The post Episode 34 -11 Habits of Likeable Tour Leaders appeared first on Be a Better Guide.

Getting the attention of a group is not a trivial skill. Even when customers have paid to come on a tour and employed you as a guide to share your knowledge – getting an audience to pay attention can sometimes feel like an impossible task. How can we effectively get people’s attention when leading a tour or facilitating and experience? As someone who worked as a camp counsellor for many years and then ran a summer camp program, I had to quickly find strategies for quieting down large groups...

Learning techniques to remember people’s names is a great skill for everyday life. But as tour leader, guide or someone who works in the service industry – learning names becomes one of your most important skills. In this video, we’re going to look at how to learn people’s names on tour and give some practical suggestions for quickly recalling the names of your guests.   Dale Carnegie, the author of ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, wrote his flagship book in 1936 but it remains a...

The curious thing is, many tour leaders have never encountered the term ‘interpretation’ Well, for starters, we are not talking about interpretation between languages or other types of translation services. Those are a skill unto themselves – but not what we are talking about today. In this instance, we mean the interpretation of culture, the environment or history as done by an educator, park ranger or tour guide. Or in other words, think of interpretation as simply a communication...

Good satire is hard to come by. So when Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the award-winning creators of South Park and The Book of Mormon, decided to parody the common mistakes made on group tours  – I got pretty excited. Although the writers of the show really take aim at zipline tours in this episode – let’s not get too smug. We’ve all been on group tours with these exact same issues… and there is even a chance that your tour suffers from similar symptoms. Everything from soggy sandwiches,...

Ever wanted to travel the world and get paid? Does the sound of staying at fine hotels and eating at exquisite restaurants around the world appeal to you? Do you love people and always being on the road? Then you definitely need to tune into today’s video, where we talk about three jobs where you can do exactly that! Terminology in the guiding world can sometimes be confusing, and honestly there is a lot of overlap between the job descriptions of a tour guide, tour leader and tour...

How to Deal with Late Guests As a tour leader, tour guide or tour director – dealing with late clients is something you face regularly. No matter how clearly you communicate, or how well information is posted on your website – there are many guests who WILL come late to your tours. Sometimes it is through no fault of their own, sometimes its because of cultural differences (a shout out to my African and Brazilian brothers and sisters!) but sometimes, its just because. Being in the...

Have you ever wondered how to lead a tour in the rain? Nova Scotia is called New Scotland for a reason. At almost any time of year, a storm system can roll up the coast and dump buckets and buckets of rain all over our lush and often muddy province. Well, that’s where I was born, and where I’ve led many a tour. On this week’s tour guide training from Be a Better Guide, we talk rain and what to do about it. And if you happen to work in the desert or one of those tremendously idyllic...

Want to hear about some of my bad habits? Well, I usually bite my nails, I sometimes make people wait for me… and my girlfriend accuses me of being obscenely positive… and that’s just the tippest tip of the iceberg. Well, the worst bad habits are the ones that we don’t even realize we are doing (not all of us are so lucky to have such an outspoken girlfriend!) For us as tour guides, tour leaders and those looking for a job in the travel industry – here are four bad habits that can really...

First Impressions could not be more important for a Tour Guide or Tour Manager – Arguably one of the first tests you have to pass. Unfortunately, many tour leaders, even with professional training, lose credibility before they even open their mouths! This week’s QnA focuses on how we can all put our best foot forward and really make a strong impression right from the get go. We’ll also spend a humourously large amount of time discussing the pros and cons of mustard stains… well folks, the...

The Big Question: How to Get People Talking on Tour? Let’s face it, no matter which part of the world we work in – all of us guides need to be comfortable talking to people we’ve just met. For many, this is an especially challenging part of the job and one that takes a lot of practice to improve. Well to help you on your way, this week’s audience-driven tour guide training will offer 3 great tips on how to get people talking and avoid that dreaded awkward silence. -Kelsey T Finished...

It happens to all of us some of the time, but almost nobody knows what it’s called! Well my friends, today we shed light on speech disfluency and how we as tour guides, tour leaders and tour managers can fall victim to this bad habit. But never fear! We also talk about four ways to keep those pesky filler words out of your speech. That way people can focus on the amazing things that you are sharing, and won’t be distracted by the way you are saying them. -Kelsey T Finished Listening? Let...

As tour guides, we have a lot to learn from some of the great orators of history, as well as great speakers in our modern era. They provide us with powerful technique that great speakers use to hone our public speaking, plus a grab bag of tools we should be able to use in our tour leading jobs. Today I share one skill that will keep people hanging off of your every word. It’s simple, easy to implement, and it even will help you memorize the key parts of your tour. Interested? Click above...

Bill Clinton is easily one of the most engaging and charismatic speakers of our generation. But have you ever stopped to consider what makes his speaking so effective? In this week’s tour guide training, we break down some of Bill’s techniques using video footage from one of his ‘re-elect Obama’ speeches. This particular speech is regarded as one of Clinton’s finest and has been analyzed on a number of other blogs online (@TimFerriss) But today we hone in on how the former president’s...

If you have been a tour leader, tour guide or tour director for any length of time, there is a pretty good chance you’ve had to deal with an angry customer. And I don’t mean a disappointed or slightly irritated client either – I mean REALLY angry. Well, it turns out that there are things that we as tour guides can train ourselves to do when faced with this kind of emotion. I’ll let you in on two little words that can make a WORLD of difference. And guess what? We’ll even get a quote and...

After spending hundreds of dollars on ‘mind-reading, wearable tech’ from sketchy online stores, I will be the first to tell you that mind reading technology has not yet arrived. However, after leading tours for almost ten years now, I’ve been able to pick up on a few questions that clients never ask on tour. These will not be surprising for many of you, but here is why I think they are important: 1) It is great service to pre-emptively answer a question before it is asked! 2) It reassures...

Are you curious as to how to use props and visual aids on your tour? Would you like to have your tour stand out from the pack? Is there some way to have people walk away from your tour eager to recommend it to others? Of course there is! We here at Be a Better Guide spend everyday thinking about how to best provide tour guide training, inspiration and collect insights so that your tour will grow into something worth talking about. -Kelsey T Finished Listening? Share this podcast using...

Today we talk about how to make tours more interactive. Keeping the attention of your group is one of your biggest challenges as a tour guide, tour leader or tour director. On any given tour the leader is doing the majority of the speaking, and so it is especially important to think of creative ways to get your audience to participate.   You should never treat your tour like a lecture and even the most powerful and interesting tour guides on the planet, will always benefit by having...

If you as a guide have ever asked yourself, When should I hold my ground on my refund policy? or What should I do when a guest is demanding their money back? – then this video is for you! For those seeking refund policy help, the honest answer is that the no matter what your guidelines are, you should always follow this golden rule: No matter what the reason, give them their refund. So the answer to the question: When should I give a refund on my tour? Is: Whenever a guest wants...

Exceptional Customer Service can come in many forms. As a tour guide or tour operator, you want to be taking care of your customers as much as possible, but how do you give amazing customer service? Well, it is an enormous topic, and one we will revisit many times here at Be a Better Guide! In this video, I thought I would give you three concrete tips and examples, just to give you a sense of what great customer service can look like. Think of it as some inspiration as we continue to...

It is a hard thing to lead a tour with no energy… when you have almost no enthusiasm left in your body. This week we finally tackle the tough question of how do you avoid burnout as a tour guide? This is one of the most common questions I’ve received from tour leaders around the world and it is one of the biggest challenges we can face. You don’t have to be a tour leader for very long during a busy peak season to understand how much energy you need as a tour guide. And we all know that the...

Everyday, tour guides and tour leaders face the challenge of how to handle cultural differences. It is our job to educate, entertain and inspire travels and allow them to appreciate different parts of the world. In many ways, we are cultural translators ourselves. We explain things that might be difficult to understand and point out things that travellers may otherwise miss.   The other side of the coin, however, is that we as guides and presenters, first have to bridge that...

You may have heard about live streaming apps already, but have you ever wondered how to use Periscope for your business? Can it really be used to promote your tour and drive more sales?? In this video, I answer that question with a resounding yes! I’ll also explain why I think that tour guides are uniquely positioned to kick butt at live streaming and grow their potential customer base. Periscope is about to take the tourism industry by storm and I want you to be ready. Finished...

Tour Leaders and public speakers of all kinds know that their voice is the most important tool in their toolbox. That’s why this week we are focusing on how to get your voice ready for tour and sharing a number of our favourite vocal warm-up exercises. As a treat for you, we are featuring a special guest: Rocco, an experienced guide from the Netherlands. Not only is Rocco a great guide but he has also been a performer, actor, and dancer ever since he was eight years old. Rocco sent in some...