Recruit and Train Extraordinary Tour Leaders

www.beabetterguide.com sponsored by
How to Recruit and
Train Extraordinary Guides:
Shortcuts to Success
Kelsey Tonner
Founder, Be a Better Guide
www.beabetterguide.com

Special thanks to Tours by Locals
For helping make this workshop
possible

So what is the Be a Better Guide Project??
Our mission is to raise the bar on creating
incredible experiences for travellers.

Online Tourism Academy

Record the most unforgettable guides, tour leaders and
experience hosts in the world!

Online Tourism Academy
• Our mission is to create the world’s best online training
for tour leaders.
• And to build an online community for guides, tour
leaders, and tour companies from around the world to
learn from one another and share best practices.

Building a Successful Team of Leaders
is Comprised of Two Important
Components
Hiring / Recruiting
&
Training and Development

What are your biggest challenges when
it comes to recruiting tour leaders?

Hiring and Recruiting
Shortcuts to Succes

1) Create a
Permanent job
description on your
website

Your Permanent Job Proﬁle
•Even though you only may hire at certain times of the year,
potential candidates are discovering your company everyday
•A permanent job proﬁle will make your life easier when it
comes time to hire and ideally wet the appetite of job seekers

•This section of the website is only aimed at job seekers and
should be useful to them.
•It should answer their questions and inform them of how your
hiring process works
•A ‘Jobs’ or ‘Career’ tab in the footer of your website can help
people ﬁnd this part of your site

This area of the site should be aimed exclusively at people
who may want to work for you and include the following
information:
• A general job proﬁle (with as much detail as possible)
• What responsibilities they will have in the role
• How the application process works and what they need
to do to apply

•Generally it is ok to NOT include information about financial
compensation until candidates have reached later stages of
the interview
•If you offer higher than average salary, benefits or other perks -
be sure to highlight this in your job profile!
Other Information Include

Other Job Proﬁle Best
Practices

•Add Q’s and A’s to this section as you respond to candidates
Build and Develop a FAQ Section

Do I need a second language to apply?
How does scheduling work?
How much work can I expect?
Will the job be seasonal?
Are any beneﬁts included? etc.
Answer the Most Common Questions

Collect E-mail Addresses from Interested
Candidates
•Build an online form where interested parties can receive
‘e-mail updates’ when positions employment opportunities
become available!
•This list will help with the launch of your hiring season, but it
also is a way for you to build a relationship with potential
candidates.

Show How Amazing it is to Work for your
Company
•Video is a powerful tool…
•Consider telling the story of your company and sharing your
passion for what you do

Other Ideas
•Showcase what is like to work as part of your team.
(Company culture)
•Interview present staff and ask why they enjoy working for
you? What do they love about the job?
•**Remember, this content is for potential employees and
should resonate with them VS your customers**

Research Other Companies Online
Job descriptions
GAP Adventures:
https://www.gadventures.com/careers/tour-guide/job-
description/
Backroads Tours:
http://www.backroads.com/leaders/
Collette Tours
http://www.gocollette.com/about-collette/careers

2) Create an 'Ideal
Staff Avatar'

What would your ideal guide look
like?
•Take the time to think carefully about who your ideal staff
would be
•We often fall into the trap of negative or defeatist thinking

“I just can’t ﬁnd the right staff”
“I wish I knew how to ﬁnd 5 more guides like …”
“I put out job advertisements, but there is never much
interest. There are just no good people to hire…”
“Why would anyone want to work for us?”

The Reality?
•You’re marketing and selling your job offer
•The most common reasons tour companies having trouble
ﬁnding applicants?
•Their ideal employees don’t know they’re hiring
•Their offer is not marketed and sold in a way that resonates

What is an ideal staff avatar?
•Essentially you create a detailed sketch of the perfect
person you would like to hire - and then continue to map out
their entire life in great detail
•Just like the ‘Ideal Customer Avatar’, you will use your
proﬁle to ﬁnd your dream staff.

Using your imagination and/or past experience, create this
ﬁctional staff member ‘on paper’
How old are they?
Where are they from?
What do they like doing?
What are their hobbies?
What do they do on weekends? Where do they shop?
What social networks do they use?
What other jobs would they have if not working for you?

Using your imagination and/or past experience, create this
ﬁctional staff member ‘on paper’
MOST IMPORTANTLY:
What are their passions?
What are their fears?
What are their biggest frustrations?
What gets them excited or motivated?

***The more speciﬁc the better***
•i.e. Don’t say they are between 20 and 40… decide exactly
how old they are and how they celebrate their birthdays
•Don’t say they love ‘mountain biking’. Say they are part of a
mountain biking club that meets up twice a week and shops
at this particular bike shop

We will now use this proﬁle as a
guide on how to create a job offer
•This exercise should help you reﬁne the ‘copy’ of your job
description
•Re-write your job offer as if you were speaking directly to
your ideal staff

We will now use this proﬁle as a
guide on how to create a job offer
•Mention their frustrations and draw them in with what gets
them excited.
•Working outdoors?
•Flexible scheduling?
•The opportunity to earn a lot in gratuities?
•Work with an amazing team of co-workers.

3) Your Avatar Will
Inform You Where
to Post Your Job
Ads

Example: Mountain Bike Guides Needed
in Banff, Alberta
•Billy - 21 year old, college graduate
•Looking for a job where he can work outdoors
•He is nervous about earning enough, but really doesn’t
want to spend the summer inside

Example
•What are their hobbies? -Mountain Biking Club.
•Community bulletin board
•Previous Work experience? -Interpreter’s Guiding
Association
•Bi-weekly newsletter, has a section for job offers

•Where do they shop? -Local bike shops in Banff
•Know this is where they come in for a tune up - Talk to
manager
•Instagram account - create an image of your offer to share
•How do they relax? -Yoga
•3 Yoga studios have active Facebook pages
Example

•Where would they search for outdoor jobs?
•wildernessjobs.ca
•monster.ca
•Where do they spend time online?
•Craig’s list / kijiji
•looking for used bikes -
•free listing of a job posting
Example

•What are their other passions? - Skiing
•Facebook group where people can share a ride back
and forth between ski resorts in the winter.
• What Brands resonate?
• Mountain Equipment Co-op
• A potential employer, come in and shops for gear
• newsletter and online forum
Example

•Imagine you are searching for a job as your avatar… Where
would you turn to search for a job? What keywords would
you search in google?
• ***Search for your position as if you were on the job hunt***
Pro-Tip

•e.g.mountain biking jobs, summer jobs Banff, best outdoor
jobs Canadian Rockies, etc.
•Searching keywords in google I found Canadian Cycling
Magazine on best mountain biking in the Rockies.
•Section of their blog that has a forum + twitter account -
they agree to tweet out 5-6 times to their followers about
your cool job opportunity
Pro-Tip

•Just as important as where you do share your job
opportunity, is where you don’t share it.
•If you’re ideal staff likely does not use Linkedin, then don’t
bother with it
•Your energy will be much better spent thinking creatively
about how to get in front of your ideal employees
Pro-Tip

4) Referral
Programs: Do’s
and Don'ts

How does a referral program
work?
•An employee referral program encourages a company's
existing employees to select and recruit the suitable
candidates from their social networks.
•As a reward, the employer typically pays the referring
employee a referral bonus.

•They come with a built-in reference and, on occasion, some
inside information.
•This tends to lead to a much shorter hiring time, a higher
rate of acceptance, and generally these referred hires stick
around longer than other employees.
How does a referral program
work?

•Don’t offer trivial amounts of money. In my experience I’ve
encountered $200-300, and as high as $500 for speciﬁc
roles.
•The cost of recruiting, hiring and training a new employee is
enormous
Don't:

•Give away money before they have done some work for you
- tie to successful hire
•Don’t limit the referral program to only to your guides. Use
your ofﬁce staff and alumni as well!
Don't:

•Don’t hide the fact that you give out referral bonuses - be
honest and transparent
•Don’t make the process clunky, cold, cumbersome or
difﬁcult. Painless as possible. (digital and not too long)
Don't:

•Do have a referral form for referees to ﬁll out.
•Ask how long they have known the candidate, how well do
they know them, and the nature of your relationship,
•Ask about the candidates strengths, weaknesses, why they
would be a good candidate?
Do's:

•You could even have a list of discreet skills, and have
referrers score the candidates:
•e.g. guest service skills, ability to connect with guests,
teamwork, leadership, technical skills, etc.
Do's:

•Do be speciﬁc on the types of people you are recruiting
•Do have an interview process
•Do start early in the year
Do's:

•Use your entire network to recruit talent! Encourage and
nurture relationships so that they feel welcome to refer talent
into your organization.
•Reach out to your alumni, partners, vendors, contractors,
customers, and fans and let them know you’re looking to
hire!

4) Informal Networking

5) Recruiters & Head Hunters

How do you keep your tour leaders happy
and coming back each season?

Training and Development
Shortcuts to Success

The Most Important Characteristics
of a World-Class Training Program
•Creating an ‘always be learning’, guest-focused culture
Foster a spirit of constant, never-ending improvement!

The ‘ABL Principle’
•Always Be Learning
•Think like a professional athlete

•No matter how amazing your experience is
- there is always a way to make it better
•No matter how great you are as a guide -
you can always be better
•Commitment to excellence
What is the ‘ABL Principle’

Growth/Insights will come
from ﬁve main areas…

•self-analysis
•peers / fellow employees
•secret shoppers
•supervisors
•guests
Becoming a Feedback Fanatic

You should be routinely receiving
feedback from as many as possible!

Self-Analysis
+
Evaluation and
Mentoring

3 Sections of the Coaching Card
Got it Down
• These are skills (actions and phrasing) that the leader uses regularly, with conﬁdence and
understanding.
Making Progress
• The leader has shown improvement in the use of the skills listed here, but has not “got
them down” securely yet
Every Tour Leader is Always Improving - Here’s Stuff to Work On
• These are some skills that the leader can focus on next

• Schedule - Have individuals ﬁll out Coaching Cards for
themselves throughout the season
e.g. After training, mid-season, end-of-season
• Have a supervisor or trainer ﬁll out the coaching card
for the trainee as well - then work through them together
Self-Analysis

• Formally request feedback from your staff on how
things could be improved. Make it routine…digital
surveys can simplify!
• Private peer nominations for outstanding service
• *Be mindful of more serious complaints/concerns with
peer reviews
Guide and Peer Feedback

• Automate Guest Feedback as much as possible
• Use in-person forms or staff to solicit feedback from
guests
• Rewards / Incentives for team members to promote
ﬁlling out an internal survey
Guest Feedback

• Option 1 - Only use external review sites
• Option 2 - Develop an internal review system for your
tours + guides
• Option 3 - Hybrid approach.
Guest Feedback

'Would you be comfortable leaving a 5-star review for us?'
Option # 1
Yes! I would love to let people
know about my great experience
Take them directly to your most
important review site
Option # 2
No. But I have some feedback
to help make your tour better.
Take them to a personal
feedback survey (create in
google forms / survey monkey)

****Always separate the evaluation of the
Tour from the evaluation for the Activity
Leader or Guide****
•e.g. “How would you rate the overall performance of your
leader?” Ensure that there is a place to include the name of
the staff.
• Also leave a comments section where guests can leave
more speciﬁc feedback if the choose! (i.e. don’t ONLY use
numbers)

One of the most important things you need
to teach new tour leaders…

To be 100% Guest Focused

Why do most tour and activity
leaders fail to meet their guests’
expectations?

They don’t know what they are!

A training program should include a thorough
review of your guests’ expectations
•The right questions to ask:
1) What promises have already been made to our guests?
2) How do we as staff fulﬁll those promises?

Support Your Team
•Give them copies of your marketing materials and travel
planners
•Take the time to clearly share policies, protocols and
procedures
•Work through guest expectations together

7 Ways Tour
Companies Rock
their Tour Leader
Training

1) Start Measuring Tour Leader
Performance

i.e. Have a numerical rating speciﬁc to each tour leader and
track the average through time…
Leave space on the guest questionnaire for ‘comments’
Use Quantitive & Qualitative Measurement

2) Automate + Digitize Feedback

•What to do? **Get a tour operator booking software system**
•Automate the collection of feedback from your guests.
•MORE Evals - MORE feedback - MORE Online Reviews -
MORE information to help your staff grow!

3) Shadowing and Mentoring

For new hires:
• Have new staff shadow tours as a guest.
•Afterward, take the time to debrief the experience and
answer their questions
• Have experienced staff shadow the new guides on tour.
•Make time to debrief the experience

Debrieﬁng - The Missing Ingredient

What?
Simple observations on what skills, techniques and
behaviours were used
So What?
Digging deeper into ‘why’ these techniques were used
Now What?
How should the leader apply this new knowledge in
their guiding

4) Ongoing Mentoring and Returning
Leader Training

A Coaching Card is the ideal tool for frank and open
discussions about performance and growth
These performance reviews can happen within a
mentoring relationship between senior guides and newer
leaders OR directly with management

Schedule mid-season meetings for coaching,
mentoring and performance review

•Don’t use only ‘year-end reviews’
•Correct course over the course of
the season.

5) Remove under-performing tour leaders

Remember
A great coach not only knows how to motivate people and
get the best from them…
They also know that if someone is not being disciplined, not
listening or not working hard to improve - they get cut.

6) Leverage Technology

• Free Online Training Resources from Be a Better Guide!
•Record and showcase great tours
•Share blog posts, customer service tips, etc.
Training in the digital age

• Online Training offers an incredibly cost-efﬁcient use of
your training budgets
• You can save time and money every year - while ensuring
every trainee is getting the same information.
• e.g. Khan academy… do training BEFORE your training!
Training in the digital age

Investing in training for your team, is
investing in your success

Learning and development is at
the core of what high performing
tour companies do

1) More Rave Reviews

2) Your Customers Become Loyal Fans

3) You Sell More Tours

4) The Ability to Raise Your Prices

We’d love help you!

Thank You - QnA Time!
kelsey@beabetterguide.com
www.beabetterguide.com/resources

Recruit and Train Extraordinary Tour Leaders

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