IAM1275 – Founder Creates Memories in Travel Experience

Tony Jefferson is the founder of TravelingSession.com. Tony's love for travel came from serving most of his 21-year US Air Force career outside of the United States. He has lived in 3 different countries outside of the US and visited more than 30. He started Traveling Session to encourage people to get out and see the world, by making travel recommendations a little more personal.

• CEO Story: Tony was so fascinated when he traveled abroad and since then he wanted to encourage more people to experience getting out of their comfort zone and make traveling important to them.
• Business Service: On their website, people can leave comment reviews and ratings in terms of nightlife, food, safety, etc.
• Secret Sauce: Having a website that is a community-based platform. Leaving good information on that place so people can have a good reference.
• CEO Hack: Being passionate about your product. No matter what happens, that is why you go through tough times.
• CEO Nugget: Don’t wait until everything is perfect before they start the business because there is no perfect product. Don’t be afraid to fail.
• CEO Defined: Sees the full potential of what it can be if you love your product.

Website: travelingsession.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/travelingsession.reviews/

Instagram: travelingsession

Twitter: Travel_Session

Pinterest: travelingsession

Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC5a7TvmGUDjQ9KmBrzFm2_Q

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Transcription

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00:23 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:50 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Tony Jefferson of travelingsessions.com. Tony, it's great to have you on the show.

00:58 – Tony Jefferson

Be here.

01:00 – Gresham Harkless

Yes. Super excited to have you on as well too. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Tony so I can hear about some of the awesome things that he's doing. And Tony is the founder of travelingsessions.com. Tony's love for travel came from serving most of his 21-year Air Force, US Air Force career outside of the United States.

He's lived in 3 different countries outside of the United States and visited more than 30. He started traveling sessions to encourage people to get out and see the world by making travel recommendations a little more personal. Tony, thank you for your service and all the awesome things that you're doing. I appreciate you for taking time out. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:35 – Tony Jefferson

Yes, I am. Awesome.

01:36 – Gresham Harkless

Well, let's make it happen. So to kind of kick everything off, I know I touched on them a little bit. I wanted to hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CO story.

01:44 – Tony Jefferson

So as you said in the bio, I did 21 years in the Air Force. And I went overseas, and once I got overseas, I got to see a different aspect of the world. And once I got a taste of that, I just couldn't get enough of it. So I wanted to create a way to encourage people to get out and travel more because most people are intimidated by travel, especially when you start talking about international travel, like you're outside of your comfort zone. A lot of people don't like that. So I wanted to come up with a way to make it less scary, something to where I could point people to what would be important to them when it comes to traveling.

02:26 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I think that, as you said, I love that you said that phrase, getting out of your comfort zone. Because I think most people, you know, don't necessarily, you know, realize that we're traveling. And a lot of times I always say like you end up seeing in your word, your world manifests itself a larger lot of times from what you see and what you experience. And if you don't get that opportunity to get outside, your comfort zone, see different cultures, and have those experiences. A lot of times we are, you know, boxing in the potential of obviously our experiences, but definitely our life and even what we can dream, hope, and aspire to be.

03:01 – Tony Jefferson

Well, also on top of that, one thing I noticed is when you let somebody else tell you the story, details get lost. I'll give you a good example of The Last Supper. I always thought that was a painting. I did not realize that it's actually a fresco, a big mural painting on the side of a wall in a castle. Unless you get out and actually see these things, those details get lost.

03:23 – Gresham Harkless

And a lot of times, kind of even digging in deeper from that, a lot of times the truth, for lack of a better term, kind of gets lost as well too. And you don't realize like, you know, the, I guess, especially the, the, sometimes the, the really, phenomenal things about the history and, and just getting an experience in that you don't understand that. And when it starts to, It's kind of like the telephone game. You know, I used to play as a kid where you start to hear the message completely differently by the time it's at the end of the game because you haven't got the pure experience of what it was, the history, you get to see it and experience and that's why I love that you're able to recapture that.

03:59 – Tony Jefferson

Exactly.

04:00 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more. I know I touched on it a little bit. I want to hear more about traveling sessions.com. What we can find there is how you're serving clients that you work with.

04:12 – Tony Jefferson

So the main focus of the website is travel reviews. So like when you go out and look at travel reviews now, for the most part, you're not going to see anybody say anything bad about a place. I mean, there are a lot of great places and there might not be any place bad to say about that place for you. But that doesn't mean that it's a great place for everyone. Like Ibiza is awesome. I'm not going to recommend Ibiza to my mother for a vacation.

So we need to find a way to make when you're talking about travel, you gotta talk specifically to certain people. So that's what we tried to do. We actually implemented a rating scale covering 5 different categories, things to do, nightlife, food, and call safety. I think that pretty much encompasses that whole travel experience. But then along with ours, instead of just doing travel reviews and saying okay this is what I like this is what I thought of this place is all community-based. So, everybody can rate these places, and these locations on those different metrics.

05:20 – Gresham Harkless

That's great. And especially I think in this day and age where, a lot of times when you are traveling, we're asking as many people as possible, as close to us, like what has been their experience because like you said, you know, so well, we define that experience in a lot of different ways to just say it was good or great. It seems like it's not even scratching the surface about like what that experience was like.

So I love obviously that you talked about that. And as I mentioned, when I introduced you, that personal feel, but also being able to kind of quantify that and define that in those different ways from security and all those different aspects, because people based off what their experience is, what they will consider to be a good location, we'll define that in different ways.

06:04 – Tony Jefferson

Yeah, it's like, I kind of think of it as trying to make, trying to collect all these subjective opinions and trying to make it, give it something quantifiable and useful.

06:15 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think in this day and age, like, that's one of the beautiful parts is, you know, the I think the world that we live in is that you get that opportunity here, you know, those different perspectives, those different suggestions, anytime you're going to buy something, you're going to go and read the reviews and see how it was for everybody's experience.

So to be able to do that, you know, related to traveling, especially too, because often, you know, if you're taking time and often money and, you know, those resources into going to a different location, you want to know as much as possible and as many different perspectives so that you know, hey, this is actually going to be a great fit for what I'm looking for and how I would define, you know, having a vacation or going on a trip.

06:52 – Tony Jefferson

Exactly.

06:55 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce? And it could be for the business, it could be for yourself personally, or a combination of both. But do you think it's that ability to be able to understand that it's not just, I think it's a great vacation, you think it's a great vacation, but it's what do we think? Do you think that kind of sets you apart and kind of the side of the part that makes it unique?

07:16 – Tony Jefferson

Yes. It's a given example. Like, let's say you go on Amazon and you want to buy this shirt and there are a thousand reviews on the shirt. But let's say all the reviews are written, all the reviews that are saying this shirt is great are written by tall people. If you're short, that does you no good. So you wanna find reviews written by short people? So part of what we do is we wanna try and match travelers up with short people with short people, tall people with tall people. So you're reading reviews from people who travel the same way that you travel.

07:51 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I think that's phenomenal. And I love that kind of metaphor as far as like the shirts or the shoes or stuff like that. Like, how do they fit? How do they fit on you? And I think when you start to think about traveling, you start to look at it in the exact same way where it's not, you know, this is necessarily right or wrong, this fit, this doesn't, it's like, what is going to give you that same experience that you're looking for, who are the type of people that would do that? So I love that community feel to be able to at the end of the day, you get to set up having a great experience because you have connected with people that are valuing and understanding and sometimes even define the same things.

08:26 – Tony Jefferson

And even that and also doing that way. Another big thing about it is that a lot of places, a lot of awesome places don't get talked about. A lot of awesome places don't get talked about. Another one, I went to Warsaw. The only reason I went to Warsaw was because the tickets were super, super cheap. I paid more for parking than to take my whole family. So, I never heard anything about Warsaw. The only reason I went was because the tickets were cheap and I'd never been before. Warsaw was awesome. That was the first time I had pierogies. Man, I'm still upset that no one has ever told me about them before that.

09:02 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I haven't been and I'm upset too that I haven't heard about it as well. So I appreciate you for sharing that. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I love that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:20 – Tony Jefferson

I think the best hack I have is being passionate about the product. That is the most important thing because, as you probably know, many people from the outside think running a business is easy. But, man, there are days when you just get molly-wopped. And if you aren't passionate about it, if it's not something you love, you will quit. So I think that that is probably that would probably be my most important hack.

You see people getting businesses where they get in the business because they see other people making business, making money off that business. And a lot of times they don't last that long because they're not in it for the same reason as these other folks that are successful are with it. So that would be my hack. Be passionate about your product.

10:07 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that the beauty of that is it starts a lot of times before you even start, you know, the business. A lot of times it becomes like, what are you passionate about? What do you like? As you said, when in your story, you were passionate about traveling. So it became something as a result of being able to kind of do that. So I really love that you were able to kind of take that passion and turn it into a business.

And I think so many times we are trying to figure out either or like, should I do something that makes money or should I do something that I'm passionate about? And a lot of times we don't have to choose either. We can do both. If you're really, passionate about what you do and you excel at it, a lot of times it provides opportunities to make a lot of really good money and coin. And of course, have that passion and that purpose and what it is that you're doing.

10:50 – Tony Jefferson

I firmly believe that if you are passionate about something you can profit off of it. The internet is full of

10:56 – Gresham Harkless

it. Yeah, awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. It might be something you would tell your younger business self if you were to hop into a time machine or might be telling somebody if they're looking to start a business.

11:10 – Tony Jefferson

A lot of people, want to wait until they're everything's perfect before they start their business. You can't do that. You have to go ahead and start because it's never gonna be perfect. What you, do when you start your business, what you have envisioned at the onset will not be the finished product. There's so much of what the market is gonna dictate. There's so much what you're going to learn stuff like, oh, I can do this better doing it this way. You're never going to have a perfect product. At least, especially a true entrepreneur is never going: to have a perfect product because they're always going to see, hey, I can make this better.

I can make this better here. I can make this better here. It's never going to be perfect. So just go ahead and get out there and start. And don't be afraid to fail. It's so important that we, I think the importance of ownership gets lost. A lot of folks, they're chasing that money, but money really isn't all that important. Money doesn't give you, money doesn't really have any power. Ownership has power. Ownership lets you choose who you're going to partner with, who your suppliers are going to be, and who you employ. Ownership is real power. And I think that gets lost a lot, especially in the Instagram culture where everybody just wants to be flashy and don't worry about all that.

12:30 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I appreciate you so much and sharing that. I definitely want to, you know, impact that a little bit because, you know, again, we can get so caught in the money and the dollars and how much am I going to make from this? And we lose sight of the ownership and how powerful that is, how much approach or rebrand or do whatever it had to be. But I think if we don't realize how connected failure is to success, then we're gonna try to avoid it, in the same way, we're also avoiding success as a whole.

12:59 – Tony Jefferson

Exactly.

13:00 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Do you really believe that that's something that happens for all entrepreneurs and business owners, or do you think that is something that we all have to kind of step into to understand, or do you think that it is something that you just kind of learn along the way if that makes sense?

13:20 – Tony Jefferson

Well, for me, it was something I learned along the way. I had a vision at first, and then, well, it was a travel website, and then we got hit with the pandemic. So during that time, I had a lot of time to think and really focus on, okay, what are my what are the, what are my website visitors telling me? Where am I going to try to have time to focus on, okay, forget what I want it to be? What is the market telling me that they want? So it gave me time to pivot and actually focus. I can't say it's the same for everybody, but that's how it worked for me.

13:57 – Gresham Harkless

And essentially through those ominous and seeing what that impact will be overall. So truly appreciate all of those nuggets. So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping our different quote-unquote CEOs are on the show. So Tony, what does being a CEO mean to you?

14:13 – Tony Jefferson

The CEO is the person who sees the full potential of what it can be. I think a lot of folks, like you see a lot of companies fail because they're stuck in their one model. They never wanted to grow any more than what it is. But if you were like, once again, I go back to that, you gotta be passionate about that product. You can step out and see the big picture, see the full potential, see where it's gonna be, not next year, 10, 20 years down the line. You're not worried about so much about, okay, where the profit is gonna be next year. You worry about that. That's what a CEO is to me.

14:51 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I think that's extremely powerful. And I love how it ties into the hack and the nugget that we've been talking about. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Tony, truly appreciate that definition. I, of course, appreciate your time even more. What I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

15:13 – Tony Jefferson

Aside from the travel reviews website, we also have an interactive map on there where you can track all the countries you've been to. You can mark down your favorite countries and you can look at not countries, favorite cities specifically. And then you can go back and look at global trends. We've got tons of travel tips, travel, we've got a section called Travel Inspiration. Mostly it's photos and my travel videos. Travel videos are awesome.

I would check those out on YouTube, traveling session. Unless you hate sunrises, sunsets, beaches, and jazz, if you hate those things, then you might not want to check it out. But if you love those things, it's definitely worth checking out. We're on most social media platforms. If you wanna find exactly which ones we're on, you can check us out at travelingsession.com, contact us and it has our most usual hangouts online.

16:07 – Gresham Harkless

Well, to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information that's shown us as well too so that everybody can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on. So I appreciate you for leading the way, Tony, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:18 – Tony Jefferson

All right, you too. Appreciate you.

16:19 – Intro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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