
Oh, that is so true. With the planning, it's the picking things out, it's the researching, it's reading reviews, it is all those things that lead up to your trip at that sometimes, you know, you'll spend more time in that. And then when you're on the trip, sometimes it doesn't turn out, you know, it's a great thing. But it's like done in a flash, but you have those months of planning, where you're anticipating and just enjoying the research and the thing that
you're you know, looking forward to? Yeah,
Yeah, it's like that whole that whole experience. So, so interesting. I didn't know this about your business, or maybe you'd shared at one time and it didn't click, but that that you've originally had a business partner, and then you parted ways. And you continued. Now, what's interesting about that, first of all, business partnerships can be very complicated. And they don't typically, they don't
always last if they do that's, that's really unique. And so what, what inside of you and made you say, even though this person is leaving, I'm going to continue what gave you that fortitude or that strength or that belief to keep going because that could have stopped some people?
Yeah, we had different perspectives on things and different values. And I think that was the hardest part, because she was a friend. And her value was she was financially motivated, and made all decisions based on finance. And I'm people motivated. And I made decisions based on people. And it was just as we were working together, it was just
like, ooh, this just doesn't fit right. It was so hard. That was a very difficult decision to do. It took me a long time to finally figure out, okay, I can do this on my own, at least I can try. And if I fail, I fail. But I'm still in business 23 years later, and she's not. But but she's, she's wealthy.
So she got what she wanted, you got what you wanted. And what's interesting is you said something really important that I want to make sure we highlight for anyone who's either in a business partnership or has thought about a business partnership, is that if your values are not in alignment, forget it. It'll be it'll wear on you every single day, which it did. So you made the decision to part ways when you were able to do that and to continue on all these years
later, in that moment. So for someone who might be facing that decision right now, and or just facing a tough business decision that they're just like, like what gave you the strength to say, I have to have this conversation and we're gonna part ways I'm gonna keep going like what inside of you gave you the strength to do that?
Yeah, I was scared to death. It's very hard for me because I'm non confrontational. So I'm a people pleaser, and just want to make sure everybody's happy. But yeah, I think it was just in my heart going into work. It was a drive and I just would just, you know, physically, I was just getting rundown and I just couldn't deal with it anymore. And I just thought even if I've lost my investment and lose everything, it doesn't matter, but I can't stay in this heart
space or this heads. face where I was, you know, it just wasn't it wasn't worth it.
Yeah. So it was more painful to stay there than it was to make the decision to move through the fear and do it anyway. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Well, and I'm just bringing this out, because we all face business decisions that are tough. But if we don't move through them, like, if you hadn't done that, you probably wouldn't have stayed in business. Like that might have just imploded at some point. And you would have been frustrated, it could have been a fight,
like, a lot of things could have went south. So kudos to you for making that decision early. And parting ways. And you know, you both got you both continued your journey, which is beautiful. All right. So you moved out on from that kept growing the business. So do you remember a moment where your monthly income and an easy way to think about is where there was more money left at the end of the month, and there was bills, like all of a sudden your app? For you,
It took a long time, it wasn't in our business. We don't make money until after the person travels. So and you might book something a year out or so. And it's solely based on your sales. Yeah. So it was a long time, I invested a lot of time and a lot of my own finances into keeping the business alive. And then was had debt for many, many years. But I can't say when was a time. One time though, I can say one time that was a that I can remember very clearly was when I had all
debt paid off and had money in my savings account. So it's like, you know, finally you can just relax. And it's not like you're behind. And it's an amazing feeling to not have any debt. And to know that you have money in the bank account. If something goes wrong, like COVID, I'm going to survive, I have money in my savings account.
Let's talk about that for a second. Because I know it affected our world, my world, a training world, but I know I can't imagine what it was like in the travel industry. I mean, how did you and your team work through those first few months of realizing, okay, there's no cruise ships, there's no Oh, and now they're closing hotels for I mean, what did how did you work through that?
It was like a warzone. It had to because we had people traveling that we had to get home. We had people that were going to be leaving in the next couple of days or weeks that we had to figure out is this real? Is it just the flu is the last day you know, it was like just the unknown. And just trying to help our clients through it. And it was like,
Okay, let's get your money back if we can. And unfortunately, some suppliers did not give money back, even though and you know, because I don't know, it's just that it was a pandemic, and even travel insurance companies said, Oh, didn't you read the fine print? pandemic?
Pandemic coming, right,
exactly. Yeah. So everybody know, read contracts. But yeah, we learned a lot. And one of the things though, is we just because I had a savings account, got some government loans in between to stay open, because we couldn't just close our doors and walk away. We had all this stuff in the stuff
booked out for years, right? Like you had stuff that was booked out that people were still like, Hey, I hope I can go on my tour. I hope the pandemic ends. Remember for three years, we were like, nope, the pandemic ends.
Yeah. So yeah, it was tough. And it's still it's bouncing back now. But I would say financial, it'll probably take us a couple years to regain that. Just the I'm now in debt again. This alone, that kept our doors open. But I just felt it was extremely important. Just that we had to fulfill our clients, we could just walk away and leave them hanging. So we had to fight for them to try to get those refunds for a lot of travel suppliers gave you credit that had to be used within a
year and then some of them extended it. So it was a bookkeeping nightmare as well. Trying to keep track of who had with what. Yeah, so But otherwise, we made it through.
Yeah, you did it. You knew you would I just get the sense like you.
Yeah, I was hoping that yeah, it was so unknown to so unknown. And it lasted so long and all over the world. Right, you know, yeah, so just crazy.
Yes. And yeah, you're like, it was it's interesting how in some ways it it pulled the world apart because we couldn't see each other but it brought the world together because it was a global pandemic, which is pretty unbelievable. Like when you look back at it. It's like I think we all not think I know we all have PTSD. PTSD, especially Yeah, especially business owners, right. And of course, those who were we lost during that time and just a frightening time. And
to your point, we all read contracts now. And we also know what we would do if this happens again, which I think is very interesting. And you know, what else? What else is possible? But cancel, cancel. We're all good, like health. We're coming into times of great health and great travel. So what looking back at that time, because of course, we talk about money on the show, like what was the biggest myth or limiting belief about money that you had to overcome? To continue to, like you invested
in your business, you grew your business? Like, what did you learn about money during that time,
um, I think I grew up in a, with a mindset that there's never enough, small Midwestern town, work hard for your money, there's people that are rich, and then there's a smart, you know, so there was a difference. And it was just something that I don't think was ever said, but it was just what
I believed, from growing up. And as I came into the travel industry, at the beginning, it was all about what's the cheapest price, but I think that might have been the mindset of myself, as well as people who are attracting, no looking for our biggest trip or, you know, things and it was always what's based on price. And to be fair, in the travel industry, there's always advertisements about, oh, this is on sale, this is on
sale, week after week, they just name the sale differently. But it's kind of that's how they grab people's attention is by sales. So it does teach people to only look for the lowest price. But through learn working with people, I had people who had more of money, and they weren't concerned about price. And just realizing that somebody told me something at the beginning of my sales career, it says sell out of their wallet,
not yours. So just because I can't afford that. Around the world cruise doesn't mean that you can, you know, you can't, and that I can't help you to have the best experience possible. So it's not about my, my finances, it's about theirs and what they're looking for. Yeah,
and what they want, right what they're showing up for. And that's a big, so big, like, just, it is so easy for us to shop out of our own wallet, just because we have so many limiting beliefs. And you know, like you I was brought up on farm, we had some points, I don't think we had any money. I'm not really sure. We had government food stamps at one point. But growing up on the farm, you know, we had like the cattle we had, you know, we had access to food. And that was
certainly a blessing. But the limiting beliefs My goodness. Yeah, and that's one of the reasons I do the show, and especially for our women, business owners over the world, because I find, especially with women, women tend to hold on to those limiting beliefs even more, and then, you know, tend to believe that they can't invest the money in the business, because it's for the family. There's a lot of limiting beliefs. And so thank you for sharing that and
demonstrating. And you did say something really interesting, which I want to make sure you've said many interesting things. But another thing I want to point out, you talked about debt in your business, and you didn't make it bad. You just made it like there was debt in my business. And it was really cool when we paid it off and then going through the recession or no recession. Well, the pandemic which included a recession, there was some debt in the business, again, that you're
paying off. And yet what do we know about investing in the business like, it can look like debt, but what can debt at times allow us to do our What did allow you to do?
The debt that I had well, through COVID is helped me stay open helped me keep my employee employed, and helped us just it got us through where money wasn't coming in. And it was beyond you think so we booked something. Finally, when COVID was over, we weren't paid for another year yet. So there's that lag time. So it did just it, it kept it kept our lights on. Earlier in my career. It was more of an investment it was to get up and running. But then I once remodeled my office.
At one time I thought oh, luxury travel, I want to look and feel luxury. It's you know, and present luxury. So I remodeled my office, because I'm a big believer in that. You have to feel it yourself. Yes, I want. I want to feel luxurious, just like you were saying, I want to be surrounded by beauty. I want to look good. So remodeling, that office was a big part of that. Yeah. And just kind of made me feel it's not my expectations up of how I'm going to interact with my clients.
Yeah, compared to what the office looked like before,
which probably increased your competence and confidence sells people by your competence like when people come in And they're like, and helped me find this luxurious trip to wherever or this this memorable trip, or I want to take my family here. And they come into that space. And you know, and just how you present yourself. It's like you're competent, I know that you're gonna figure it out for me. And the other thing
that you project is that how much you care. So not only are you gonna figure it out for me, you're gonna make sure it goes really well. And who doesn't want that? In a travel agency, right? Like from start to finish? I can imagine your clients just love you. And I have a feeling your clients come back, don't they? Do? They do for years? And years and years?
years? And years? And years? Yes, yeah. And for our
listeners, I'm just pointing this out, because this is one of the things right, like, there's a lot of ways to get new clients. However, we were just talking about this at the CEO table this week, a lot of ways to get new clients, but sometimes it's like, it's much easier not sometimes it's just much easier to continue to work with the clients already in your space. So you're not constantly going out and just, you know, grinding. And I'm curious about that. I'm going totally off
script, just so the world knows. I'm going off the script department with and how do you like, I mean, you're and share it, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna say this and share that she has brownies in her oven right now. So there's gonna be bigger that goes off. But I love that I bet it smells amazing in your house. I love brownies. And she's taking them to an event tonight with her clients. So what I'm curious about is, what are the things that you've put in place to stay in touch with
your clients? Like, how do you let them know you appreciate them? How do you invite them back? Like, what are some of the tips that you have to continue to work with existing clients?
Yeah, we are very hands on we meet with people in person on frequently, or if they're distance via zoom, and have kind of our process is to do a thorough interview with them. So we know exactly even though they say, oh, I want to go to Hawaii, you know, what do you have? Okay, tell me why do you want to go to Hawaii? What do you want to do? What are you imagining, you know, so once we figure that out with them, then we shop and give them options and let them make choices and
help them to do that, and then book it. And then frequently, we try to stay in touch between the time that they've booked and made their deposit to the time that their final payment is ready, just keeping in touch, sending them additional information about why we can use that as example. Like things to
do on Maui or whatever. And then when it comes to travel document time, if you're local, they'll come in, and we'll review all the travel documents with them, explain everything, give them tips about how to get through the airport, some people don't have their like Delta Airlines app on the phone will help them do that. Or there's some countries where we have to fill out forms that they just don't aren't comfortable doing. So we
you know, we kind of hold their hand through the process. So our experience is usually quite well, good, they feel good about it, they feel comfortable and confident in their trip, they know that we're just a phone call away, they have our phone number to call us as well as people with feet on the ground where they're traveling. And then we usually check in with
them after to find out how it went. And there is an email that we sent out as well, that just says if you enjoyed our services, and you have anyone else, you know who's interested. And that almost comes naturally, because somebody comes home from a good trip. And they're like, Oh, my God last was excellent. And you'll hear people we always ask, how did you hear about it? And it's, they'll always say, oh, so and so just came back, and they loved it. So our whole business is based on repeats and
referrals. So we don't do a lot of regular marketing.
I love that. Well, I want to make sure people heard that like so. So when you're happy clients come back from the dream trip of a lifetime, they get an email and they get to share other people that might be interested, as business owners, we forget to ask for referrals we just do. And yet that is such an easy way. And not only that an easy way to bring in new clients. It's an amazing way because who
do we hang out with people like us? And those are the same people that are going to love to go on that next luxury trip that Ann's gonna plan. So just I just want to make sure our listeners are hearing that that full circle. All right, I got a couple more questions. Um, so in any like, what are your tips on busting through an income ceiling? So if someone has grown their business, but they really stagnated, they're like, you know, I hit the $100,000 mark, and every year and I just can't
seem to bust through that. What are your tips, your experiential tips for them?
I guess number one would be mindset and like goal setting. I know I had a big growth spurt when I finally had like a weekend retreat and really dug into myself to figure out what do I want and kind of have like a writing thing where it's just like, oh, let me write out what my ideal world would be like. And what I would like to look like back. And once I had that written down, it was amazing how things happened. And before that, it just floated. Yeah, but so I can write it down
writing it down. Yeah. And thinking about it and saying, Yeah, this is a possibility. You know, sometimes you don't you limit yourself to what you know, that you can hear possibilities outside and think, yeah, why couldn't that be possible for me? So I think a lot of it is belief. And then I think probably the next is to stick to it to, you know, stick what figure out what way you can break through what you're really good at what you enjoy doing, making sure that you're aligned
with what you really like doing. Yeah, and just push through or just keep trying
to get the clarity and then the stick to itiveness. Just like keep going, keep going, keep going. I love what you said, like writing I agree with you like scripting it out, just journaling about what you really want. And what's possible, statistically, and this was from one of my last books, the belief zone, you are 99% more likely to achieve a goal simply by writing it down. 99% More likely, and yet. And do
we teach this in public schools or private schools? No. I don't know why I'm sure there's some amazing teachers there that like, bring that information in. But it's something we should have been taught a long time ago. All right, I'm starting to wrap up here. What's your best piece of advice for a CEO who's out in the world? You know, maybe their business is creeping up on breaking through that first six figures, but they're just, they're feeling frustrated? Maybe they're having
a slow month? Or they're just like, they're just kind of stuck? What What's your best advice for them?
I guess make sure that they're, they're working within their values. They're doing what they really want, or doing it how they want. And then just think of possibilities. You know, just I think oftentimes, it's more mindset than anything else, at least for me. It has. Yeah, yeah. And then I'll weed through. Yeah.
So maybe heading over to their favorite coffee shop and doing a little journaling or something, or just getting out of the house. Like I think sometimes we're getting out of the office, I think sometimes we can get this narrow view of the world. And we have to get out. All right. And so a couple final questions, who like who is? What do you think of the clients you work with? Like, how do you know, a client is a good fit for you? What do they enjoy doing? What are their values?
Like? Who's sitting out there? That might be like, Man, I would? I'm thinking about planning a trip? Maybe I should give an a call? Who would that be?
Who would that be? Someone who likes to travel, they're curious. They want to go and explore? Well, actually, most of them want to go and explore. Some people just need to get away and lay on a beach somewhere. You know, I honor that too. Because sometimes even just when you travel with your spouse, you're away from home, you can just concentrate on each other. It just it does wonders for relationships, whether you're in Italy eating wonderful food, or if you're laying on a
beach somewhere. I think just getting away helps relationships. But otherwise, people who are excited want to explore the world want to experience something different. They don't want to do it themselves. They like me, I just want an expert to tell me what's good and what's not. Yeah, it's like, oh, just tell me I don't want to, you know, I don't want to figure it out for myself. I want someone else to do it. I trust them. And yeah, they're open to suggestions and ready to explore the world.
I think that's a big one especially so of course, someone who want you know, you know, you want to travel, you know, you want it to be a great experience. And you don't want to figure it out yourself. Like that's the big problem you solve, right? You help people figure out exactly where to go. I mean, it really what you do is you listen first to understand what their desires are, what their dream vacation is, what that next vacation is, you ask I'm sure amazing questions. And
then like you said, before you give them options. Here's one option, like, here's one way you could do this. Here's another way, like what's most aligned with you, and then you let people figure it out. And PAC, which is amazing. So I know someone in the worlds out there going, I want to talk to and so and tell everyone about the the free offer and how they can take advantage of it.
Yeah, if you go to our website, it's WWE dot premier travel with an S at the end. And there's places on there where you can select an appointment, and that can be in person at our office in Luxembourg. Or you can do a zoom call and just we do like an introduction call, kind of hear what it is that you're looking for. I can give you some ideas, and then you can determine you know if we're a good fit and want to work together. And yeah, that's
beautiful. Awesome. So premier travels with an S we'll have that in the show notes. Make sure you put the s at the end of travels.com. Click on there and you can book a complimentary conversation with John. And thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your business journey and for inspiring our listeners all over the world. We love you. We appreciate you.
Thank you, Ursula. It's been a pleasure.
I can smell the brownies and I can you my next travels are going to be so looking forward to that. So thank you and to our listeners all over the world. We love you. We appreciate you. If there's a topic you'd like for me to talk about, you can email us at contact at Ursula inc.co. I'd love to hear from you. That's it for this week. Everybody make this your most epic month yet