CruiseWorld 2020_ Jenn Lee’s TW Talk

Video Transcript

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 00:07
Hi, everybody. Hi. I’m so excited to be here. I want to thank you guys so much for joining CruiseWorld virtually. Goodness knows, I wish we were all together. I wish we were all together so that we could give each other a big hug and say thank you for the incredible stuff that we have done together over the this year.

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 00:37
I’m so sorry, I can hear myself. I have to take my AirPods out, hold on. I care if you can hear me, please tell me if you can hear me.

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 00:45
Anyways, I’m just so excited to be part of this industry with you as we go through this. The word that I chose was departure, and I chose departure because it reminds me of my most favorite time in a journey. I know John Chernesky always talks about that anticipation. But for me, it’s the departure. It’s putting everything behind me. You know, if I were flying somewhere, it’s like take off in the airplane. If we’re sailing somewhere, it’s the sail away, it’s the first time we get to see the ship in the ocean and we get to sail away. It’s departing and leaving behind the things that we don’t know to be very exciting in our lives any longer.

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 01:22
But the key in really enjoying departure it really lies in your ability to be able to depart from what you know to be true and real at that moment in your life. To take and get rid of and erase the things, those assumptions so that as you move forward into your new journey into the next destination into the first stop, second stop, third stop, you have room to receive new ideas. And that’s really what this CruiseWorld is about, as well as moving into 2021.

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 01:56
But I want you to do something with me, if you don’t mind. I’m assuming most of you are at home or maybe near a window. So if you’re near a window right now, I want you to just kind of like look at the window for a second like I’m near a window, look out the window. Are you’re looking? If you don’t have a window, I don’t know where you are. I’m sorry, you’re in a basement. But if you can imagine a window. And imagine if you will, if all of a sudden you saw somebody running past that window, like running really fast. Not like a runner in jogging clothes, but like somebody like in shoes, heels a purse or briefcase and they’re running past. What is your natural inclination? For some of you, your natural inclination is going to be that you’re going to kind of like look out the window, go, ‘What the heck were they running from?’ Where others are going to be kind of more like me, like, ‘Where are they going? What’s happening? Where are they going to? What’s next?’

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 02:43
Neither one is right, neither one is wrong. Nor does either one show if you’re positive or a negative thinker, if your rose colored, roses glasses person, none of that. But it’s just what you know to be true and real. What you bring to the table. You see somebody running, there’s either something happening behind them, or something going on in front of them. And so that’s a reality. And I was sharing that story with my sister the other day, those of you have heard me speak. And many of you have met my crazy running sister. I just realized I do a lot of running stories, and I don’t run.

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 03:15
But anyway, she and I were talking the other day, and she was telling me about something that has just happened to her. She was coming home from a road race and it was a new place that she hadn’t been before. And she was discombobulated and distracted as my sister normally is and was talking on her phone or whatever. Long story short, she took a left when she should have taken a right, and she started zioggomg when she should have zagged, and she ended up in a part of town that your parents tell you not to go to after dark. Every town’s got that part of town, right, the one that’s always on the 11 O’Clock News, and it’s not for their balloon parties.

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 03:49
And so she was in this bad part of town and she was getting a little nervous and she wasn’t sure where she was. And so she was just driving straight trying to pay attention is off to the side of the road, she saw this gentleman on the side and he was like waving. He was waving at her and waving at her and, according to my sister, he was not a crossing guard. He wasn’t wearing a vest or anything. He was a scary looking fella in the wrong part of town where she was all discombobulated. He was waving and he was yelling something at her. He kept saying ‘Wah wah wah wah wah. Wah wah wah wah wah.’ That’s all she could hear. She couldn’t hear anything. And so she decided to take a deep breath and she just kind of slowed down and said all right, I just gonna keep moving forward. She doesn’t look like he’s going to attack me but it doesn’t look…I don’t know. I’m just going to keep moving forward.

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 04:32
She rolls down her window ever so slightly and he’s still waving, ‘Wah wah wah wah wah, you’re going the wrong way.’ He’s yelling at her she was going the wrong way on a one way street. So her reality and her assumptions from her truth from before was bad area of town, she’s lost, he’s not a crossing guard…what the heck is gonna happen next? When, in reality, when she got closer and gave it a shot and decided to roll her window down, she saw that sure enough, the guy was trying to help her, not hurt her.

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 05:07
And it got me thinking about so many things over the years that we end up in autopilot for, right, especially with our businesses. We don’t take the time to roll down the window and ask the question, be curious about what might be going on over there. And you know what that’s like at a booth, right? In a trade show, you could be like walk by. And [whistles] if I don’t make eye contact, if people won’t say hello to me. Well, we’re virtual this year, so you can’t do that. You can just pop in, but I’m going to encourage you to be bold and ask some questions. Because let’s be real, your business has to change in 2021. Well heck, all of our businesses did change in 2020. Without our permission, I might add, by golly, and I’m still mad about it. But at the same time, this is our chance. This is your chance to depart from what you know to be true and real. And maybe, maybe just maybe, it’s a chance to liberate your business.

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 06:00
I know here, as a host agency, it always gives me angst when I hear somebody say, ‘Oh, a host agency? No, no, I’m not new to the industry. I’ve been in the industry for a long time, I’m out there on my own, you know, I don’t need to be affiliated with anybody.’ And I just, I just want to hug them and shake them and say, ‘What you don’t know to be true and real is, you know, being part of a host agency isn’t because you’re new. It’s because you want to, you want to be able to have that extra support, you’re looking to scale your business. And the only way to really scale your business is to not always be booking travel, of building your business.’ Heck, when you do a host who’s with a consortia, you get double the support, double everything. You get to double down on it, and, boy, have we needed that this year.

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 06:42
In 2021, you’re gonna have to depart from what you know to be true and real if you’re going to liberate your business. And this is the crossroads. This is the opportunity. And this is the event for you to be able to do that. So I hope you spend the rest of your time at CruiseWorld asking those questions, knocking on those doors, rolling down the window, because it’s possible, you’ve been going the wrong way, the whole time.

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 07:08
And on a personal note, I just want to end with how proud I am to be part of this incredible industry. And to walk side-by sidewith each and every one of you, every travel partner, every travel advisor, as we watch you boldly, bravely, continue to move forward, fiercely forward every single day. I’ve said for months. This is we’re smack in the middle of a story, an incredible story, that will be studied for decades and decades. And you are part of that story. There is a narrative that we are producing together.

Jenn Lee – VP of Sales and Marketing 07:43
If we don’t depart from what we know to be true and real, and we move into 2021 with those same assumptions, the same ‘I’m not sure if I want to talk to the guy because he doesn’t have the crossing guard uniform on,’ you might miss your opportunity. This has been the greatest year and the worst year, but I am thankful that I was in this year with you. You’ve got this, rockstar. Go out there. Make big things happen. Liberate your business. Take care.