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Yes, I know, you became a travel advisor to design unforgettable trips.
Marketing came with the job, and nobody handed you a manual.
You’ve been playing it by ear.
Write something, post a famtrip carousel, record a reel… for the same 6 people to click “like”.
But you know you’re supposed to be doing this. It’s important, they say.
So you squeeze it in between client calls, supplier emails, and a trip that left yesterday.
You post when you can. You send the newsletter when it’s ready. And a small voice keeps asking whether any of it is working, or whether you’re even doing it right.
Why am I telling you this?
Because I get it.
I’ve spent 35 years in marketing, nearly two decades of them in luxury travel.
Over that time, two things have kept good advisors from marketing well: the hours and the know-how. Both are fair. Nobody taught you this, and nobody gave you more time.
I also know how it feels to put in the hours and see nothing come back.
So during the next 15 weeks or so, I’m not sure yet, I will write here every Monday, what I’ve learned and what I teach my coaching clients to do.
So let’s take it away.
The Four Walls
Picture a villa in Greece. Gorgeous linens, fresh flowers in every room, a view people would pay for.
But one wall is half built. Unfinished.
Obviously, no guest stays, and no amount of decorating fixes that.
Marketing works the same way. It has four walls.
Let me explain.
I’ll grab a piece of paper and draw a simple square.
Nice square!
Now write the following words on each side:
Position (top), Authority (left), Conversion (right), and Nurture (bottom)
In plain English: Position is who you’re for, Authority is why they should trust you, Nurture is how you stay in touch until they’re ready, and Conversion is how an inquiry becomes a booking.
Each wall has one question. Answer it out loud before you read the examples, and be honest. Nobody’s grading you except the walls.
Position: Can you say who you serve and what you’re known for in one sentence?
Pass: “I plan multigenerational trips to Italy for families who want one planner for everyone, from grandparents to teenagers.”
Ouch: “I plan luxury trips for anyone who loves to travel.”
Authority: If a good prospect searched your name tonight, would they find you, a real person, and proof you know your niche?
Pass: They find your face, a short bio in your own voice, and proof you know your niche, like a guide you wrote on Piedmont or a client’s words about a wine trip you planned.
Ouch: They find a logo, a stock photo of a beach, and a page that could belong to any agency.
Conversion: When an inquiry lands, do you follow the same written steps every time?
Pass: A same-day reply, the same three questions, and a call booked, all from a checklist you wrote once.
Ouch: You answer each inquiry from scratch, whenever you find the time, and hope it goes well.
Nurture (bottom): What does someone get from you over the next 30 days if they aren’t ready to book?
Pass: Someone who isn’t ready gets two or three useful emails from you over the next 30 days.
Ouch: They follow you on Instagram and you hope they remember you. That’s a hopeful Ouch, and it’s still an Ouch.
A wall is short when your honest answer is an Ouch.
Here’s why this matters.
A villa with three strong walls and one short one still lets the rain in, and the best furniture in the world doesn’t change that.
Your marketing works the same way. It rarely fails everywhere at once. It fails at one wall, and the hours you pour into the other three can’t make up for it.
Fix the shortest wall first. That’s the job, and everything I’ll teach you over the upcoming Mondays comes back to it.
Here’s how a short wall looked for me.
When I started my travel agency, I opened a profile on every social platform. YouTube pulled ahead fast, so I doubled down.
For years I published two long travel videos a week. Recording, editing, rendering: hours for each one.
The channel grew to 30,000 subscribers, and the comments never stopped.
“The voice volume is too low.”
“The music is too loud.”
“You misspelled Igueldo.”
“How do I go live there?”
People can be very critical on Social Media, but for the most part they just wanted free advice, and I gave it away, video after video.
Sales: zero.
Here’s what I understood after a while.
The audience came to be entertained.
They didn’t come to hire a travel agency, and nothing in my videos connected the two.
They were great destination videos, presented by no one in particular.
People buy from people, and there was no person to buy from.
Complete disassociation.
That was my short wall: Authority.
If you’ve worked this hard posting and seen this much activity without a booking from it, you may be looking at a short wall too.
From today, every Monday adds one page to a running document. I call it your Marketing MAP. By the end, you’ll hold your own marketing diagnosis, strategy, and plan.
I suggest you do this 20-minute task: the Four Walls Check-Up.
It shows you which wall is short, so you stop guessing where your hours should go.
Score each side: 2 for a Pass, 1 for a Maybe, 0 for an Ouch.
Draw each side as long as its score. A 2 gets the full side, a 1 gets half, and a 0 gets a dot.
I’m very visual, so for me the drawing helps a lot, but if you’re short on time, skip the drawing and write the four scores. That’s 10 minutes.
A.I. Shortcut
Paste your four answers into Claude or ChatGPT and ask it to score each wall and name the weakest. It only knows what you tell it, so treat it as a first read.
Open a new chat in Claude or ChatGPT and paste these one at a time. Wait for each answer before you send the next one. Leave out client names.
Prompt 1: Set the scene
You’re a friendly marketing coach for luxury travel advisors. I’m going to run the Four Walls Check-Up on my business. The four walls are: Position (who I serve and what I’m known for), Authority (whether a prospect can find me, a real person, and proof I know my niche), Nurture (what people get from me over 30 days if they aren’t ready to book), and Conversion (the steps I follow when an inquiry arrives). About me: I’m a travel advisor who specializes in [your niche] for [your ideal client]. Interview me one wall at a time, starting with Position. Ask one question at a time, use plain words, and wait for my answer. Don’t give advice yet.
Prompt 2: Score
Now score each wall: 2 for Pass, 1 for Maybe, 0 for Ouch. Give one line of reasoning for each, using only what I told you. If you don’t have enough to score a wall, ask me instead of guessing.
Prompt 3: Find the short wall
Which wall is my shortest? If two tie, choose in this order: Position, Authority, Nurture, Conversion. Tell me the one thing in my answers that points to it, and one thing I could check in my real business this week to confirm it.
Prompt 4: Write Page 1
Write Page 1 of my Marketing MAP in under 120 words, in plain English: my four scores, my short wall in one sentence, and the one thing I’m going to check this week. Format it so I can paste it into a document.
If a score feels wrong, trust your gut and tell the AI why.
Add to your Marketing MAP: Page 1, your four scores and the wall you circled.
PS. If you’re interested in the full Coaching program, reply to this email with the word MAP and I’ll send you all the details of how we can work together in your marketing.
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