Inside The Tour Business – A Treasure Chest of Business Resources & Solutions
I’m a Successful Tour Industry Business Owner Who Built an Annual $2m+ Revenue Tour Business From
Absolutely Nothing…
And then Sold It for Over 7 Figures a Few Years Later.
Today I’m offering YOU a complete treasure chest of the EXACT resources I used to do this (as you avoid my costly mistakes).
It’s your opportunity to build your own thriving tour business more efficiently – in less time, and without the steep learning curve. You’ll make bigger profits, with awesome, passionate staff, all working with set procedures and targets…making your business a fun place to work!
Hey, I’m Josh Oakes. Today I’m excited to share with you my proven system of resources and solutions I designed throughout my 10 years as a tour business Owner.Now, whether you’re an ambitious start-up or established tour business owner, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at the EXACT steps needed to build your dream – without the steep learning curve, I experienced.
…No more wondering where to even begin building crucial systems, processes and procedures needed for a scalable and profitable tour business…
…No more figuring out how to put together professional, high-converting tour descriptions to create more profitable tours…
…No more scrambling to find, secure and utilise global travel partners to grow your business beyond your local area…
…No more guesswork when it comes to business finances – you’ll have an exact system to make accurate projections and smart business decisions surrounding things like new hire’s, new equipment, new marketing initiatives and more
…And no more headaches finding the ‘right staff’ for your tour business. Quickly learn how to recruit, train, organise and incentivise your team – both tour guides and office staff. That way, they’re representing YOUR brand without you hand-holding them.
You see, this exact toolkit has EVERY resource and solution you need to:
Get started and easily navigate the early challenges
Quickly get your tour business established, get profitable and start scaling
20x your revenue and tour bookings over the next 5-7 years and…
Get your business primed for sale at a point in the future and be assured of the best possible result
How I Went from Zero to a 7-Figure Tour Business Owner
In 2007 my wife and I started a day tour company in Melbourne, Australia.
We started from scratch with less than $5000 capital…
You see, we had NO experience in tourism, NO business experience, NO networks or support and almost NO funds. My IT skills were appalling too – I’m a little embarrassed to admit I was basically clueless.
Now, I don’t say this lightly. But it took serious grit and determination to get through these early stages – because even after two exhausting years of 60+hour weeks, we were taking home $20,000 a year profit from a $65k revenue.
In fact, we came very close to throwing the towel in, several times…
Chances are, you might be doing better than that already in the early years of your own business?
Anyhow, fast forward seven years and slow, steady growth eventually shone through…
Our efforts had paid off. And our goal had been achieved….
We’d actually built that original home-grown business to $2 million+ in annual revenue and created a really GREAT LIFE in the process.
The company was sold in June of 2017 for over seven figures. This just shows you what’s possible. And I want to help you achieve YOUR goals and targets as a unique tour business owner.
However, it was persistence, assembling an elite team around us and a strong desire to transform both this business and create a dream life which brought us results…
So I set about creating the resources, systems and processes to enable us to build a world-class, scalable tour business that didn’t require me to be ‘in it’ as it grew.
Burnout for may tour business owners is REAL. And I don’t want you to “suffer” as you build a business you’re passionate about. Running a business is hard work – no doubt. But it should be manageable and super-rewarding too.
After Successfully Selling My Business And Building a Dream Life, I’m Now Ready to ‘Uncover’ Everything –
You’re About Discover All My Systems, Processes & Tactics…
Introducing…
A proven toolkit including 27 resources of done-for-you documents and templates – everything you could need from A-Z, and in between – to build and scale a profitable tour business…without the steep learning curve, and no guesswork.
For years, students and our tour business community have been asking me “how we did it.” Now, after years of building a successful business, extensive development and testing, I’m finally ready to offer it to you.
In ‘Inside the Tour Business’ you’re going to get an unprecedented ‘look behind the curtain’ at the EXACT resources – documents, templates, workbooks, email scripts, reporting, checklists, marketing collateral and more.
Basically, everything we created in our tour business (Melbourne Private Tours), to enable us to get started. These resources helped us find our feet and get established.
You’ll then to go through the gears and uncover how to scale up so much quicker and easier – and in our case, to a tour business generating close to $2.5 million in annual tour sales.
Plus, not only will you get the templates, but you’ll also get many of THE working documents from INSIDE my business. You’ll see exactly what they looked like when put into action.
These business resources are literally a step-by-step, “do this…then do that” stack of time-saving systems. The same ones enabled us to create enough value in Melbourne Private Tours to execute a 7-figure sale in 2017…
You’re going to find dozens of templates, workbooks, email scripts, marketing tools and more. I’ve carefully designed these so you can literally ‘drag and drop’ into your tour or activity…
…but you’re also going to get rare ‘look under the hood’.
First, let’s look at what you’re getting…and how you’re going to put them to work:
RESOURCE 1 SAMPLE TOUR DESCRIPTIONS FOR A 7-FIGURE BUSINESS
Here’s an insider’s look at our collection of tour descriptions circulated to our distribution partners. The format for all descriptions is the same for all – and you’ll notice that on page 4 and 5 (Melbourne After Dark) I have outlined some of the key features of an effective tour description – plus some areas in which, on reflection, they could have been better.
RESOURCE 2 SAMPLE ‘EXPERIENCE ENHANCERS’
Here’s what our Experience Enhancers looked like. They were an important additional revenue stream. Every confirmed tour booking was given an opportunity to ‘enhance their experience’ 7 days prior to the tour. Our Experience Enhancers were commissionable and also distributed to our travel partners to offer to their clients at the time of booking. Sometimes simple things like offering upsells can boost your bottom line much faster than developing more tours, or exploring new markets -which can be costly, time-consuming and a drain on resources.
RESOURCE 3 SAMPLE TERMS AND CONDITIONS TO ACCOMPANY RATES FOR DISTRIBUTION PARTNERS
These terms and conditions accompanied or tour descriptions and rates and were distributed annually to our agents (travel partners). You can compare these with your own, or use them as a guide to what we felt should be included by way of terms and conditions if you are yet to formalise yours
RESOURCE 4 SAMPLE COVER EMAIL FOR RATE AND ITINERARY DISTRIBUTIONA simple template you can use when mailing out your rates and tour descriptions to distribution partners. Rate distribution is always a great opportunity to promote something new and exciting – and to keep your product in front of a very busy product manager’s mind. Note how we did this.
RESOURCE 5 ‘ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES’ TEMPLATE
Critical to any tour business with an ambition to grow. It’s so important that everybody knows exactly what they are responsible for across all areas of the business – and, most importantly, what the people around them are responsible for. It needs to be clear and visible for all to see. As with any small business, roles and responsibilities will often be ‘fluid’ and more than one person may be responsible for a task. It’s important however that one person ultimately ‘owns’ a task (denoted by an *asterisk*)
RESOURCE 6 SAMPLE ‘ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES’ DOCUMENT FOR A 7-FIGURE BUSINESS
If you want to see what a Roles and Responsibilities document actually looks like inside a multi 7-Figure tour business with 5 full-time office staff, 6 outsourced solutions and 20 tour guides, then here it is!
RESOURCE 7 SAMPLE OPERATIONS MANUAL
We built out our Operations Manual at around the 4-year, $400,000 mark and it was still our ‘systems and processes bible’ right up to the 10-year, $2 million + annual revenue mark – when I sold the business. You’ll be able to literally drop this template into your tour business, drag in the processes you’ve already built out…and create new ones based on the example ones you’ll see in the manual. It’s a comprehensive resource that’ll help you scale up fast
RESOURCE 8 DRAG AND DROP TOUR GUIDE TRAINING AGREEMENT
A comprehensive, ‘nothing to chance’ template that should slot right into any tour business with a few adjustments and additions to suit. Ensures there is nothing a tour guide doesn’t know relating to your expectations of them, the way in which your tours are delivered and the way that your business operates. It ensures tour guides are representing you and your company, rather than themselves – and that they are living and breathing your company values and brand promises
RESOURCE 9 STAFF PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
A highly effective way of motivating and incentivising your staff, getting everyone ‘on board’ and feeling like they are a part of something special.
RESOURCE 10 SAMPLE TOUR GUIDE INFORMATION AND AVAILABILITY
If somebody gets injected into your tour business in an operations capacity and needs to start allocating tours asap, there’s a lot of key information that will help them perform the task efficiently and effectively. How far away live from the office/pick up location, current availability calendar, particular tours they excel in. specific interests, passions and hobbies, foreign languages, other important information. This worksheet allows anybody to hit the ground running with everything they need to start allocating tours to tour guides
RESOURCE 11 SIMPLE SALES ACTION PLAN
The key to implementing an effective sales strategy is to document it, keep it uncomplicated, ensure everybody ‘buys in’ and understands the agreed milestones and accountability. It’s then critical that you review the action plan regularly and chart your progress.
RESOURCE 12 SIMPLE TOUR GUIDE ASSIGNMENT BRIEF
If you run tours of a private, customised nature, this template is one that you might consider adapting to fit your tour or activity
RESOURCE 13 ‘DONE FOR YOU’ OUTREACH EMAIL SCRIPT TO TRAVEL PARTNERS
How do you get a busy product manager to sit up, take notice and get curious about your tours when there are just so many tours and activities for them to remember. This email script is the way to start. Everything they’ll want to know about you, they’ll find here.
RESOURCE 14 SAMPLE POSITION DESCRIPTION – MY FIRST MANAGER
This position description was a highly effective one for us. We tested plenty of PD’s and this one had all the ingredients to draw out the right pool of candidates.
RESOURCE 15 PRODUCTIVE 20-MINUTE TEAM MEETING TEMPLATE
This template was awesome in our business. For any small tour business that understands how critical communication is…but wants to avoid ‘meetings for the sake of ‘meetings’. We found this short, sharp, meeting agenda to be a highly effective communication tool – and left everyone with the time to get on with their job.
RESOURCE 16 ‘DONE FOR YOU’ OUTREACH EMAIL SCRIPT FOR CUSTOMER RESEARCH
A really important email script for a tour business looking to find support from their regional tourism organisations and other industry bodies in identifying potential markets and customers for their tours.
RESOURCE 17 SAMPLE ENQUIRY RESPONSE FOR CUSTOMISED TOUR
A short, effective script to pump out tour enquiry responses lightning-fast – and give you every chance of converting them.
RESOURCE 18 SIMPLE BUSINESS BUDGET TEMPLATE –ACTUAL AND PROJECTED
An uncomplicated budgeting worksheet that allows you to record your actual revenue, cost of tour sale, gross profit, business operating expenses and net profit. It then allows you to look ahead to the coming year, make a decision month by month on what revenue targets you’re going to set (20% increase per month? 30% increase per month?). You can then increase the cost of sale and business by the same % to arrive at a forecast monthly and yearly net profit. The key then is to review your forecast budget each month, line by line to see if you’re on track. If you’re not on track, why not? It enables you to take action right there and then, instead of identifying issues at the year’s end and working out what went wrong.
RESOURCE 19 SAMPLE SALES REPORT FOR A 2-YEAR BUSINESS
The key to success from the day you open the doors of your tour business: know your numbers. At a minimum, you need to be generating a monthly report that tells you how much revenue you are generating, whether it is increasing or decreasing month to month – and the source of this revenue. This sample sales report is from an 18-month established tour business. Every young tour or activity should aim to report in this fashion as a minimum.
RESOURCE 20 – CHOOSING A BOOKING SOFTWARE – CHECKLIST OF QUESTIONS TO GET IT RIGHT
If you haven’t implemented booking software into your tour or activity, it can be a daunting task. There are an overwhelming number of booking software solutions in the market place so…how do you choose the right one for you? Here’s a comprehensive checklist of all of the features and functionality you should be looking for if your tours are of a customised nature. If they’re not it’ll still help to give you a sense of the type of questions you should be asking.
RESOURCE 21 SIMPLE COSTINGS WORKSHEET FOR TAILORED TOURS
We used a super-simple costings worksheet so that our tour designers could spit out customised quotes in lightning quick time
RESOURCE 22 SAMPLE INTERNAL RATE CARD FOR DIRECT ENQUIRIES
This internal rate card was vital for our tour designers to manage phone and email enquiries in lightening quick time, offering dynamic tour prices that reflected our peak, mid and low seasons and gave them the best possible chance of converting.
RESOURCE 23 SAMPLE – CORPORATE EXPERIENCES TO COMPLIMENT OUR LEISURE DAY TOURS
Our menu of corporate event experiences is a good example of how to diversify successfully and implement an extra revenue stream. We identified an opportunity, we did the requisite research to almost ‘guarantee’ there was a market for what we planned to offer, and we grew that division of the business quickly.
RESOURCE 24 TOUR BUSINESS ‘INFORMATION MEMORANDUM’ FOR A DREAM BUSINESS SALE
Ever dreamed of cashing in on all the blood, sweat and tears and selling your tour business in 3, 5 or even 10 years?
Yes??
Well if you dream of ‘set you up for life’ kind of money for your business then this IM shows you exactly what you need to do to present your tour or activity to potential buyers. It’s a fascinating insight into a 7-figure tour business and the level of detail required to take a tour business to market… and get a dream result.
RESOURCE 25 SAMPLE – SETTING AND DISTRIBUTING RATES OF PAY FOR YOUR TOUR GUIDES
Setting tour rates for contract tour guides can be a tricky business. You need your rates to be fair and appealing…but you also need to protect yourself as there are so many considerations and scenarios that you need to take into account – particularly when running many different
types of private, customised tours where tours rarely go 100% to script. This is how we went about it.
RESOURCE 26 SAMPLE POSITION DESCRIPTION – TOUR GUIDE
We tested many different tour guide job descriptions over many years and this one by far got the best results and the best pool of candidates time after time.
RESOURCE 27 SAMPLE LETTER OF OFFER
Once you’ve found your Mr or Mrs ‘right’…what next? Well you need to look like the professional business you’re striving to be…and you need to cover all basis and protect yourself. A thorough, ‘nothing to chance’ Letter of Offer is crucial. Here’s a sample one for our ‘General Manager’ position. You might prefer to call it an Employment Contract.
Uncovering a 7-Figure Tour Business –
You’ll Get More than a Stack of Resources and Documents..
With these resources, you’re going to see EXACTLY how these tools looked in a 7-figure tour business – not a lump of business templates, but HOW they were populated and how WE used them effectively as we scaled.
In ‘Inside the Tour Business’ you’ll get a complete blueprint of ‘common sense’ tools and resources any business owner needs to start, establish and scale their tour or activity.
Plus, you’ll take them, drop them into your business AND see how they looked in my business at a 7-figure level. A bit like peeking over the fence.
And by doing so, you’re giving your tour business a massive edge in several areas:
“Thank you, thank you Josh, for the incredible ‘Inside the Tour Business’ resource pack, an immense amount of valuable information and tools that really live up to its name. As a relative newcomer to tourism, I’ve learned a heap of industry insider information, not least how to present painstakingly designed products to every market channel in an effective way.
It’ll also definitely help fast-track my initial Quality Tourism Accreditation, assist with early and ongoing growth, avoid a bunch of pitfalls and assumptions I would otherwise have suffered and allowed me to tackle staffing with confidence…the list goes on.
I can’t even calculate how many hours work and dollars I’ll have saved. What a fantastic product. Cheers to you!”
Neil Beevers, Proprietor @ XO Perth Private ToursYour Content Goes Here
Imagine Now How Much Easier Building Your Tour Business Could Be With All the Foundations In Place…
…You’ll create more appealing, more engaging, better converting tour descriptions. This means your tours increase in popularity and as a result, become more profitable for you.
…You’ll give global travel partners everything they need to work closely with you – you’ll present yourself as a qualified authority, even without years of experience and revenue! It’s the best possible chance to sell your tours through their global channels and taking your revenue potential to the next level – something 95% of tour businesses only dream of.
…You’ll implement these crucial systems, processes and procedures right across your tour business. Combined, they’ll enable you to scale up way more quickly to 7-figure level and beyond – something which might take 10 years to learn – and still maintain the high-quality, personalised service you provide as a small operator.
…You’ll discover how to recruit, train, organise and incentivise your team (both tour guides and office staff). You’ll have a strategy in place so they deliver a great experience consistently and represent you and your brand the right way. The result? You can a great name for your brand and repeat business develops into a consistent revenue stream.
…And, you’ll develop an intimate relationship with your ‘numbers’. What I mean is, you’ll understand how to make accurate projections and smart business decisions.
For example, things like new hire’s, new equipment, new marketing initiatives and more. You’ll know what you can and can’t afford and set a budget accordingly – month in, month out, you’ll sleep better knowing everything’s budgeted for.
So you can see how this might work in YOUR tour business…
Believe me, this is an unseen-before opportunity for me to SHOW you how building up to a 7-figure revenue tour business can be done…you’ll save time, money, effort and heartache.
Having the foundations, systems and procedures in place not only helps you grow your business but makes you FEEL like a professional business.
As you can tell, I’m confident this entire back-catalogue of tools, templates, processes, and systems can work for your business.
It’s Everything You Need in One Place To Systematise and Scale Your Business
You’ll have the EXACT templates we used for Melbourne Private Tours – our own tour business – to present ourselves as a professional outfit. One big global partners would immediately take seriously.
A complete library of resources put together by experts who’ve been in the industry for over 12 years…and built a highly-successful tour company from scratch.
Methods and tips for how to position yourself to build high-quality tours – one’s people really have THE MOST memorable experiences for life. They’ll love and share this with their friends and family. Just word of mouth alone will skyrocket!
“I have been operating a successful tour business for almost 10 years but wish I had discovered Josh Oakes and ‘Inside the Tour Business’ back when I formed the business. What has taken me a number of years to evolve and develop would have taken a lot less time with the support and knowledge that Josh delivers from his own personal experience in ‘Inside the Tour Business’. Advice and knowledge that I am still able to learn from today.
Sharing easy to action advice and best practise in the form of action checklists and business templates (insert product name) will build the ultimate foundation for the success of your business.”
Ruth Franklin, Director of Sales @ Secret ParadiseThis Was Designed to Be both Affordable AND Accessible for ANY Sized Tour Business…
As I mentioned, this really is a behind-the-scenes look at how to grow a tour business to 7-figures in annual revenue, without learning the hard way and making the stilly mistakes we did as complete rookies back in 2007…
Now, just last weekend I circled a few of my expert tour buddies and mentioned the idea of this product – they thought I was nuts “giving away” my secrets.
Together we calculated the value to be 8-10x what you’re being offered today…and as much as I value people’s opinions – especially industry veterans – their advice didn’t keep me from going ahead with this.
In fact, that’s exactly the attitude which got me here today. They said easily $1,000 MINIMUM for the product – some even doubled this figure. I took their advice, sure – combined, they have over 40 years’ experience in the game – but it’s ultimately my decision.
“Thank you, thank you Josh, for the incredible ‘Inside the Tour Business’ resource pack, an immense amount of valuable information and tools that really live up to its name. As a relative newcomer to tourism, I’ve learned a heap of industry insider information, not least how to present painstakingly designed products to every market channel in an effective way.
It’ll also definitely help fast-track my initial Quality Tourism Accreditation, assist with early and ongoing growth, avoid a bunch of pitfalls and assumptions I would otherwise have suffered and allowed me to tackle staffing with confidence…the list goes on.
I can’t even calculate how many hours work and dollars I’ll have saved. What a fantastic product. Cheers to you!”
Matt Morris, Owner @ runningtours.com.au‘Inside the Tour Business’ Actually Helps you Grow Your Business While SAVING Time…
…Time you could spend enjoying the benefits of your hard work – with family, friends… even taking a vacation.
You don’t need to ‘learn’ or ‘study’ the materials, I’m not here to give you another ‘job’ on the to do list…you just need to drop them into your business, or simply COPY scripts, charts, reports etc. I’ve made it THAT easy for you to start using in your business right away.
Come to think of it, it’ll save you months of time creating these, and potentially years of trial and error.
Everything you’ll get worked in a 7-figure tour business.
“Inside The Tour Business’ is amazing – an incredibly helpful resource in commencing the process of up scaling our business. The templates and samples are invaluable and I can highly recommend them to anyone, whether just starting out or wanting to take your tour business to the next level.”
Coreena Vieth, Shutterbug WalkaboutsOh, And There’s a BONUS I Didn’t Mention Yet…
I want this to be the most valuable set of resources I can possibly give back to my fellow tour business community…so I’ve got a proposition:
But you’re going to have to act fairly swiftly on this…
The first 50 orders I receive TODAY will automatically be offered a LIVE 1.5-hour group-implementation session.
You’ll be given the opportunity to submit your questions in advance and make sure you’re on the right track. We’ll then work through each and every question live.
And If That Sounded Good, Here’s One Better…
..And this BONUS really is something:
The first five people through the doors earn themselves an opportunity I’d have killed for during my early years building our tour business…
You’ll personally join me for a FREE, 1:1 session to help you implement any of these solutions into your business. It’ll ensure you’re ready to start using this toolkit right away. Plus, you’ll be able to ask me any questions related to guiding your business into a success you can be proud of!
Remember, today’s price is just $127.