How to Make Money in Travel with Matthew Kepnes

0:28Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. last few years, the travel creator world has changed, how to find an audience with Google's new changes, the four best ways to diversify your revenue stream, the number one tip to get heard above the noise, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Matthew and our sponsors. Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10 % of all e-commerce in the US from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands just getting started. If you want to see less cars being abandoned, it's time for you to head over to Shopify. Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash on fire.

1:09Over 41 ,000 businesses have future proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning for free at netsuite.com slash fire. Matt, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Well, John, thanks for having me. And I think if I had to pick one, it would be, I think luck plays a bigger role in success than most people give credit to. You know, Everyone talks about hard work and determination, but being there at the right time plays a big role.

1:55I mean, it played a big role with me. I started at the beginning of blogging. So would I have achieved the level of success I had today if I didn't start then? Who knows? But I think timing and luck played big roles. Yeah, you and I are in a similar boat. I mean, I started at the beginning of podcasting, and had I not, I definitely do not think I would have achieved the level of success. that I have now. In fact, I also often say if I launched Entrepreneurs on Fire in the past few years, it just does not work. It probably never gets traction for a lot of reasons because with luck, in my opinion, that's where effort meets opportunity.

2:31So if you're out there, Fire Nation, put in the efforts, put in the efforts, put in the effort, rep, rep, rep. And then guess what? When the opportunity comes, you will be quote unquote lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. And today we're talking about how to make money in travel. And over the last few years, let's be honest, Matt, the travel creator world has changed. Tell us more. You know, post COVID, there's so many more people roaming the world who wants to be, you know, Instagram famous and TikTok famous. And so you have just a lot more competition in the space now. But more than that, you have the rise of AI, changes to Google search, in part in conjunction with AI that have made it much harder to, you know, have a traditional blog and make money from search traffic.

3:19And so the landscape today is less, you know, algorithms keep changing. So today is really more about how to connect with the audience you have and do in-person and high touch events rather than, you know, brand deals and just living off affiliate income on search. Let's maybe give a real world example of what that looks like. Like maybe with yourself or somebody who you follow as well. Like what is an example of that kind of real world event opportunity look like? So you see a lot of people these days run group tours, right? So you might follow an influencer and they might be like, Hey, I'm hosting a trip to Morocco.

3:57And so you're going with that influencer for lack of a better term, uh, to Morocco. And so you are only probably, if you're the influencer taking 10 to 12 people. So you don't need a huge audience to be able to do to do that um but what i found really successful and that's a lot easier to organize than say a multi-week tour to a foreign country is like a webinar you know so an educational webinar where you're talking about your expertise and you're charging a nominal fee for people um you get a lot of signups you know we normally will get a hundred plus depending on the signup um And so, you know, charge some bucks, that's a thousand bucks, right?

4:41On the back end, you can then do like affiliates. Like you just get people's email and you go right in. But where another great opportunity and where you can make even more money is you do a branded webinar. And so you get a brand to sponsor the webinar. They basically talk about themselves. And at the end of it, you get everyone's email. You send them a recording of the webinar because most people won't show up. And then you have your direct affiliate link. Hey, go to this company. And so we, you not only get paid on the front end from the brand, you get paid on the back end to increase affiliate sales.

5:17And without fail, whenever we do one of these branded ones, we see a huge spike in the, in the preceding months about, or not the preceding, the future months from affiliate signups. You mentioned that there's potentially been some changes with Google and search terms and, you know, how SEO works and different things along those lines. Can you dive into a deeper revelation around that? All creators seem to, you know, in all industries are feeling the pains of Google's shift to AI, you know, with, I mean, if you search, right, like now it's like the generative like answer. And so that pushes like content down a lot more.

6:00And now they're pushing their own affiliates up. So like, even if you still rank number one for a keyword, by the time a reader gets to you, like most people have clicked off or have found their answer elsewhere. And so, you know, it's a real struggle these days to gain traction on Google. And so I think where this is going to go is you just you can't really rely on Google anymore as a way to get traffic to your website. You have to think of it as like you do social, right? Like it's something you do and the algorithms will change. And sometimes you'll be on top. Sometimes you'll be on the bottom.

6:40but it's not the steady flow of traffic that it used to be. You did mention AI a couple of times. And I know that's on the minds of most entrepreneurs right now because it is affecting their business, whatever that might be in. So will the rise of AI completely change how travel creators actually create content? And if yes, how? Where AI will really change the travel world is in the booking process. You know, AI can tell you what to do in Rome. It can spit out a list based on other blogs they read, right? So travel changes so much that data set from blogs that are no longer updated isn't going to be good for you because sometimes the information is going to be wrong because it's relying on other people's recent trips.

7:34and even if it is right it says okay do these 10 things and roam it can never tell you why it can't replicate the human experience of like what it was like to be there what the smells were like travel is such a personal experience that I don't think in terms of writing about travel AI will dominate the way my other industries but where I think AI will really start to affect the online creator world is in the booking process. As AI gets better and you start giving it, you know, your credit card, you know, copy of your license and all this information, you can be like, hey, AI, book me that flight to Rome.

8:17Hey, AI, remember when I was in Paris and I really liked that hotel? Find me an equivalent in Tokyo and it will have all your information and we'll just do that for you. And so I think, you know, Where AI is probably maybe a year or so off is really just kind of destroying the affiliate side for a lot of travel creators. Well, Fire Nation, it's better to know now and prepare and maybe start thinking about different things that you can be doing to be ready for when this does come into full effect and maybe take advantage of the opportunities this is going to create because every new change creates new opportunities.

8:54And we're going to be talking about the four best ways to diversify your revenue stream right around this topic. and a lot more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Have you ever tried speed dating before? It's quite an efficient way to see if you click with someone and I'm a big fan of efficiency, but I'm also happily married, so I don't need speed dating. But as a business owner, what if there was a feature like speed dating only for hiring? In other words, you could meet several interested, qualified candidates at once, all at a designated time. Well, good news there is. It's zip intro from Zip Recruiter.

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10:03Talk to qualified candidates tomorrow. It would be really nice if we could predict what the future holds for our business. Talk about saving a lot of time and frustration, but predictions are just that, predictions. Rates will rise or fall, inflation's up or down. Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until we can actually see into the future over 41 ,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle. the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one fluid platform. NetSuite gives you one source of truth so you can have the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions.

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11:50It's why Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet. Your customers already love it. If you want to see less cars being abandoned, it's time for you to head over to Shopify. Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash on fire. Go to shopify.com slash on fire. Shopify.com slash on fire. Matt, we're back and diversifying revenue streams is as key now as it ever has been, maybe even more for some specific reasons we just talked about with AI. What, in your opinion, are the four best ways to diversify our revenue streams? Yeah, you know, in the wake of all these changes, it's like, okay, what do we do now?

12:34Right? You know, it's like, we used to rely on affiliates and ads and like, you know, you could always rely on Google, but that's not really the case. And so, you know, going back to what I was saying before, I really think it's important to think of, um, the in-person events. You know, what I would really advise people to think about is, okay, you have affiliates. That's still a great way to monetize. And, but beyond that, I think of brand deals. Um, what can you, how can you work with brands to be in front of your audience? Um, in-person events, um, you know, I think especially post-COVID, you know, everyone wants to do stuff in person these days.

13:13So hosting local events with people in your community or events when you're traveling. You know, I've seen a lot of creators host meetups in other cities, webinars, which we've already kind of touched upon, and in-person tours. In-person tours, whether they're in your city, if you just do it locally, let's say you live in a big city where people visit, or you take people to a place you love. The margins on that are really great. It's a lot of work to put together, but normally you can just double 2x, 3x your cost. And 10 to 15 people, you do one of these a quarter, one of these a month, you can make some serious revenue.

13:57Now let's talk about webinars for a second specifically as one of the things you mentioned. What are some topics that you've discussed on webinars that's been really interesting for the attendees? The more generally you can make a webinar, the more people will come. So if you want to do something that sort of gets the widest amount, the most amount of people, cast the widest net, think of like what are the pain points every traveler faces, how to find a cheap flight. everyone has problems with airfare how to utilize your points of miles and travel credit cards everybody is always confused about how best to optimize that a combination how to save money on food or you know just general tips if you're a family travel blogger right you know everyone is always wondering like how do you manage kids on the road you know it seems so daunting If you're in an RV, like what's the deal with that?

14:59And so, you know, if you keep it pretty general, you're going to cast a widest net. It's when you get into like what to do in Paris. Okay, because how many people are going to Paris? Just a small subset of your numbers. So you'll see a lot fewer people on those webinars. So have you ever done an in-person tour yourself? Yeah, I used to run a lot of tours. I started in like 2013. I'd run maybe one a quarter. And then post-COVID, we expanded to not only having me be the guide, but like other non-me's be the guide. And that was really good. It's just, it takes a lot out of you. And I just didn't want to travel as much.

15:46So we kind of like, somebody else takes, I sold the company to one of the guides. so they can do it. Just because that's my travel and life has changed. I did it for a number of years and it was very, very, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of work. Give us like a brief overview of what that looks like. Like what did it look like from the start and like what was the tour actually of? Yeah, so we ran tours to Thailand, around Europe, Mexico, Morocco, Jordan. So we were in a lot of destinations. But when you're piecing it together, you know, I tried to stick to places I knew really well. That way I knew where to stay.

16:27I knew where I wanted to take them to eat. I knew how to navigate around. So I would definitely advise for the first couple, pick a place you know really well, especially if you're leading the tour because people are going to want your expertise and it's just going to make life a lot easier. So, you know, you'd put together like a route, an itinerary, and then you'd, I would, we would personally call all the hotels and make all the bookings ourselves. And you get a group discount. And one thing about knowing, going to places where I knew is I had relationships with a lot of the tour operators and, and the accommodation so I can get an added discount.

17:11And plus, you know, if you're an influencer, you're probably going to share about it. So you can talk about how they'll get some ad promotion. And then when you're there, you're with these people 24-7. You really got to think about are you an extrovert enough 24-7? If you're not, what I would recommend is that when they go off on maybe a food tour or a cooking class, you kind of be like, hey guys, I have to take care of my own work right now. I'll be back in three hours. That way you kind of have a little break. A little mental So you can recenter yourself for later. So what's your number one tip to be heard above the noise?

17:55Because there's a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of things that are going on, as we mentioned. What's your top tip here? Yeah, you know, I mean, there's so many creators out there. I find more and more every day. But what I've noticed over the years of doing this, and I mean, we've been doing this for a million years, right? Is that most creators stick to their niche, right? If you're travel, you talk to other travel people. If you're cooking, you talk to other cooking people. If you're an entrepreneur, you stick to entrepreneur stuff. But then that's just talking to your peers, right? Those people aren't really going to buy your products.

18:32They're not going to go on your tours. They have their own business to run. So you have to find a new audience. And the best way to find a new audience, I think, is to go outside of your niche and find tangential fields, right? So for me, I talk about budget travel, right? So I go to a lot of finance conferences, finance bloggers, finance podcasts, because people who talk about money want to save money on travel. So their readership is going to want to know that. I go on entrepreneur podcasts like this to talk about how I started this business. I go to lifestyle podcasts and just talk about general travel advice because people who talk about life talk about travel.

19:15And so, you know, find, you know, topics and, you know, areas that are related to your field of expertise and go there because chances are your peers are not going to go there. So you want to be like the travel person for, you know, all the finance podcasts or, you know, you want to be if you're blogging about or, you know, if you're for family, right? Like if you're a family travel content creator, go to like parenting websites, be the travel expert they call when they want to address this topic. So really just get out of your field and you can really increase your audience size very well. So I know you just released a book in March.

20:01Let's take it home with you sharing a little bit about this book. Why Entrepreneur on Fire listeners should read this and where they can go to get a copy. Yeah, so this book is called How to Travel the World on$75 a Day. It's a massive, massive update to my old book, which was 50 a day. Obviously, you know, inflation these days. But, you know, so much of travel also changed, you know, because of COVID. You know, how we travel, companies went under, there's new ways to save money, old ways are gone. So I really wanted a book that helps people travel on a budget. Now, this book, obviously, with the title, you know, Travel the World.

20:41But that said, we all get on the same planes. We do the same activities. We look for the same deal. So whether you're going away for two weeks or two months or two years, you know, the shorter the trip, the less likely you are to get to 75. The book really helps you think and strategize and how to plan like a pro. So that you always know that you're getting the best deal. You're getting off the beaten path. You're getting, you know, a taste of the local life. You're learning how to meet locals and just kind of not just do all the touristy things. And so it's like 20 years of travel distilled into one book.

21:25It's all everything I've learned in one place. So very proud of this. I think it's the best edition yet. Awesome. And one more time, where does Fire Nation go to get a copy? Yeah, so you can go to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, your local independent bookstore, or you can go direct to my website, nomadicmath.com. It's front and center on the homepage. But yeah, wherever books are sold, it is there. And there's an audio book in the Kindle version too. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with MK and JLD today, so keep up the heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eelfire.com.

22:02I mean, just type Matt in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. Matt, thank you for sharing the details about your book, for putting it out there in the world and for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, brother, and we'll catch you on the flip side. Well, thanks for having me, John. It's been good catching up. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to Matt and our sponsors for another fantastic episode. And if you have a message to share, well, Entrepreneurs on Fire is a great place to share it. If you want to learn more about being a guest on Entrepreneurs on Fire, just visit eofire.com slash guest.

22:40I'll catch you there. We're on the flip side. Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10 % of all e-commerce in the US from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands just getting started. If you want to see less carts being abandoned, it's time for you to head over to Shopify. Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash on fire. Over 41 ,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning for free at netsuite.com slash fire.

23:27Thank you.