TripADeal CEO Richard Johnston on Overcoming Pandemic Challenges

Two years of lockdowns and bans have turned the travel and tourism industry into one of the enormous casualties of the coronavirus pandemic.

In this episode, TripADeal co-founder Richard Johnston and I sit down for an insightful session sharing the success story of a company born out of an idea in Bali in 2010.

His company captured the market of holiday loving baby boomers. When a global emergency happens, Richard shares how wisdom and integrity are needed to ride out the continuing crisis management to choose to take care of their people and customers.

Tune in to this new episode of the Barrels & Business show —https://bit.ly/ep42barrelsb

Key points covered in this episode:?

[00:02:41] The need to shift. Like everybody else, Richard shares how TRIPADEAL is now an outbound package holiday business that sells bucket list dreams at affordable prices.?

[00:04:32] How COVID's effect on travel was very much a supply crisis. This exceptional moment no one's ever seen before that literally stopped the world.

[00:11:36]? Richard describes the mental fortitude needed to handle the crisis when people were feeling responsible, freaked out, stressed out and didn't know what they had to do.?

[00:22:12] On strategies and tested measures. If you have one product that resonates with a certain number of people, be open to investing and doing a bit more as you test it out. Try again if you hit a dead-end.?

[00:22:58] Taking risks is a superpower. Richard shares this as the greatest element of his partnership with co-founder Norm. "We're both in for the risk. He was never trying to stop me, and I'm never trying to stop him. So we were encouraging each other to take more risks, and I think that was the superpower that we had that most people don't have.

[00:23:49] Risk appetite comes from the background of being a surfer. "You get excited by risk, the adventure and the unknown, not knowing what's ahead. So we've been almost designed, brought up growing up in Byron Bay with that mindset. I always want to go surfing and travel so that there's an element of risk just built into it, and you never know where your next meal was coming from. You're never really safe. So you don't sort of fear risk."

[00:28:17] Learning from business ideas that failed. "I think we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. If we'd been a few years earlier, we probably would have gotten the traction, and it did get a bit of momentum. But I think we can say that we missed the mark slightly."

[00:31:39] Simplify your approach to business. Many entrepreneurs need to learn from this rule. The more you simplify your offering, like how you should be able to see in Amazon in 10 seconds exactly what the offer is and make a compelling case for why you've got an excellent service or product that people want. If you can't do that, you've got a particular business that it's not going to work.

[00:34:01] When choosing print ads trumped advertising on Facebook. "Everybody thought print was dying. So we put ourselves in our customers' shoes, and as it turns out, the Baby Boomers who still read the papers are the most likely to want to buy a package holiday out beyond these bucket list destinations that we are sending them to. They had the most amount of time and money on their hands, and they could travel out of season."

[00:45:14] Sponsoring different football teams is a way to give back to the community and build credibility. "Remember being the kid and how much you appreciated the local businesses sponsoring a footy club."

[00:46:48] Accept that you lack understanding in many aspects of running your business. Richard shares, "Rather than pretend, admit completely that you can't do it all. If you have that awareness, you can mitigate that by hiring good people who can fill in those gaps."

[00:53:37] Valuing people. Richard shares how they fought to keep their people and managed to keep on full salary when not a great deal of travel was going on in the world.

[01:01:00] Preserve your brand. Cherish it and keep it optimum, polish it all day long and make sure everyone loves your brand.

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