Be a Better Guide Podcast - Tourism Training, Hospitality and Travel Business Success

Today we are going to explore how to be more likeable as a tour leader, guide or experience host and break down the habits of likeable individuals. But first a quick story. I was shy as a young child. And not the cute, bashful, ‘oh-isn’t he a dear’ kind of shy, more like the socially crippling, face-burying, ‘such a shame about that Tonner boy… I wonder if he was dropped?’ kind of shy. And it stuck around for years, creating no shortage of awkward moments in junior high. I have a memory from grade seven of a pretty brown-haired girl turning around in class and asking me if I preferred girls that shaved their legs or not. My entire body Han Solo’d. Mouth open. Eyes-wide. Completely encased in solid carbonite. I was so mortified by this simple question that not only couldn’t I stammer out an opinion, I couldn’t even stammer out a stammer. After a few moments of patience, confusion and ultimately irritation, the girl turned back around in her chair, realizing that I was clearly too useless to help with her polling. This is the type of incident that can give an adolescent boy months of pained reflection. “Why am I so embarrassed all the time?” “How is everyone else so confident and likeable?” It was a phase to be sure, and like many other phases, it eventually passed. (my horn-blowing emo years were amongst the most obnoxious) But questioning ‘What makes a person likeable?’ has been a regular pass time in my adult life. This question lies at the centre of the curious Yin and Yang of ‘Not caring what anyone thinks about you’ and ‘desperately needing social acceptance and attention’ And this is even more relevant for tour leaders, guides, experience hosts and anyone who work in the service industry. Being affable, warm, pleasant and fun, are all central to ensuring your guests and customers are being well taken care of. But how to be more likeable as tour leader? Is this really something that’s in our control? I think it is. Consider the most likeable people that you have ever met. Describe them to yourself. What is it that made you so comfortable around them? Now take a look at the words you used. I am willing to bet that you largely focused on qualities that under people’s control, things like approachability, humility, positivity, etc. These qualities, and others like them, describe people who are skilled in emotional intelligence (EQ). There is even research data from TalentSmart for over a million people that shows people who possess these skills aren’t just highly likeable, they outperform those who don’t by a large margin. Ninety percent of top performers have high EQs, people with high EQs make $29,000 more annually than people with low EQs, and a single-point increase in your EQ adds $1,300 to your salary.[/vc_column_text] Finished Listening? Let us know in the comments if you have some other advice for presenting information on tour or other great interpretation tips for tour guides! Full Video of the Episode Leave a comment or read what others have shared about this episode

Getting the attention of a group is not a trivial skill. Even when customers have paid to come on a tour and employed you as a guide to share your knowledge – getting an audience to pay attention can sometimes feel like an impossible task. How can we effectively get people’s attention when leading a tour or facilitating and experience? As someone who worked as a camp counsellor for many years and then ran a summer camp program, I had to quickly find strategies for quieting down large groups of excited children. Later in life, working as a tour leader, guide and experience host, these skills proved invaluable. The great thing about working with groups of adults? They’re just big children! = ) After listening, I would recommend checking out this bonus PDF our team has put together: ‘10 incredible speeches by 10 incredible speakers‘ is a PDF document containing YouTube links to ten fantastic speakers in action. Watch how these masters hold the attention of their audiences – and look for techniques that you can adapt to suit your personal style. You can download this practical resource right here or by clicking the button above. Thanks for being here, Kelsey T Finished Listening? Let us know in the comments if you have some other advice for presenting information on tour or other great interpretation tips for tour guides! Full Video of the Episode Leave a comment or read what others have shared about this episode

Learning techniques to remember people’s names is a great skill for everyday life. But as tour leader, guide or someone who works in the service industry – learning names becomes one of your most important skills. In this video, we’re going to look at how to learn people’s names on tour and give some practical suggestions for quickly recalling the names of your guests.   Dale Carnegie, the author of ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, wrote his flagship book in 1936 but it remains a best seller to this day. Among his many quotable recommendations, you’ll find this tasty gem:   “A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”   Carnegie saw how much people were delighted when hearing their own name and how quickly you could build rapport with someone by learning, recalling and using their surname.   Names are deeply tied to our identity and individuality – and when someone remembers our name after meeting us – it makes us feel important, respected and shows that the other person is interested in who we are. It almost always leaves a lasting positive impression, and given we want our customers to be as happy and satisfied as possible, learning names and using them whenever possible is highly recommended as a tour leader.   But this, of course, begs the bigger question, ‘How to learn people’s names on tour?’ In this video, I share six techniques for working on on the skill of recalling and using people’s names as a tour leader.   These practical suggestions come from tour leaders around the world and can be practiced daily in our everyday lives.   To help you out further, we’ve also created a PDF cheat sheet called ‘Creative Name Games for Tour and Activity Leaders’  These are some of our favourite icebreakers and name games for kids and adults.   Check out this handy PDF resource by clicking the button below!   Feel free to share this video if you’re inspired, pass on the link to our name games PDF, but most importantly, leave a comment for us down below! What are your tips for recalling and using people’s names?   Thanks for being here,   Kelsey T Finished Listening? Let us know in the comments if you have some other advice for presenting information on tour or other great interpretation tips for tour guides! Full Video of the Episode Leave a comment or read what others have shared about this episode

The curious thing is, many tour leaders have never encountered the term ‘interpretation’ Well, for starters, we are not talking about interpretation between languages or other types of translation services. Those are a skill unto themselves – but not what we are talking about today. In this instance, we mean the interpretation of culture, the environment or history as done by an educator, park ranger or tour guide. Or in other words, think of interpretation as simply a communication strategy. To give you a little taste, The TORE method is actually an acronym and a guide to effective interpretation. Dr. Ham defines ‘interpreting’ as a process aimed at provoking audiences to do their own thinking and thereby develop their own understanding of your topic. As you’ll see, by presenting information with a strong, relevant theme, researchers have found that audiences are more engaged and more likely to think deeply about what you’re saying. The four qualities outlined by the TORE model actually emerged from a huge body of research on how humans respond to communication when it’s done well. Don’t forget to grab your TORE method cheat sheet right here, which you can use as a resource when working your next talk! All the very best and a special thanks to Dr. Ham for a copy of his most recent book! Kelsey T and Sarah B Lead Trainers, Be a Better Guide Academy Finished Listening? Let us know in the comments if you have some other advice for presenting information on tour or other great interpretation tips for tour guides! Full Video of the Episode Leave a comment or read what others have shared about this episode

Good satire is hard to come by. So when Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the award-winning creators of South Park and The Book of Mormon, decided to parody the common mistakes made on group tours  – I got pretty excited. Although the writers of the show really take aim at zipline tours in this episode – let’s not get too smug. We’ve all been on group tours with these exact same issues… and there is even a chance that your tour suffers from similar symptoms. Everything from soggy sandwiches, waiting for late guests, overly long shuttles, ‘long stories not-so-short’ and forced sing-alongs – a little truth goes a long way when it comes to group travel experiences. Enjoy the episode, share it with any colleagues or staff that need a chuckle, and let’s make sure we aren’t making these mistakes. All the very best, -Kelsey T Finished Listening? In the comments below, share your WORST group tour experience! What went wrong? How might you have handled things differently if you were running the show? Full Video of the Episode Leave a comment or read what others have shared about this episode

Ever wanted to travel the world and get paid? Does the sound of staying at fine hotels and eating at exquisite restaurants around the world appeal to you? Do you love people and always being on the road? Then you definitely need to tune into today’s video, where we talk about three jobs where you can do exactly that! Terminology in the guiding world can sometimes be confusing, and honestly there is a lot of overlap between the job descriptions of a tour guide, tour leader and tour director/manager. Today we break down some of the differences in these three jobs, and how best to get a paid position in the travel industry. Hopefully this video will provide a little clarification to those looking for a job or at the very least, make you aware of some of the other exciting positions available in the travel industry. -Kelsey T Finished Listening? Are you presently working as a tour leader or tour guide? What is your job title and what are your responsibilities? Any advice for new leaders who are trying to break into the industry? Share your thoughts in the comments below! As always, share this episode if you’re inspired and subscribe to join the community! Full Video of the Episode   Leave a comment or read what others have shared about this episode

How to Deal with Late Guests As a tour leader, tour guide or tour director – dealing with late clients is something you face regularly. No matter how clearly you communicate, or how well information is posted on your website – there are many guests who WILL come late to your tours. Sometimes it is through no fault of their own, sometimes its because of cultural differences (a shout out to my African and Brazilian brothers and sisters!) but sometimes, its just because. Being in the hospitality and service industry, we need effective strategies to deal with these folks. Other people on tour should not have to wait because of one or two people – and its our main goal to start on time and keep the momentum of the tour going. Want to know how many pro tour guides handle these situations? Good – I was hoping you did. = ) -Kelsey T Finished Listening? Let me know in the comments below how you deal with late guests? What systems have you put in place that work the best? As always, like this episode if you’re inspired and subscribe to join the community! Full Video of the Episode   Leave a comment or read what others have shared about this episode

Have you ever wondered how to lead a tour in the rain? Nova Scotia is called New Scotland for a reason. At almost any time of year, a storm system can roll up the coast and dump buckets and buckets of rain all over our lush and often muddy province. Well, that’s where I was born, and where I’ve led many a tour. On this week’s tour guide training from Be a Better Guide, we talk rain and what to do about it. And if you happen to work in the desert or one of those tremendously idyllic sounding places where it hardly rains? Well, let me tell you, as far as I can see, climate change is happening – and one day, you may be thankful you watched this video… Also, I watched the movie ‘the day after tomorrow’, and things definitely took a turn for the worse. I’m also fairly certain that in that movie all Canadians were frozen and dead…. Which is sad. -Kelsey T Finished Listening? In the comments, let the community know how you deal with rain or bad weather when on your tours! Any best practices to share? As always, subscribe to join the community!   Full Video of the Episode   Leave a comment or read what others have shared about this episode

Want to hear about some of my bad habits? Well, I usually bite my nails, I sometimes make people wait for me… and my girlfriend accuses me of being obscenely positive… and that’s just the tippest tip of the iceberg. Well, the worst bad habits are the ones that we don’t even realize we are doing (not all of us are so lucky to have such an outspoken girlfriend!) For us as tour guides, tour leaders and those looking for a job in the travel industry – here are four bad habits that can really get in the way of a great tour and engaging conversations with your clients. Want a hint? They all have to do with focusing too much attention on ourselves… In this week’s tour guide training and community QnA, I tackle bad habits and what we can do to stop them! -Kelsey T Finished Listening? Let me know in the comments below if you have any of these bad habits. Know of any others we are tour guides should avoid? Share them with the community!   Full Video of the Episode   Leave a comment or read what others have shared about this episode

First Impressions could not be more important for a Tour Guide or Tour Manager – Arguably one of the first tests you have to pass. Unfortunately, many tour leaders, even with professional training, lose credibility before they even open their mouths! This week’s QnA focuses on how we can all put our best foot forward and really make a strong impression right from the get go. We’ll also spend a humourously large amount of time discussing the pros and cons of mustard stains… well folks, the jury is finally in. Up for it? -Kelsey T Finished Listening? Let me know in the comments where and how you have seen other tour leaders and guides loose credibility before their tours even started! What is the absolute worst way to start a tour? …and let’s keep those posts P.G. my friends. = ) Full Video of the Episode   Leave a comment or read what others have shared about this episode