0075: Travel With Interesting People with Lauren Koenig

Intro  [0:00]  

EA Interviews Episode 75. Inspiration, transformation, success stories and the Imperfect Action Round seven days a week. Join Mario Fachini for today’s Expert Authority Effect interview. Alright, expert authority world. I’m excited to be here with another great interview today I have none other than model entrepreneur, speaker and CEO of TWIP, Lauren Koenig who specializes in travenality. We’re going to get into this with you in just a bit right after we thank our sponsor. 

SPONSOR – Business Book Checklist  [0:34]

Why every business needs a book, including yours? Would you like to say five plus hours with every prospect generate more leads and profit in your business now? Visit BusinessBookChecklist.com and learn how you can implement this in your business today. Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, Miss Lauren Koenig. Lauren, it’s great to see you. How are you doing today? 

Lauren Koenig  [0:53]  

I’m great. Hi, Mario. How are you? 

Mario Fachini  [0:57]

Feeling great. It’s great to have you here today. 

Lauren Koenig [1:00]

I know. I’m so excited. I’ve been waiting for a long time to be on the show. So I’m glad we finally got our acts together in our busy schedules, and we made it happen. 

Mario Fachini  [1:08]

Absolutely. So let me ask you, what made you want to start TWIP, what inspired you to start your company? 

Lauren Koenig  [1:14]

Oh, my goodness. Ah, you know what, I’ve been asked this question a lot. But you know what, it has to always come down to a cereal box.

Mario Fachini  [1:23]  

Really?

Lauren Koenig  [1:24]  

I swear to God, a cereal box. You know, it’s funny enough, my family owns a summer home up in Canada. And when I was a little girl, I would sit every morning eating breakfast, and I would eat my Canadian Shreddies. And every single day on the back of this little box, and I couldn’t read it because it was in French. And so, I would ask my mom, like, “What does this say? I can’t read it.” And it was so funny, because she’d always be like, “You know, Lauren, I don’t know French. Just go learn French if you want to learn how to read the back of the cereal box.” And so, you know what, I went to learn French with the Ball State University. I’m very proud of it, chirp, chirp, go Cardinals, and I minored in French. And after college. I wanted to go to France, obviously to learn my — you know, to be able to speak my newfound language and no one wanted to travel. Everyone was having babies or they were getting married or, you know, they were like, “I’m broke and poor”, as every college student is. And so, I tapped into likeminded people, the French club of Ball State University and they were like, “Lauren, you know what, you should not go to France, you should move there.” I was like, okay, challenge accepted, hold my beer. And so, they held my beer for about a year and a half when I moved to France after college, fell in love with travel, fell in love with different cultures and you know, this big, great, beautiful world that’s out there. And I started to really understand the motives behind why people travel and why they didn’t travel, what prevented them from traveling. And that was my cue to pretty much like abandon everything I went to college for, and go down the world of travel and then, travel tech. And then, basically, you know, long story short, it was curiosity of the back of the cereal box that helped me, you know, want to dive into like I said, the travel industry and start to solve problems that I was seeing in front of my face on a daily basis. So that’s — it was kind of like a nugget that was always inside of me. And I didn’t discover it until many years later, but I think that’s really the underlying cause.

Mario Fachini  [3:23]  

That is a great story. So what’s been the most interesting thing you’ve experienced since you’ve started?

Lauren Koenig  [3:32]  

That’s a loaded question.

Mario Fachini  [3:34]  

That’s what you said you wanted, right?

Lauren Koenig  [3:39]  

Exactly. Don’t be on the show. Mario, let’s trick you, Jose, here’s the questions to prepare with and then, I’ll give you a curveball.

Mario Fachini  [3:46]  

After you said you wanted some, so yeah.

Lauren Koenig  [3:49]  

What’s the most unexpected thing, most unexpected thing? I would have to say it’s always harder than you realize. And you think that running a company is like, okay, I got this, you’ll learn something, you take 10 steps forward, but it’s really 10 steps forward and it stopped, you’d see it backwards. And that’s really exhausting. And I think to realize how much stamina you need as an entrepreneur is just incredible. You know, I get people emailing and calling and texting me, you know, on a weekly basis. “Hi, Lauren. I’m so and so, I want to start my own business. What should I do?” And I was like, “Well –“

Mario Fachini  [4:33]

Don’t, don’t. 

Lauren Koenig [4:34]

Yeah, don’t. But I will say, “If you do, make sure you know, you admit that it’s the hardest thing you’re ever going to do in your entire life and that you need to sacrifice literally everything that you stand for like it just needs to go out the window and that you need to start over. So I always say if you want to start a business, it’s like going to college, the university and crossing the line to get your diploma. And then, someone is shaking your hand and then, someone taking your diploma away from you and then, lighting it on fire and having to go start all back over again for four years, and that’s being an entrepreneur. The learning curve is incredible. And you know, you think you know, but you really don’t. And that’s what you need to know and figure out. So I think for me, just the most surprising, unexpected thing is how incredibly difficult it is. I’m a very strong person, I was an athlete, you know, I have a resiliency inside of me, but there are days where I was, you know, crying and that cereal that I was drinking when I was six years old. I was like, Why did I do it?” So it’s a long journey. It’s a tough journey, but it’s also very rewarding at the same time.

Mario Fachini  [5:44]  

All right, Lauren. So I’ve seen some of the rewards you’ve been able to achieve and it’s pretty impressive. If you could go into a little bit more detail as to how you help people and who you help. I think everyone would be interested to know what you actually get to do, even though it is difficult at times. Let’s go into detail about what you actually are doing.

Lauren Koenig  [6:04]  

I love it. Lauren, what the heck do you do with your life? Well, Mario, let me tell you. So I’m the CEO and co-founder of TWIP, which stands for Travel With Interesting People. We are an AI engagement solution platform for travel brands. So we basically help travel brands understand their clients’ travel behavior. So I don’t know if you know, but everyone has a travel behavior, we’re all different in different phases of this world. So we’re different when we’re in school, we’re different when we’re at work, we’re different when it’s at home, we’re at home, but we’re also different when we travel. And so —

Mario Fachini  [6:37]

You’re talking about their travenality, right?

Lauren Koenig  [6:40]

I am, I am. There you go. Exactly. Everyone has their own travenality. So we help travel brands and lifestyle brands as well understand their clients travenality and then, with this secret, powerful information, we help brands better market to their customers to understand their travenality, to speak to the core of them, the needs, the wants, and the desires of a user, of a traveler, and to really, you know, help personalize their product services and content, because we all now — know nowadays, personalization is just kind of a used up dirty word that means nothing. And brands really need to start, you know, focusing on their customers, and really what they want. So, you know, we’re kind of those — that — the eyes and ears and insights of a travel behavior and we’re definitely one of the first to be really focusing on that in the travel industry. So that’s what TWIP does.

Mario Fachini  [7:32]  

And where are the — some of the cool places that people can expect to travel to?

Lauren Koenig [7:36]  

Well, I think that depends on truly the company that uses their services. To be honest, you know, the great thing about the travenality is when you understand the user’s travel behavior, you can apply that to your product and be able to you know — basically, I call, Spotify it or Netflix it. I mean, would it be cool to be able to have a product that, you know, for travel and basically get recommended things based on your travel behavior or your travenality? I mean, it kills me because, you know, one of the biggest problems is that, you know, I’ve been traveling a lot this year, and you know, I Google a hotel for X, Y, and Z in Barcelona and then, X travel brand is emailing me hotels for Barcelona four months after I went to Barcelona. I’m like, “Listen, homie, like that ship has sailed last year. You snooze, you lose, like it bothers me that I have to explain to travel brands of who I am as a traveler. And nowadays, like they should already know I travel enough and I offer up the information willingly because I’m sick of having to type in my preferences and settings and whatnot. And so, I think that the travel brands need to actually take a step up in their game and start offering better, better content services and products and personalizations as a whole.

Mario Fachini  [8:49]  

So as for some added context, you say you travel a lot. I think a lot of people say they travel a lot, but if we can put it into some empirical numbers, what are your — what would you say how many miles a year do you travel?

Lauren Koenig  [9:04]  

You know, I don’t know mileage. I actually — I’ve never really cared about the mileage because for me, it’s more about kind of like putting that pin in the map. You know, I will say I’ve been to 17 countries within this calendar year, and within the last 12 months, I’ve been to 17 different countries. So —

Mario Fachini  [9:21]  

So that’s a good reference because some people say I travel a lot in their — once a year, twice a year, once a quarter. And that’s more than most I know, statistically, but 17 countries already?

Lauren Koenig  [9:34]  

Yes, you know, I’m kind of like, forget the domestic travel. Not that I’m belittling it in any way, shape, or form. But I mean, I always believe like, hey, go the distance, because you never know when politically, financially, you know, physically, emotionally, you’re not able to travel, right? So if anyone’s like, “Oh, should I go to the west coast or Tahiti?” I’m like, “Tahiti, Tahiti. Go long, go long, go far.” So the reason why we actually — why I have traveled so much this past year is we were so lucky enough to win $15,000 of free flights from the time zones with airlines and because of our travenality technology. So we were recognized as the winner for that competition last April in 2018. And so, TanZo awarded, you know, this money to us and they were like you have one year to spend it. And I was like, what I said, Hold my beer. I was like, I’ll be right back. And it was really great for me to do this, with my co-founder as well, we traveled to a couple countries, mostly because it helped me understand and reminded me of why I started the company in the first place. And if you’re not using your product and you’re not out there researching and looking and talking to people, you will lose the heart and soul. And you know, as much as travel is glamorous and people are like, “Why are you traveling? Do you ever work?” I’m like, “Please, I work. I just work in different time zones.” I mean, like it’s ridiculous. So — but with this past year has allowed me to dive a little bit deeper into travel behavior, doing the original research that I — when I started this company, understanding, you know, travelers as a whole, what’s out there, who’s innovating, who’s not innovating, what companies are lagging, who is, you know, out there and really servicing their clients, their customers, and making contact all over the world because travel means what, to go from point A to point B. That’s it. Like it doesn’t say as quickly, fast —

Mario Fachini  [11:28]  

I would want to enjoy the process.

Lauren Koenig [11:30]  

Exactly. But my point is that travel just — the ones as I travel, I hear I breathe air.

Mario Fachini  [11:37]  

That’s good. I do too.

Lauren Koenig  [11:38]  

Tell me more. And I want to know more information. And that’s really like the mission behind, which is to really help, you know, define that travenality. And so, being able to travel to these 17 countries, 18 hopefully, by the end of the year, we’ll be able to, you know, just tweak our product and make it better, you know, as fast as possible.

Mario Fachini  [11:58]  

That’s really exciting. Because I see five, 10 years from now, how this can apply to everyone, both business and personal. You know, no matter what you’re doing, people love to travel and you — sounds like you have a golden ticket to make it better for everyone. So the people that are — I love the name, Travel With Interesting People. So dive a little bit deeper into that as far as why didn’t you pick travel with boring people?

Lauren Koenig  [12:26]  

So I have to give my actual kind of like real shout out to my homie, Bo Roberts. He is a big actor out in LA and he’s a very dear friend of mine. And it’s so funny because he’se such a handsome little man, I love him to death. I shouldn’t say little, like meaning he’s just this like punk. You know, he’s like Indiana and like just hot little like actor, he’s just so great. His personality is so spunky. He’s so creative. And he’s a very good friend of mine. And I was really trying to think of this, you know, a creative, awesome name that, you know, branded well for my company. And I remember, one day, we were walking in the subway and I was like just racking my brain. I was like, “I don’t know what to name my company. It’s not cool. I don’t know what to do.” And I swear to God, no shit. He just looked at me. And he’s like, “Well, why don’t you just go on a TWIP and name it, Travel With Interesting People. And I’m like, “What’s up?” I was like, “I’m trademarking that, Indiana.” He was like — and ever since then — I mean, he’s such a creative guy, but I’m like, just on the spot. And I was like, is everyone’s interesting? Everyone has their own story. Everyone’s unique. And I want to celebrate that. And that’s what’s important to me, you know. So you know, I believe that everyone’s got a story to tell. And I think by bringing people together just makes this world more interesting. So it’s much deeper on a lot of levels. But you know, it’s a fun name.

Mario Fachini  [13:52]  

It is. You’re like, hold my beer and you did. Cement this and it’s forever. So from everyone that’s traveled with you so far and your company, what’s the biggest success story you could say that you’ve been able to help someone achieve?

Lauren Koenig [14:10]  

My goodness, that’s a tough question. I think really, you know, we started off as a community, like — so TWIP started off with a community. And it’s not that that dream is, you know, has been finished, we just kind of put that product to the side right now, knowing that as a consumer, for consumer travel products, we need a lot more capital, and a lot more runway to build this community. And I believe that the b2b travel side is the way that we’re going right now, because brands really need help in this area and it’s what we excel at. So we basically took kind of that, the core tech out of our b2c platform and started like using it to brands, because, you know, we’re small, we’re agile and, you know, in the travel world, you have like the big guys and little guys, and like there’s no one in between. And so, the big guys need the little guys to innovate and that’s something that we were able to provide for these larger companies. But I think that, you know, even in just the earlier days, I don’t really have a great answer to your question in terms of like something specific, but I think that, you know, in the early days of really honing in on travel behavior and understanding that people are different away from home. So the definition of travenality is why someone travels, when you take away the elements of time, destination and price. You — there’s 10 different travenalities and a user can be a percentage of some or all of them. So with this information, you then can recommend products, services and content. So I think like the best like success that we have done is being able to take the travenality and turn it into a product that brands can actually digest. You know, we’ve taken– you know, travel behavior is something that is in front of us every single day and we’ve been able to package it and turn, you know, with our algos and our technology and be able to kind of package it for brands to be able to offer to consumers on a broader scale. So, you know, we’re kind of like that, the algo behind like, you know, Spotify or Netflix, that recommendation engine in travel that people have been trying to crack forever. So it’s not like, you know, one specific travel story, is that you will see this and many years to come. And you will start to see people talk about their travenality. They’ll be shopping by their travenality and they’re going to understand that it’s really the only important thing when it does come to travel first, you know, destination, time, and great price will come second, but people need to be thinking about their travenality when they start to shop or travel.

Mario Fachini  [16:41]  

Well, I think that’s a huge success story because being able to break it down and understand people, I — same thing with me, if I’m looking something up to purchase, to invest in, to travel to, I get the same emails, hey, would you like to do such and such? I’m like, that was three months ago.

Lauren Koenig  [16:57]

I know. It drives me crazy. 

Mario Fachini  [16:59]

People don’t realize that, you know, when they’re asking me for marketing and everything, they’re going, what do you think about this, this or this? It’s like, “Who are you talking to?” If you’re talking to a millennial on a billboard, wrong market to message. I you’re talking to — you know what I mean? Everything has to match up. It’s not that the idea is bad, the execution of it is though, in most cases I found. But with what you’re doing, that’s huge, because now, you can say, hey, here’s the travenality types. Figure out where they go into and now, everything else can calculate from there to give them the best experience.

Lauren Koenig  [17:33]  

100 percent. You nailed it, Mario, you 100% nailed it. Because you know, everyone — you know, you have your demographic, there are psychographics that the user brought, like the burning desire, why someone travels and the core of them, that’s their travenality. And if you can understand their travenality, then you can just, you know — then everything’s just downhill from there.

Mario Fachini  [17:52]  

And actually recommend the right hotel for that type of person versus just randomly, there’s 30 within a five mile radius, well, that’s great. But now, I need to decipher through all this crap.

Lauren Koenig  [18:02]  

Yeah, it’s tough. It’s even tough for me too. I mean, my co-founder is just a whiz at flights. And I’m always like, “Yo, personal flight, lady”, like, “Please help me find this flight.” And people do that to me, too. I mean, I get it, you know, phone calls, text emails all the time, like, “Hey, Lauren, what do you think about this? What do you think about this?” And there’s so many factors that go into that. And it’s really hard to keep up because I need — I’m like, I need to ask you like 10 questions, but if I understand those 10 questions, then the sky’s the limit, right? But it’s just understanding like really their travenality and when they, “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter.” I’m like, “No, but it does”, because anything that they’re asking me, all I need is the answer to these certain questions that I can actually digital world a travel for them because it’s a very segmented, saturated, fragmented industry. And we know this, and it’s only getting bigger. The travel industry is one of the — you know, I think it’s 10% of, you know — it’s just, it’s such a large market and there’s so much innovation that needs to still happen in the travel space. And it’s — the big companies are not listening enough to the consumers right now, like I was at a conference the other day and they were like, so do you think that airline — it was like a round table. Do you think airlines are innovators or followers? And there was a couple people in the airlines there, and like, “Well, we think we’re innovators?” And I’m like, “No.” You got to think stuff — so I’m like, “Geez.” Because it’s just they’re too big right now and you need to have a small team of agile, to move quick enough, and that’s what’s the why the little guys are so important to be always innovating in the travel space. And we’re talking from innovation down to, you know, alerts on your cell phone, if your luggage has been boarded onto the plane, the changes to cell phone, push notifications to recommendation engines to even, you know, knowing your preferences when sitting on an airplane, knowing the shortest distance between, you know, if you take planes, trains, automobiles. I mean, travel comes into rentals, it comes into OTA’s, it comes into destination recommendations. It just there’s such a large, large world. And it’s exciting to see the innovations that are happening, that’s for sure, but we still have a long way to go. And we’re just really excited to be a part of that recommendation, kind of self-discovery. We — you know, even with travenality, you can — you know, if you’re compatible with someone else’s travenality, you know, if you’re going to be a good travel partner is another. You know, product of ours because something, you know, that’s important nowadays is people are different away from home. So if you take two best friends and you put them together and they have different travenalities, well, the days of our lives is about to happen. It’s like drama, drama, drama, and no one wants that on the travel experience, when it’s so much time and money that you invest it. I mean, experiences are really — they’re expensive and you can do it cheaply. But there’s a lot of people — that’s where especially the new generation, younger generation is where they’re putting their money is experiences and not houses and cars and things like that. So there’s a lot of weight being put on these trips.

Mario Fachini  [21:08]  

It sounds like you could do a spin off show of interesting people with — that like to travel, interesting scenarios like purposely put the wrong ones together and be like, All right, we’re gonna see what happens over here. It would be like — I know — 

Lauren Koenig  [21:22]  

Mario, Mario, we might be working on something, you never know what we’re up to.

Mario Fachini  [21:29]  

But using your powers for good, it will help people. But you’re absolutely right. Because I like to travel when I speak. And you know, fly in a couple days early, couple days after and you know, enjoy it. But sometimes, it’s like, oh my gosh, you wouldn’t — you know, other speakers and authors are, “Well, you wouldn’t believe what I had to do to get here.” I’m like, “Someone didn’t plan.”

Lauren Koenig [21:50]  

It’s tough and that’s a travenality type. Someone who plan, someone who wings it, you know, just someone travel with, you know, their pets or someone working on a vacation. You know, as someone competitive, do they travel for events? Do they travel for leisure, health or wellness or adrenaline? I mean, there’s many different things that goes into that. And one of the travenalities is an urbanite when he travels for, you know, urban dwelling, what they want, when they want, how they want. And someone, there’s another travenality called altruist, someone who travels to help others. So I’m very altruistic and very urbanized when I travel. It’s funny because I’ve never worked in my personal life. I mean, I’m an entrepreneur, like can you be more of a risk taker, but when I travel, I’m like, I’m good. I don’t need to jump out that plane. I don’t need to eat that snake, like I don’t need to go zip lining, like I’m not that, I’m just not that girl on that trip. I mean, like I think I just grew up with a brother who went to the ER too many times from jumping off of like swing sets and shit like that. So I just — I’m very like, I don’t — I’m not a maverick and I’m not Epicurean, like I could care less where we eat at all. It’s not — and then, there’s people that are like, Oh my gosh, they have new crème brulee at this tiny little Parisian cafe and I’m like, I could care less. I don’t —

Mario Fachini  [23:01]  

As long as they have food.

Lauren Koenig  [23:02]  

Right? So there’s just all these things that go into it. And you know, if you give people the opportunity to travel somewhere with someone with similar travenalities, the chances are much higher for a more enjoyable experience.

Mario Fachini  [23:18]  

Well, I appreciate you for sharing that. And I’m curious what all the travenality types are. Where would someone find that information out?

Lauren Koenig  [23:25]  

Absolutely. So if you’re a brand that wants to work with us, you can just go to www.TWIP.co. We’re TWIP Trips on all social media. So it’s really easy to find us and you can reach out to us directly. But stay tuned, we still have tons of stuff coming out for consumers in terms of being able to take that travenality assessment and we’re actually talking to a good handful of brands right now that are going to start offering our technology. So if you start getting recommendation engines in your email and if travel brand is starting to know you a little bit better, it might be because of our tech.

Mario Fachini  [23:56]  

It sounds like you got a lot of good information you could put into a book also. Those personality types, the travenality types. I really am curious what they are, so I’m going to check that out.

Lauren Koenig  [24:08]  

There’s 10 of them. I’ll tell you right now, altruist, culturist, Epicurean, immaginavo, solofer [phonetic], purist, Maverick, Victor, wayfarer, urbanites. 

Mario Fachini  [24:22]  

Okay. I think I — we’re very similar. Because for business, it’s like, you know, we’re going to make the moon happen. And then, when you’re traveling, it’s where’s the pool, where’s the hot tub, where are some tacos, that you want to drive 35 more minutes away from where we’re at, really just flew to get here. We’re good. 

Lauren Koenig  [24:39]

I feel you. 

Mario Fachini  [24:41]

All right. So tell me about your speaking. How has that helped your business?

Lauren Koenig  [24:46]  

You know, it’s definitely helped. I’m not gonna lie. You know, I went to school to be an investigative reporter. So I went to Ball State University, I was a T-com, telecommunications major news option. So I was always digging for stories, I was, you know, always in front of the camera. And that definitely, I think, helped in my life of public speaking. It didn’t necessarily make it easier. It just gave me a little bit more a little more reference to what it’s like when it comes to lights, camera, action, but you know, we’re going to be really pushing me as a speaker in terms of travenality and travel behavior. I get a lot. I get asked a lot to be on podcasts or a mentor, you know, certain retreats. I’m actually going up to BC, Canada in a couple weeks for a conference, a lot of roundtables, anything where opinions are needed, I’m, you know, happy to show up. But speaking was definitely picking up, which is great. I love being onstage like I said, it’s not easy. I presented at Focus Right, which is the largest travel conference in the world about a year and a half ago. I’ve done multiple competition, things like that. So you know, getting my feet wet, and definitely picking up the pace in terms of the speaking. But that’s pretty much it. I mean, it’s, it comes and goes but it’s happening more and more as TWIP gets older and we’re finding our niche in that market.

Mario Fachini  [26:16]  

Very good. Well, I have one more question for you before we go to the Imperfect Action Round. And it’s interesting because I call this the expert authority roller coaster because that’s like we’re talking about with entrepreneurial doing stuff. There’s variables, how do you adjust form? So I’ve been asking stuff such as you know, if you were president, what would you do? And you know, if you could talk to anyone else in the world — if you could talk to anyone in the world, who would it be? Stuff like that. And maybe some softball stuff like who’s your favorite celebrity, but I got a — this actually fits really perfect with you.

Lauren Koenig  [26:59]  

I listened to all those questions by the way, I was like, “Darn. I knew those answers.”

Mario Fachini  [27:03]  

One of them I always add — not always ask, I mean, that depends on the person but it’s in the, what is it? Rolodex, it’s in the arsenal, it’s in the whatever, arrow in the quiver deal is when I ask people, where’s one place in the world you would love to travel to that you haven’t yet?

Lauren Koenig  [27:23]  

Thailand, Sweden and Tokyo. Not one, three.

Mario Fachini  [27:28]  

Why?

Lauren Koenig  [27:29]  

Oh, wow. Thailand because of the beach with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Mario Fachini  [27:34]

The nice ties?

Lauren Koenig  [27:37]  

Right. Tokyo because I’m obsessed with the Japanese culture and sushi. And Sweden because I love Vikings.

Mario Fachini  [27:50]  

Okay. 

Lauren Koenig  [27:51]

It’s really as simple as it comes down to.

Mario Fachini  [27:53]  

Honest answers. 60 seconds or less, you’re ready for the imperfect action. And I’ll just throw this out there. Yeah, the beach looked beautiful, but you don’t want to go there because of it, you want to go there for the beauty and stuff, right?

Lauren Koenig  [28:07]  

Of course, of course.

Mario Fachini  [28:08]  

Okay. I was gonna say you saw the whole movie, right? Not just the first part of it.

Lauren Koenig  [28:14]  

I would prefer not to get —

Mario Fachini  [28:15]  

Movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, the beach. I’m like, Yeah, I wouldn’t want to travel after that one, but it looks nice.

Lauren Koenig  [28:20]  

I don’t want to be eaten by a shark and kicked off a beautiful island. No, I want nothing to do with that. I would love to go for the beauty of it. And the Full Moon Festival. I mean, and I love Thai food. Even though I’m not an Epicurean, which is funny. You know, I actually need to reevaluate where I want to go because I’ve been to so many places, and I feel like I need to redraft my list, which I never thought I would get to. But that’s exciting for me. 

Mario Fachini  [28:41]  

That’s a good problem. 

Lauren Koenig  [28:42]

Yeah, I think so.

Mario Fachini  [28:43]

Alright. So we’re going to thank our sponsor, and come back for the Imperfect Action Round. 

SPONSOR — Business Book Checklist  [28:47]

Why every business needs a book including yours? Would you like to say five plus hours with every prospect generate more leads and profit in your business now? Visit BusinessBookChecklist.com and learn how you can implement this in your business today.

Mario Fachini [29:05]

All right, Lauren. We’re back with the Imperfect Action Round. Lauren, are you ready to take imperfect action? 

Lauren Koenig  [29:12]

Do it.

Mario Fachini  [29:13]

First question. What is the fastest path to the cash in your experience?

Lauren Koenig  [29:19]  

Oh, my goodness. Besides robbing a bank, listen to your customer, listen to exactly what they want, understand what their KPI’s are. I think that’s really important. Even though you have this amazing product, and you think you know their needs, wants and desires, you need to ask them, like everyone has their own plan in their own business, and their own KPI’s that they need to head. So understanding companies, their roadmap, and getting to know them and their problems and solving for them is definitely where you should put your focus, especially in b2b.

Mario Fachini  [29:52]  

Excellent. What is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and how can they fix it?

Lauren Koenig  [30:02]  

Not being agile enough. I know that comes down to budget, to personnel, to money, to timing. But you know, companies need to have you know, leaner, smaller team so they can move quicker, moving quicker. Sometimes, you know, leads to moving faster and being first to market. And again, listening to their customers. So I believe that right now, especially in the travel space, personalization is huge, but really cracking that code. And what that means is something that they’ve been promising for a long time and now that the materials are out there, and the products and services are out there, to actually like get under it, and deliver. 

Mario Fachini  [30:41]  

Very good. Third, third thing, thirdly, whatever the question is, all right, the third one, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Lauren Koenig  [30:54]  

To maximize customer lifetime value, make sure there’s always another product to be able to upsell them, you know, make more — if they get bored, make sure they come back for something more. Having one product is great, but always making sure that you can upsell them later or giving them an additional offering is something that’s really important because they’re going to always — they’re going to want to be there for your brand, for your service, they’re going to stay for one reason, but they’re going to come back for something new and exciting because they don’t want to miss out and they already know that they’ve taken the time to get to know the team, they know what to expect of the personnel because you know, it’s a lot harder to go somewhere in a different direction or go work with another team or get to know someone all over again. That’s why losing personnel on a team is so hard, you have to go replace someone. And it’s the same thing in business. So always having a product available, you know, in your back pocket to kind of offer them on a later time, upsell is a great idea.

Mario Fachini  [31:47]  

I love that answer. Always stay innovative. What is a book you would recommend that’s made the biggest difference for your business?

Lauren Koenig  [32:01]  

Oh, I have so many. I don’t know which one? I would probably say — can I do two? I’m doing two, I don’t care.

Mario Fachini  [32:15]

Yes, you can.

Laure Koenig  [32:15]  

One is Presence by Amy Cuddy. It’s amazing. It’s fake it till you become it, not fake it till you make it. She really focuses on body language. And you know, she was the one that coined the Superwoman pose, really being able to using, you know, body language as a power. I love that book. It was so helpful to me as an entrepreneur as well as to anyone that is on my team. And then Tim Ferriss, Tools for Titans. That’s an awesome book. That’s just a big old encyclopedia of like everyone’s tricks and tips. And that’s a great read when you don’t feel like finishing something from beginning to end. And you can just open up the book, and I’m going to read this today. So those are two books that I love.

Mario Fachini  [33:00]  

Great recommendations, great recommendations. So where can people learn more?

n Koenig  [33:06]  

Like I said before, go to TWIP.co or follow us on social media at TWIP Trips. We’re really stackable online. So like I’ve always been a very stackable person, it’s terrible. It’s just everything’s out there, easy to contact us. You can contact me directly at Lauren@TWIP.co for any questions or any businesses that want to work with us and yeah, I look forward to hearing from anyone.

Mario Fachini  [33:29]  

Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Lauren. It’s been an absolute pleasure and you totally rocked it.

Lauren Koenig  [33:34]  

Thanks. I appreciate you having me.

Mario Fachini  [33:37]  

All right. Well, expert authority world, we got another great interview. We’ll see you on the next one. Have a great day. And God bless. I’ll see you tomorrow. 

SPONSOR – Business Book Checklist  [33:46]

Why every business needs a book including yours? Would you like to say five plus hours with every prospect generate more leads and profit in your business now? Visit BusinessBookChecklist.com and learn how you can implement this in your business today. 

www.EAInterviews.com  [34:00]

Hey, thanks for listening to today’s episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show. And also, be sure to check out EAinterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned and more. Have a blessed day and I’ll see you tomorrow.