Goat Trekking, a Cheese Farmer, and the Only Flex That Matters…?
I recently went goat trekking in Switzerland, which is 10,000 percent not a sentence I saw myself writing this year. But you know what? I also did not see myself allowing my six-year-old to negotiate multiple Halloween inflatables in my front yard, and yet here we are.
The Swiss village was so remote that once the snow starts, the only way in or out is by snowmobile. We spent the afternoon hiking up the hillside with the goats (mine was named Marisol…or maybe Maritza? I can't totally remember and, admittedly, wasn't addressing her by name) and ended at a small cottage with a cheese farmer's apprentice who treated us to a tasting and homemade rose syrup. No menu, no branded experience, no barcodes. Just someone passionate about her craft and kind enough to share it with us.
The air was so crisp and the views so incredible that it felt untouched by the first-world problems of our actual lives. A goat. A walk with a damn goat, of all things, is what made me forget about all the noise. I could have stayed all day and it still wouldn't have been enough time.
I've done a lot of fancy things in this job, and I'm still thinking about a mountainside in Andermatt.
Apparently, the new flex is "first"
Bloomberg ran a piece last week on ultrarich travelers paying millions for world firsts: unclimbed peaks, undiscovered shipwrecks, trips no one has ever taken. The point is that private jets and exclusive resorts have gotten boring (lol), so the "new" luxury is doing something nobody has done before.
I'd like to submit a gentler version: a hillside with a goat can be just as fulfilling. Luxury is what you love.
The flex isn't records or firsts. Plenty of people have met an apprentice cheesemaker, and I don't care. What I loved is that no one had packaged it. Nobody has it listed online. Nothing for me to tap and pay for. You can't buy that as a line item, which I think is a little bit cooler than calling dibs on "first."
The take I've tried not to say
My (apparently. cathartic) goat experience in Switzerland is the opposite of how a lot of our industry talks about travel, which brings me to Skift.
Skift Global Forum is the room where the travel industry shows up for itself. And yet again, Brian Chesky video'd in while everyone else flew to New York.
Hot take: Skift should either ask him to attend in person or move on.
While he was on that screen, I couldn't help noticing him call car rentals and flights "commodities," while also saying a chatbot is the wrong interface for travel because travel is visual, emotional, and social. Here’s where I'd like those two statements to meet each other.
Look, I know Brian Chesky is busy. But in a business that sells connection, shouldn’t the guy running one of the biggest travel companies in world be in the room? The airlines, the hoteliers, and the people who actually host humans can all get to New York. He apparently can't.
Airbnb isn't a start-up anymore. It's an icon in travel. It's past time to join the industry.
If travel is a commodity to Brian Chesky, showing up is the only part that isn't.
Which brings me to how you show up
A client who comes back is the biggest compliment in this business.
We spend so much energy on new clients: new leads, new followers, new everything. The biggest opportunity is probably already in your book.
About 1 in 4 of our clients booked a second trip this year. They could've called anyone. They called us back.
I would go back to that mountainside in a heartbeat, and nobody had to run a campaign to make me feel that way. That's the whole repeat-client strategy. Be a person someone wants to return to.
Chances are, if you’re an advisor reading this, a big chunk of your portfolio probably doesn’t have another trip booked yet. Go say hi.
What I'm loving
Celine The Flat Sneaker: Love them or hate them and I love them.
Ralph Lauren Belt: I'm in Utah then Aspen next week, and you’ll catch me in this one too many times.
Necessaire the deodorant: This seems weird because it's deodorant, but not weird once you smell how great it is, I promise.
Kjuten cashmere scarf: Manifesting not-80-degree weather in the south.
OVERSIZED FRINGE CARDIGAN: Yeah, really into bandana print right now.
