Bonjour Travel Whisperer,

This week's strategy is about making sure only the right type of leads make it to your calendar. Because while yes we love everyone, our trips aren’t for everyone.

And since speed matters (contacting an inbound lead within 5 minutes makes it 100x more likely you’ll reach them), we wanna make this automatic. Humanly automatic.

Your outcome from this week's strategy:

• Have a pre-qualifying system for your leads

• Letting your most qualified leads book appointments automatically

• The best follow up cadence for good leads who haven’t booked

This one is gonna get slightly technical (and slightly beefy), but it’s powerful stuff.

Before we begin, a moment of appreciation for Peru. Went there a few years ago and loved it, but need to go back and find this view. Oof.

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CLIENT STRATEGY: AUTOMATE YOUR PRE-QUALIFICATION

Qualifying leads is all about aligning expectations.

We want to minimize the awkwardness of someone showing up to a call with a definition of luxury that is far different from what you offer.

And we want to do it in a way that lets you spend your time however you see fit.

While you’re busy sipping Chianti in Tuscany with your clients, your system will be whirring in the background, adding warm leads to your pipeline.

Lead Follow-Up Automation Framework

Alright so there are 4 parts to this: qualification, auto-appointment booking, first follow up, and the nurture flow.

Important note: Everything covered in this framework happens after you’ve launched your marketing (ads, content) and people have clicked to show initial interest.

Let’s get into it.

1: Survey-Based Lead Qualification

This is where it starts. Even when you’ve targeted the right people, you still need to do a little extra vetting.

A lot of experts will tell you to remove friction so you can add more leads into your ecosystem. This is 100% not the move.

Instead, the goal should be to add friction. Why? Because a little friction scares away tire-kickers.

Think about it: If a traveler really wants help planning their trip, they’ll be more than happy to answer a few questions about what it is they’re looking for.

You don’t just want endless leads. You want leads you can work with.

Let me be clear: Our primary goal here is NOT to get as much info as we can about our prospect and/or their trip. It’s to figure out if there is alignment in terms of budget and timeline. Everything else can be discussed on the call.

Here are some survey questions that can help you figure out if there’s alignment:

• What regions are you most interested in exploring?

• What level of accommodation to you generally prefer? (4-star? 5-star?)

• When would you be looking to travel?

• How many people do you normally travel with?

Implementation: Any platform you use for your website has some sort of form or survey. Add 4-6 qualifying questions along with name, phone number and email.

Just Google “How to add a form or survey on [platform name]”

Remember: friction = good.

Having all of this info gives you a lot more personalization to work with for your call, but it also creates a sense of accomplishment. They’re taking steps to planning their trip with you! This is awesome!

2: Instant Booking (for super qualified leads)

If someone fills out your survey, is perfectly qualified, and gave you their contact info, should you hit them up and say “Thanks we’ll get back to you?”

NO. Don’t waste time if you don’t have to. Get 👏🏼Them 👏🏼 Booked 👏🏼

Use that momentum from the survey to have them book time directly on your calendar.

Implementation: In your website platform, add in a logic that automatically disqualifies leads who don’t reach certain criteria.

Example: If a lead’s answer to “What level of accommodation do you prefer?” is 2-star or 3-star, and you only want to work with people who want 4-star and above, you can automatically send those people a “we’re not a good fit” message once they submit their form, and they’ll never see your booking page. (You can still keep them on your list)

For the 4-star and 5-star people (assuming all their other answers match your criteria), you can redirect them to your booking p age.

And for those qualified leads who you want to book—don’t just leave them the calendar and hope for the best. Instead, you have to create some urgency.

Here is some copy we use to frame why the lead should book an appointment right away:

Spaces are limited—we work closely with only a handful of travelers each season to ensure the highest level of personal service. To keep your place, schedule your Discovery Call below within the next 15 minutes.

Now, of course, not all the leads (even the ones that are a perfect fit) will book right away. And that’s where we get into the nurturing.

3: First Follow Up

Here’s a rule of thumb: if your qualified lead doesn’t book an appointment within 2 minutes, it’s your job to get in touch. Remember what we said in the intro about the importance of speed.

The main idea: check to see if the lead booked an appointment. If they did not, send them a message to figure out why.

The easiest and most automatic way to do this is to set up an automation with your email provider (like Mailchimp, Kit or Aweber) or your CRM system.

You have 3 options here:

Human call: You or someone on your team calls and asks some form of “we saw you fill out a form, how can we help?”

• Pros: the most personal touch

• Cons: hard to follow up quickly

Automated Message: With your CRM software, send an automatic text or email saying ‘we saw you fill out a form, how can we help?”

• Pros: fast, easy to set up

• Cons: easy to ignore, not super personal

AI Text/Call: Set up your AI to call or text, saying “we saw you fill out a form, how can we help?”

• Pros: fast + personal

• Cons: some setup/software required

We like the AI text/call, but it isn’t for everyone. The goal isn’t to deceive and pretend that it’s a real person—it’s just all about speed and personalization.

However you do it, create that first touch and ask questions. You have to assume that they saw your calendar, but for some reason they didn’t book.

You need to find out that reason, and get them booked.

4: Nurture, nurture nurture

If a lead doesn’t book immediately OR after the first touch, all hope is not lost. You just need to show them a bit of love.

Here’s a good cadence you can follow:

• 24hr: Friendly check-in SMS/email with CTA.

• 48hr: Highlight urgency, limited availability, or unique destination details.

• 72hr: Final nudge paired with testimonials or trip examples.

You can do this manually via text/email, or set up automations to make this happen automatically.

Your life will become a whole lot easier if you track everything in a CRM software, or if you prefer something simpler, a Google Sheet.

And there you have it. Your 4-step framework to pre-qualifying and nurturing leads. It might seem like a lot, but the beauty of it is setting it up once and letting it run forever.

If you want our framework PDF to make it easier to implement, respond to this email and we’ll send it over.

🌴 Places we wanna go

Kusatsu Onsen – Tokyo, Japan

Village Heights Resort – Crete, Greece

Passalacqua – Lake Como, Italy

Tyler’s Thoughts

It’s natural to think through a pure travel lens. What new developments are happening within travel, what properties are doing interesting things, what entities are the most active.

But some of the most telling insights are found outside. Especially now. Especially when it comes to tech.

Here’s what the CEO of Duolingo just said about AI:

Big tech is usually a clear indicator of where the world is going. (It’s definitely where the money is going)

Until next time,

Tyler