Scaling 10X Travel While Keeping Customer Connections Personal with Travis Cormier

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. I’m excited for today’s episode. We’re talking to the CEO of 10X Travel, and what he does is he teaches people to utilize credit card rewards to save money on travel. Very interested in hearing more about that. But first, hey, Travis Cormier, are you ready to rock?

Travis Cormier: Let’s rock

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So we always start off here on a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Travis Cormier: Yeah, uh, when I joined the company, I was the second full-time employee, and we were really just like many small companies trying to figure out moving from being like a solopreneur to operating as an actual company, uh, and doing it while we were fortunately going through a lot of growth. Uh, we managed to make the Inc.

5000 list of fastest growing private companies in the US, and [00:01:00] like all of these are great things, but it can cause, uh, a bit of like chaos and turmoil ’cause so much is changing, um, at the same time. But what really made me so proud throughout that was not only did we make the list of fastest growing private companies, but we also made Inc.’s list of best places to work in the US.

Uh, yeah, so like we managed to not just scale the business, but also just make it a good place to, to work. Um, you know, we, we, we did that by looking at like, what do we do? What do we value? What do we try to deliver for our audience, and how can we also deliver that for people within our company? Um, you know, one of our core values is [00:02:00] to help connect dreams with reality.

We said, "Okay, how can we connect the dreams with reality for our employees?" Beyond just like a paycheck, right? Like beyond what you just expect people

to do. Um, so one of the things that we instituted is a, a program that I love called 1K Your Way. It’s $1,000 every year to just pursue an interest. The only way it gets rejected is if it’s related to work, you know.

If you’re like, "I wanna use it to go to this conference." No, no, no. You can go to the conference, but use it for something else. Um, we’ve had people take scuba diving lessons. We’ve had employees… Actually, last year a n- one of our employees in the Philippines bought a motorcycle ’cause he always just wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle, so he used it to, to buy a small motorcycle and then do a tour, uh, around one of the islands.

So just like really [00:03:00] cool to get to, uh, do that for our people, and also it just helps us connect more, especially over such a, such a big distance. You know, I think in the world of remote work, some of that personal touch and personal relationships can be hard to sustain sometimes.

And so when you can bring an element of Personal relations that aren’t just work-related and encourage it just helps, like, build, build a more fun, fun place to work.

You know your peop- you know everybody more, you know what their interests are, and it just gives you something to talk about that’s not just the weather or something.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s exactly it. Yeah, you get to know everybody’s interests through that program as well. Hey, can they learn guitar? Is anybody learning an instrument?

Travis Cormier: I, I actually plan to use mine this year. Um, I was a, a band nerd through, through [00:04:00] high school. I played French horn. But I always wanted to learn piano, so I’m actually planning to use mine this year to get a little keyboard and take, take some lessons

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Oh, and nowadays it’s so much easier with the, the, the keyboards that you can put your headphones on as well, and you can also learn right directly from YouTube or from various other online subscriptions. It’s… A- and now’s the time to learn an instrument.

Travis Cormier: Yeah, yeah. I’m, I’m, I’m really excited for it.

Um, I think, I think it will be fun. And actually we did have one employee, uh, buy a guitar and take guitar lessons, so

I, I won’t be the first

Tim Melanson: That’s brilliant. So now along with the good note, though, sometimes things don’t go as planned. You know, there are gonna be some mistakes being made along the journey, and I like to normalize those so people can see that you still, you can still live. You can still get through it. And I’m wondering, can you share with me something that we can learn from and maybe even how you recovered from it?

Travis Cormier: Yeah. Um, one of the biggest [00:05:00] unintentional mistakes that we made, right? I think this happens a lot in small business, is you run into things that when you started them was not a mistake, but it became an issue that you needed to, to solve later. Um, what happened to us was we… We’ve- we’ve really leaned into, like, building community and building a personal sense of connection with our, with our audience, which when we were small meant our founder…

Um, I’m not the founder, I’m the, the incoming… or I’m the new CEO. Um, but when we were, we were starting, our founder put his email everywhere, and he said, "Hey, you got questions? Just email me.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Travis Cormier: email me." And that’s a great way to build that personal relationship with people. But then as your audience in this [00:06:00] consu- in a consumer-facing business starts growing, and people are still emailing your, your, this one person, like, that burden can become so large.

And I was talking to him once, um, and he said, "I don’t know how to solve this, because I’m spending 20 to 30 hours a week responding to emails. It’s one of my favorite parts of, of my job. I love this connection with people." But this j- this isn’t scalable, right? And, and that’s, that’s the, the accidental mistake when you’re, when you’re small you might have a part of your business that’s n- doesn’t scale, but you don’t

Like, the time and world where that happens might just be a pipe dream then. But if it, if it, if it happens, it, it does. So how, how do you solve this really odd [00:07:00] conundrum of we’ve built a business based off of this sense of, uh, of connection with people, particularly with, with our, uh, with our CEO, and ma- maintain that sense of personal connection but make it scalable?

That was, like, where we, we, we got pretty, pretty stuck. Um, but what we, what we … How we approached it that ended up working for us was realizing that personal access and personalization aren’t the same thing,

that what he was providing was personal access and personalization. But people are reaching out because they trust the brand and the business, um, and he just happens to be the point of contact.

So h- so we just need to solve that personalization part, um, to [00:08:00] deliver that high-touch intimate experience that people come to expect from our brand. Um, so the way that, that we did this was, you know, we built out a, a small team of people to handle these questions that, that come in. Uh, but we actually empowered them with tools like Loom.

Um, if you’re not familiar with Loom, it’s kind of like a screen recording. You can record yourself. Um, and that’s how we, we answer a lot of them. Not all of them, but a lot of them we record a Loom and send it to them. So now instead of just getting a wall of text, you get someone talking to you over email. So it keeps that sense of personalization and connection with your audience in a scalable way, um, that’s not tied just to that, to that personal aspect

Tim Melanson: That’s, that’s a great idea. Yeah, and, uh, it, it would get so overwhelming to have to answer all that. Hey, nowadays you have chat though ,

Travis Cormier: Yeah. [00:09:00]

Tim Melanson: that might save some time

Travis Cormier: In my, in my, you know, it was def- this was definitely pre- pre-AI days. Um, and it, and honestly, it’s one of the places we, we love AI, but it’s one of those places where, uh, like that’s not worth it to us. It’s not worth it to lose that, that sense of personal connection. Um, you know, if people are reaching out personally, they’re doing it for, for a reason.

If they wanted the, the, the answer from chat, like, I don’t know, they could probably just go to ChatGPT and

ask it directly

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it kind of defeats the purpose, eh? If you’re doing, if you’re supposed to, like, actually read the email and respond to it. But I mean, oh my goodness, that would be so much time, you know, especially as that grows. And for the CEO, I mean, that’s, you, you know, that’s, that’s a full-time job right there.

And what, how can they run the business now at this point, right?

Travis Cormier: Right, exactly. Like, uh, in a small business, as regardless of what seat you’re in, you’ve got multiple hats. The CEO does, anyone in the [00:10:00] organization does.

And when one of those hats is taking up 75, 80% of your time, how are you leaving enough bandwidth to, to handle everything else?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. But no, with the, uh, the whole Loom idea, that’s a great idea. And, and I mean, a, a, a benefit that you could do there is that there’s probably some times when you get the same question over and over again. So if you record that one Loom, as long as you don’t use their personal name in it then

Travis Cormier: Yeah

Tim Melanson: you might be able to be in the situation where you just send the same Loom to, you know, a bunch of people.

It’s still you talking and handling that question, right?

Travis Cormier: Exactly, yeah. And that’s exactly one of the things that we did. Um, you know, we- you don’t always get the same question, but the people that tend to be asking questions the most are your newer audience

members who are learning and trying to gather information. So a lot of times they are sending the same, the same questions. Uh, and yeah, by just not saying, "Hey Tim," [00:11:00] saying, "Hey, thanks for reaching out," like that simple removal means you can send the same one to, to multiple people and still

maintain that, that personal touch

Tim Melanson: Totally. So let’s talk a little bit about The Jam Room. Now, I see there’s a dog in the background there.

Travis Cormier: Uh-huh

Tim Melanson: So I assume that’s part of your home office, is it?

Travis Cormier: It is. Oh. She, she decided to, she decided to move. Yeah, I decided not to blur my background, you know? It’s, the theme is, is

Tim Melanson: Working from home.

Travis Cormier: from home rockstar,

so like w- let me not hide where I work from, from home,

Tim Melanson: Yep

Travis Cormier: and share it. Um, yeah, that’s, that’s, uh, one of my two at-home coworkers. The other is on the floor behind me.

You can kinda

Tim Melanson: Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, I see. I didn’t see that at first.

Travis Cormier: down there. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: That’s so awesome. And, like, I, I mean, the thing about it is that nowadays, I mean, since the last five or six [00:12:00] years, it’s been a lot more normal for people to work from home. But before that it was like people didn’t understand it at all, right? And now it’s, it seems to be a lot more normalized just because people had to go through it, you know, even in the corporate atmosphere.

And there was a lot of companies that just didn’t want to embrace it at all, right? Before they realized that, hey, maybe we can still get productive employees, you know, with, with a work-at-home model, right? And, you know, it sounds like you’ve got a remote model as well, so I’m wondering, like, how is that working for you?

Are- do you feel like you get just as much, if not more, from, from the productivity of your people

Travis Cormier: Uh, I, I think so. Um, I think people knowing that they have a little bit of that flexibility, um, means that they understand when, you know, i- if they need to run an errand during the day. Like, we’re all adults, right? Like, no one wants to have to ask for a hall pass to go out and ru- and run an errand.

It’s just [00:13:00] about understanding that, like, your, your job is to get work done.

So as l- as long as people are are completing their, their deliverables, completing their work. Like, I tell everyone, "I don’t really care if it takes you two hours or 10 hours." I mean, I, I do in a sense, but at the end of the day, you know, if it takes you two hours and your work is done for the day, be available, but I don’t expect you to be sitting there just waiting on something else to come in. Because on the flip side, there’s gonna be those weeks when there’s fires and, and extra work that has to get done where you’re gonna work a little bit more. So it’s a bit of give and take, and I think when people are working from home, it makes it a little bit more palatable than, "Oh, I’m at the office and I’m done, so now I just kinda have to sit here and wait and bide my time and not be personally productive."

[00:14:00] Whereas when working from home, like, you can be personally productive. I can go unload the dishwasher. Uh, I can go do a load of laundry if I need to. And it, at the end of the day, like, it- how is that any different from going to the break room and grabbing a cup of coffee and sitting around chatting with coworkers?

Like, and there’s, there’s definitely benefits to that. I don’t

wanna, wanna downplay that, but, um, like, it’s just about respecting people, people as adults. Um, and for, for us, w- we’ve not found productivity to be, to be an issue at all

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And I think that there are people that are more suited for an office, and then there are people that are more suited for working from home too. But I do find that a trend that I’ve, I’ve been noticing, not definitely in the, in the home business area, but even in corporate areas, is focusing a little bit more on [00:15:00] maybe productivity and deliverables rather than focusing on time sitting there, right?

And, and I think that’s an encouraging way to look at it, right? Because it really does reward the high performers. ‘Cause now, I mean, if you can get your work done, you know, in half the time, w- well, isn’t that great? Like, wh- why would you be penalized by having to sit there for the other half of the time and do nothing ’cause you’re already done your work, right?

Travis Cormier: Yeah, I mean, I, I think basing productivity on hours worked is just lazy management. It just says, "I don’t actually know how to manage deliverables and manage my team," but it’s the easiest thing to point to, to say, uh, "My team is working 100% of the time assigned." Like, cool, but how do you know that that’s actually accomplishing the, the goals and stuff?

It’s just lazy management, and it’s just an excuse for, for not [00:16:00] knowing how else to, to manage people

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And I think, I think for most businesses, productivity is gonna be the thing. The only ones that would count, you know, for how much time you’re there is maybe you’re working a storefront, and you actually have to be present for that specific time, ’cause customers are gonna come in. Um, you know, but that’s not, that’s different, and, and that’s not the same as most businesses.

Most businesses have these deliverables that they have to create, right? And i- it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to do it. You don’t have to be sitting there and waiting, right? So I, I like that. I think it’s encouraging, right?

Travis Cormier: Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, I, I, I agree. I mean, my former job, I used to be a chemist. I can’t bring chemicals home. I had to be there.

I

Tim Melanson: There you go

Travis Cormier: if, if they told me to bring chemicals home, I would, I would be a little weary of wherever, wherever I’m working. So you’re right, there, there certainly are some jobs and some careers where it’s necessary, but for the vast [00:17:00] majority of office jobs, uh I don’t, I don’t see it as

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, a- and even as a chemist too, like, uh, there’d probably be things you have to accomplish during the day, so even that doesn’t necessarily have to be, you know, clock in at whatever time, clock out at this time, you have to be there during that time. That would only really apply to a storefront thing or a customer support thing where you’re actually handling a shift.

Other than that, I mean, if you get your work done and you do it faster than everybody else, I, I thi- I just think it, it, it encourages you to bring on better talent, right? ‘Cause now the people that are encouraged to be faster and better, right?

Travis Cormier: Yeah. Yeah. And it also just gives you better access to talent, right? I mentioned we have some employees based in the Philippines. We couldn’t do that if we were an in-person company. Um, it– We don’t even have two employees that live in the same city. So, uh, like, when we go to [00:18:00] hire, we don’t have to limit ourselves.

You know, I’m in, I’m in Houston in Texas in the US. If we were in person, I would limit myself just to Houston, which not a– It’s a big enough city. We’ve got plenty of people here. But I can cast a nationwide or even international net to be sure that we’re, we’re getting, getting the right person. And I, I also think it helps with retention.

Like, people really enjoy the work from home, those high performers, especially if they’ve worked somewhere before that really drove them to, to burnout. Um, the, the work from home life just I think for a lot of people works better.

You know, it can be lonely at times

Tim Melanson: It can be. It can be. But, I mean, there is ways you can get around that. You could go work at a coffee shop or, uh, you know, or if your dog is right there,

Travis Cormier: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: that helps, right?

Travis Cormier: [00:19:00] Yeah. Or like, like I go to the gym at 4:30 every day, and it’s group classes, so I see the same people. I’ve got friendships. That’s my

Tim Melanson: coffee shop. Your, your, your, uh, yep, that’s your water cooler talk

Travis Cormier: Yeah, exactly. And those times when I’m like, "I don’t even wanna talk to people, I just wanna work around people," like you said, go to a coffee shop, go to a co-working place.

Um, but it gives me that flexibility to, to choose that rather than be forced into it

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I love that. Let’s, uh, you know, let’s get a little bit more into the band then and the people in your team that have success. I’m wondering, uh, you know, you- you’ve got a pretty large organization. You came on to the organization, so you, so you didn’t necessarily build it from scratch. Um, but you’re probably very focused on making sure you have the right talent and you also make sure you get rid of the wrong talent, right?

And do you have… What kinds of processes do you have to make sure that that stays true?[00:20:00]

Travis Cormier: Yeah. Uh, one of the, the big things that we do, um, that was… We, we work, we work with a business coach who helped us implement, um, our quarterly alignments, is really what we call them. You know, uh, yes, it is a bit of a review, but part of it is to be sure that we’re aligning with people on that, that personal level.

Um, so yes, we do review based off of your, your work deliverables. We also measure based off of the culture fit. Um, being a remote company, maintaining that company culture does come with some additional challenges. So we look at both. We look at work performance as well as cultural alignment to evaluate people.

And it all, for, for me, it all comes back to intentionally creating the space for that to happen. You know, we can often let [00:21:00] things start to slide, um, and if it’s not addressed, then It, it can start going too far. By doing it once a quarter, it just creates the opportu- opportunity to have those, those candid conversations with people.

Because sometimes it’s just we’re going through different phases of our, of our lives. You

know, your person who’s consistently an, uh, an A plus, a, a member of your A team, might dip down to the B team, and that doesn’t have to be a red flag. It should be a warning sign. But by have… creating the intentional time and space to talk about it means we can’t avoid it.

And a lot of times when you have those conversations, you just realize, oh, okay, you just have some stuff going on in your life. Okay, like, A, is there an opportunity for us to help you with that? B, like, even if not, it can just be about [00:22:00] getting aligned on it. You know, I experienced that myself. My mom got sick during the pandemic. Uh, she lived four hours away by herself. And so days when I wasn’t working, uh, because I was still a chemist for the first half of the pandemic, I left work, drove to my mom’s to go take care of her, stayed there, then came back, went to work, back and forth, which meant not a ton of time with my wife, not a ton of time with my dogs.

And that doesn’t mean that I’m a… Like, my, my work inherently suffered because I never really got time to decompress personally, and that doesn’t mean that I’m a bad employee or that there’s a systemic problem that, you know, needs to be addressed through performance management.

But if y- if you don’t talk about it and don’t converse about it, like, it can [00:23:00] be easy for a manager to look and say, "Your performance isn’t there, so now we’re gonna put you on a performance improvement plan."

And it can just help contextualize the lives that we’re going through. And as a remote company, creating those intentional moments, uh, for me is, is paramount to, to success because you don’t have those kind of organic water cooler type moments that you have in person. So it’s about creating that intentional space to talk with people and determine then, you know, uh, is this something temporary? Sometimes it’s not. Like, the, the truth is sometimes it’s not, and people’s performance just is not keeping up. Maybe their skills aren’t keeping up. Um, and it does need to be addressed through performance management, but it’s about having the space to determine what the right approach is rather than just kind of dismissing everything and really, like, recalibrating.[00:24:00]

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And this is one of those things that, um, when you’re thinking about starting a business, uh, uh, or when you’re thinking about what’s important in your business, a lot of people will focus more on the sales, you know, on the, the actual, the transfer of, of income and all that stuff, and these soft kinds o- kinds of things are things that kind of get pushed on the back burner, I imagine, right?

A, a lot, right? It’s just ’cause y- you’re like, "Oh, do I need to spend my time doing that right now?" But, you know, as you’ve probably already discovered, if you don’t spend that time, then it, it will, like, it- you’re just in a reactionary mode because things start to fall apart and you don’t know why. Whereas if you, like you say, have this intentional time set and you put a priority on it, you know, and there’s probably lots of other examples of things like this that you need to be intentional about, um, and spend your time on it even though it doesn’t directly relate to dollars in the bank account, right?

Travis Cormier: Right. Yeah. And [00:25:00] like it, it not only goes towards understanding your employees, but also like, like in what they’re going through, but for them to talk to you about what they’re experiencing too. Um, because if they’re feeling burnt out or they’re feeling overworked or they’ve got stuff, stuff going on, and you’re just dismissing it, not addressing it, like that’s when people start looking for

another

Tim Melanson: work, yeah

Travis Cormier: well.

And so then if they leave, well, would you rather have spent two hours once a quarter versus now they leave and it’s gonna take maybe at least two to four weeks to hire someone, a couple of weeks to get them, them trained up? And that’s even more time that’s taking away from your ability to do, to do other work.

Uh, so it, it can be hard to prioritize some of the soft work that needs to be done that [00:26:00] it’s not necessarily moving the revenue or the profitability directly, but it’s, it’s securing it more. You know? It’s, it’s helping to, to protect it, um- It’s a give and take sometimes when you’re scaling. Like, there are some stuff that you choose not to do, and you’re building up, uh, I call it, like, institutional debt.

You know, you’re building up s- up this backlog of work that you know needs to get done someday, and you’re choosing not to. And you’re, you have to accept that risk. Like, you have to accept that you can’t do all of it.

Um, someday the bill is gonna come due for that institutional debt. And, uh, like, uh, that’s okay.

Like, that’s, that’s okay. That’s the natural phases of business. You know, I mentioned we were on the Inc. 5000. Very few companies, like, go through growth and just stay like [00:27:00] this forever. Everyone would love that. I don’t know a business owner that wouldn’t love that. But the simple nature of business is it’ll probably eventually plateau, and you have to set up for the next stage of growth, and realizing that that’s when you’re gonna be able to repay some of that debt.

Um, but it’s choosing along the way which debt is okay to, to wait on and which ones you can’t. Um, and I think if you wanna build a good culture with places to work, uh, the, the work around people management is one that you can’t set aside

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, uh, I, I love this, you know, aspect because one of the things I’m trying to accomplish with even this podcast is to inspire more people to take better control of this stuff. And because I think that a lot of these very, very large m- monopolies have, have sort of [00:28:00] like created these work atmospheres that are not super good for most people.

And so I think that number one, you know, you can become self-employed and take control of that stuff and be a solopreneur and make a living that way. But also, you can create your own business as you guys are doing, and actually do it with people in mind and with culture in mind, and with, you know, a, a really clear focus on making it a good place for people to work to contrast against the many bad places for people to work, right?

And, you know, th- there’s gonna be people in all of those buckets, ’cause the bottom line is that we’ve gone through this many times on this podcast, is that not everybody is gonna be super well-suited for running a business, right? There are people that are far more comfortable with working for somebody else, and that is totally cool because there are also a lot of people [00:29:00] that wanna run a business and employ other people, right?

So they need people to work, right?

Travis Cormier: Yeah, exactly.

Tim Melanson: So we can all get a, get those dreams met, and we can create atmospheres that are really good for people to work in, and we can create this new economy that I think is being created right now

Travis Cormier: Yeah, definitely. Um, I mean, one, one of the things that I think doesn’t get talked about enough about running, running a business, owning your own business, um, like people talk about how exciting it is and how cool it is and how freeing it is, and all of those are true.

Like, all of those are true. But too often people don’t discuss the emotional burden that comes with it.

Um, uh, you know, when it’s your business and it’s not just, you know, if you’re a solopreneur, it’s your livelihood, and that’s a very different emotional toll than [00:30:00] working for a big company that’s generally probably gonna be pretty financially secure. Like, you’re typically not worried about your paycheck bouncing.

Um, like there’s this emotional side to it that I think many people don’t expect and aren’t prepared for.

Um, and it doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it applies if you’re a solopreneur. Then if you grow and have employees, like their livelihood depends on you, and that’s a pretty heavy burden, I think, uh, to, to carry that- Isn’t talked about probably ’cause it’s not the fun side of bu- or it’s not the side that people who are selling courses

about starting your own business,

uh, want to be, to be honest about.

But it’s the truth is that, like, people are putting their, their trust in, [00:31:00] in you and your company to be able to deliver so they can maintain their livelihoods. And, uh, that can be a very different weight that people aren’t expecting. Um, and some of the hard decisions that, that can come with that. You know, you mentioned it- it’s easy to talk about keeping good people, but when it’s about truly people who aren’t performing and aren’t delivering and letting them go, like-

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Travis Cormier: Man, that’s, that’s tough.

Now, it’s worse for them. Like, I will always admit that it is worse for the person that, that’s being let go. But when you’re in that situation, like, you just became the villain in someone’s life story.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Travis Cormier: And that’s something you have to, you have to live with, and, you know, those aren’t the, [00:32:00] the fun, sexy stories on LinkedIn that, that help get likes.

Um, but it is the honest truth of the, the emotional burden that comes, whether it’s personally or the responsibility to other people

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And I will say though that, um, I don’t know if it’s completely impossible to avoid that situation, but, but there are ways that you can improve it. And yeah, I mean, you’ve mentioned a few of them. If you have really good onboarding and really good hiring processes and, like you said, those quarterly reviews, things that will actually, you know, kinda keep

‘Cause I mean, like what you said earlier, there’s a possibility that whatever’s going on, especially if they were a good hire, now they’re not, there’s probably something going on in their personal life. And if you don’t know what that is, then you might end up in a situation where you’re letting them go and you just don’t get it.

And it really is just something that they need a little bit of grace on to get through something, and then they’ll be back, right? Um, but yeah, they … I mean, that just goes right back to what your m- main point [00:33:00] is. If you don’t spend that time doing those things, then you’re gonna be a villain, villain pretty quickly, and nobody wants that, right?

Travis Cormier: No, no,

Tim Melanson: So it’s worth it to spend the time.

Travis Cormier: It is, even, even just for your own mental health.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Travis Cormier: Yeah

Tim Melanson: Right on. So let’s get into your soul a little bit. So tell me what’s exciting your business right now?

Travis Cormier: Yeah. Um, what I am really excited about, um, is we’re going through kind of a fundamental shift in, in our business, and it’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s scary. Um- Our current revenue model, uh, pretty heavily relies on affiliate marketing. Um, so full transparency, you know, you mentioned we teach people how to use credit card rewards.

We partner with the banks, and we get a commission if someone opens a credit card through us. We don’t hide that. We’re honest with people about it. Um, and what that means, though, is [00:34:00] that we are always subject to the whims of the credit card companies. Our revenue is not… It’s not ours. Um, uh, and what I mean by that is if the banks change policies, if they decide to just not do it anymore, it really impacts our business.

Um, we saw this during the pandemic when our revenue dropped 80, 90% over the course of a, a couple of weeks. Um, so we’re really working to diversify that. Um, we have, uh, a BHAG, if you’re familiar with that term. If not, it’s a big, hairy, audacious goal. It’s, like, what’s, what’s that big goal that you’re really working towards?

Um, so our, the one we’re working towards right now is called FTB. It’s free the business. Um, and it doesn’t mean we don’t want our affiliate revenue, but it, it’s the– We know that we have accomplished it whenever we can cover 100% of our operating [00:35:00] costs from non-affiliate revenue. Um, so because then we’re not subject to, to the banks.

If they change their policies, we don’t have to inherently react to the way that we operate. And this isn’t something we’re doing as a response to anything or from the banks. It’s about, like, we have a mission to, I mentioned before, to help connect dreams with reality, to educate our audience, to empower them to travel the world and save.

And so long as our revenue is dependent on factors that are outside of our control, that mission is at risk. And so we want to try to recapture as much of that control as, as we can so we can continue providing value for people, um, even if, even if the banks decide they don’t want to, to do affiliate marketing [00:36:00] anymore. Um, if they wanna keep doing it, like it’s, it’s, it’s great, but we want to at least protect it, so that way we can be there in the long run, serving our, our community and our audience. Um, I’m really excited about it. It means we’re really having to rethink the value we provide to people. You know, we’ve always…

Our value proposition has always been- You don’t have to pay us anything. Like, if you get value, just use our links and someone else will pay us. Uh, whi- which is a really cool value proposition, right? To, to tell your audience, "You don’t have to pay us anything to get value from, from our company." Um, but the truth is, is that that means that the value we provide is going to continuously be at risk.

So we want– I really wanna be sure that if our audience is providing us directly with, with their hard-earned dollars, that they’re truly getting good [00:37:00] value, um, getting more return than what they, they are paying us, so that way it can be just a win-win relationship where they can get more value than what they’re paying, and they know that we’re gonna be around here for the long haul, uh, with their best interests in mind

Tim Melanson: Right on. So how does the program work?

Travis Cormier: Yeah. Uh, so we typically tell people to start with our course. Um, they can go to 10xtravel.com to, to find it. Um, I know that it’s a lot to ask people to start with a course, but the reason why we do it is we feel that it’s important to be ethical and responsible, uh, educators in, in this space. You know, when we’re talking about credit cards, you and I were kinda chatting before, there’s definitely some risks to be aware of.

Like, you can easily go into debt. You can easily pay a lot of money. You can mess up your credit. And we don’t take those risks lightly, and that’s why [00:38:00] we ask people to just check us out, start with our, our course. It’s free. Our c- our introductory course will always be free, um, because it, it sets that foundation to provide you with at least a little bit of baseline information to get started and to make the decision about if this is right for you.

Uh, without that, I don’t know that I would feel super comfortable telling people to just go open up credit cards. It’s let’s be sure that you’re educated about what you’re doing first and making the, the right decision for you and, and your family

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that, I love that. That sounds so responsible too, because, I mean, we were talking a little bit before this, this call, and, and credit cards are so misunderstood and just so thrown out there. Like, people will just go and open up credit cards and open up store credit cards and just, just like nothing.

And okay, might be fine, right? But, but on the other hand, you know, there, there’s a lot of like, I don’t [00:39:00] even know what I wanna call it, fine print, I guess, like, on, on how they work, and you can get yourself into trouble really quickly. And then the other aspect of it too, which just kind of goes through our society, is that we tend to not talk about money, and especially problems with money, with people around us, including our families.

A- and, and so you’ll end up, you’ll end up, you know, just struggling silently with this thing that was just pushed upon you with no education at all. And, and now, you know, you’re kind of in trouble. So i- I mean, if nothing else, I mean, if you’re offering a course on that, that’s enough I would think for anybody to just go take the course to understand a little bit more of it.

You could… I, I, I mean, do you have to… Like, is this a sort of something you could do anonymously as well? Or, like, how does that work?

Travis Cormier: Uh, so the, the online, the, like, text-based version of our course, uh, they do have to register for our software platform.

Um, but if you do wanna do it, uh, do it more anonymously, we actually have our own podcast, [00:40:00] and the first six episodes of our podcast is the course in audio version.

Tim Melanson: Oh, well, that’s great. What’s the podcast? Tell me more.

Travis Cormier: Uh, it’s called Take Off!

A Points and Miles Podcast by 10x Travel. So a lotta people kept asking us for an audiobook version of the course for years, and that just … Something just didn’t feel right about an audiobook

version. Um, and finally one day we said, "What if we tried a podcast format?" So we did. And, um, now the podcast keeps going, but it let us set that foundation, "Hey, you don’t have to register.

You don’t have to, to read it. If you wanna listen, there you go."

Tim Melanson: So is this something… Now, okay, I mean, if you don’t have a credit card yet and you’re listening to this podcast, go learn about it ’cause it, it could get out of control really, really quickly. But I’m wondering, is this something that someone could benefit from if they already have credit cards and maybe they’re already in some trouble?

Travis Cormier: Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, if, if they’re already… I- if, if you [00:41:00] already have credit cards and you’re managing it fine, you’ll learn how to optimize them to get more value from the credit cards you have or maybe change your card portfolio a bit. But also, if you’re already in trouble a little bit, some of that underlying knowledge and information just about how they work can help you better understand what you’re, what you’re dealing with, um, to work on fixing things, um, and just preparing yourself.

Um, in fact, we have an episode as well in our podcast with our, uh, social media manager and our community manager who he had to go through fully repairing his credit, um, before he, he could get started. Um, he had unfortunately, like, just gotten in a rough patch of life and his credit, um, wasn’t in a great spot.

Um, but it’s a wonderful story of how he went from rebuilding his credit, understanding it, and [00:42:00] putting himself in a better position to, to manage it going forward, so that way he then could take advantage

of, of the credit cards

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing. Yeah, because, I, I mean, that’s the, the flip side of it is that these, the point systems and, you know, all the, the cashback things and all the credit cards, they, they offer all these really good programs in a way. I mean, a lot of it is just free money. And, and that’s what kind of catches people off guard is ’cause, uh, uh…

But, but I mean, the, the way I, I always thought about it is that, okay, nothing in this world is free. S- that doesn’t make any sense. So if they’re offering you this great, you know, travel pack where you’re gonna be able to go and take all these vacations and all that stuff, somebody’s paying for that somewhere, right?

And so I mean, if you’re, you know, uh, taking Travis’s courses and learning how to use it, and now all of a sudden you’ve got a situation where you’re benefiting from these programs, then that’s fantastic, but somebody isn’t, right? [00:43:00] And, and I think that the, the, the goal really now is to not be that somebody who isn’t, right?

And, and try to get a little bit more education on that. And if it was easy, if, I mean, if it, if it was something that, oh, you know, it’s just a little mistake, well then they wouldn’t be giving free vacations away to people. Like, for… Like, it clearly is a big problem that people are getting themselves into, otherwise they wouldn’t have that kind of money to give back to people, right?

Travis Cormier: Exactly. Yeah. Um, between that and, uh, you know, if, if you have a business, you- and you take credit card payments, you know you’re paying, m- m- here in the

US maybe 2% or 3%.

every time someone swipes it. They, they’re making money there too.

Um, so it’s like if they’re taking that away from your, from your business, do whatever you can to, to get some of the pie back for

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. Well, and, and that’s the part that I think probably people are like, "Oh, but that’s where they make their money." Yes, that’s one of the places [00:44:00] where they make their money, but interest is significantly more, right?

Travis Cormier: those in- those interest rates are a lot more than 2% to 3%.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, absolutely. Right on. Okay, so we’re running out of time here. I got one more question. This might be the hardest one. Who’s your favorite rock star or band?

Travis Cormier: Ooh. Uh, you know, here’s what I’ll say. Um I’m gonna twist it a little bit because I, I have way too many come to mind. The best live show that I’ve ever been to,

if this is a fair twist, uh, proud to say Lady Gaga,

Tim Melanson: Wow

Travis Cormier: on such an incredible performance. We saw her here in Houston, and had so many flames going that you could feel the heat every time that, that it came off.

Um, really just incredible. Um, I’ll probably [00:45:00] also give a shout-out to the Foo Fighters, who I saw at Austin City Limits, I think two, maybe three years ago. Um, they’ve been doing it a long time. They know how to work a crowd. They know how to put on a great show. And part of what made it, uh, extra special was they were performing at the same time as Shania Twain, and my wife really wanted to go to Shania.

And I said, "Shania has her Vegas residency, so we can go see her in Vegas. I don’t know when we’ll get to see the Foo Fighters again." Well, Shania finished 30 minutes before the Foo Fighters and came over and got up on stage and sang Best of You with the Foo Fighters, so, uh, yeah, great. Just great being out there at, like, 9:30 at night. At least getting to see both of them, um, was, was also really, really memorable

Tim Melanson: That is so awesome. Thank you [00:46:00] so much, Travis, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun.

Travis Cormier: Thanks, Tim. I really enjoyed it

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information, and we’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar podcast