Jamie Biesiada
Travel advisors quite literally got down to business at The Biz Huddle last month, a new conference from agency owner Courtnie Nichols that encouraged experienced advisors to work on their businesses at the Thompson Austin in Austin, Texas.
The Biz Huddle uses the tagline "Not your average travel conference." It was designed by Nichols — the Philadelphia-based CEO and founder of TravelBash Corp. — as a "mastermind experience," with no keynotes or supplier presentations. Instead, days were divided entirely into sessions on topics like efficiency, marketing, technology and financial health. Advisors were encouraged to start working on their businesses while at the Biz Huddle, with speakers offering real-time suggestions, help and feedback.
"I told them that I don't want them to be inspired, because that doesn't mean anything," Nichols said. "You were inspired — that's why you paid the money to show up. I want action. That's what makes the difference."
A different approach to name tags, presentations, swag
A standout speaker for many attendees was team and leadership development consultant Tatiana O'Hara.
She spoke about teams, hiring, delegation, which key performance indicators to track and more, Nichols said. She also gave attendees a 30-day strategy plan to better their businesses.
For Nichols, personally, one of the biggest pieces of knowledge she took away was in the arena of AI: "The Google search is no longer key now because 60% of search is AI," she said. She also learned quite a bit about new AI tools that might be relevant to her business, like AI-powered inbox Superhuman.
Even supplier "presentations" differed from the norm, Nichols said. For instance, one held a 30-minute popsicle break on the terrace with the company's logos on the popsicle sticks.
"It was just a different spin on things like that," Nichols said.
Also different: No name badges or lanyards. Instead, she said, attendees got to know each other personally over the course of four days. Instead of a swag bag, Nichols gifted attendees a book by one of the presenters, Sam Vander Weilen, "When I Start My Business, I'll Be Happy."
Next year, huddling in Nashville
This year's event saw 30 attendees. Nichols originally planned to open it to as many as 50 but was selective with the advisors she admitted. They had to be selling at least $1 million annually.
While next year's event might fluctuate a little in size, she said The Biz Huddle will never get larger than 50 attendees. The event will return next year from July 21-24 in Nashville, with the exact location to be determined.
Advisors of the caliber that attended the event are already running solid businesses, Nichols said. But she would encourage them, and any advisors, to "open your minds."
"Most people have only done things the way they've been doing it, the way they enter the industry," she said. "The thing is, there's no event, there's nothing in our industry right now that is like what we're doing, because there's no event focused on business. There's training, there's marketing and all this other stuff around the host agencies and consortia, but not specifically you and your business, about you making money, not you making other people money."