The Cost of Postponing: Why Waiting is Your Biggest Operational Risk

We often wait for the 'perfect time' to fix our systems, but in a rapidly changing market, waiting is a choice with a high price tag. In this episode, Samantha Smits discusses the concept of opportunity cost in tourism. Learn why postponing sustainability is actually borrowing time from your future, how it costs you preferred partner status, and why the second best time to start is right now.

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Transcript

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Stop thinking a better time will come because the best time was yesterday. Oh, the best time was years ago. But the second best time is right now. So don't wait for your next reputation disaster, the next complaint, or till one of your agents drops you. Hi, I'm Samantha Smith, and welcome back to the Sustainability Edge, the Tourism Podcast. No Yargon, no fluff. We're breaking down sustainability and especially how to turn sustainability in a practical tool that gives you more profit, more time, stuff that's staying, and a business you can be proud of. Let's get started. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the show. Today we're going to talk about actually what if you are not going to do anything at all? I mean, I assume if you're listening to this, you already have some kind of curiosity, but in reality, we know that plenty will just forget and will not take any action. I mean, it's quite an often discussed concept about the the ambition of implementation as a set at ITB. There is the say-do gap, the implementation gap, it all means the same thing. People are thinking about a lot of things, there's a lot of talk, but not everyone is ready to take the walk. You are waiting for a better time, like ah, not now, I'll do it later, when the when I have more time, when I have more money, or when there's more demand, and basically you keep postponing because you don't see any urgency yet to take sustainability seriously. And let me talk to you about exactly that. The issue is if you don't use your low seasons to build sustainable systems or to take sustainability seriously, and especially in the high season, continue to implement those and to test those, you're you're it's going to come back at you. And when you say we'll do it next season, you're just boring time from the future. Because as discussed in previous episodes, there is demand, there's even regulation in the EU that are affecting you being in the supply chain. It is at this point expected as the bare minimum, as a standard of running your business to do this sustainably. There's already demands to go beyond sustainability. Can you imagine that you are currently doubting if sustainability is something for you, but there's already people doing something that goes beyond sustainability? That means that you might be behind. Sorry, not sorry. Maybe this episode will be a little bit more of a half-laugh. Because the point I keep making over and over in this podcast is that sustainability is going to be the management system in your business that's solving a lot of the problems that are currently happening to you in tourism. From guest complaints to missed bookings and any high season pressure, stuff that quits after the season. There's so many. I mean, I'm I'm not gonna Yeah. Well, I do I will kind of claim it will solve a lot of it. I mean, of course, there's many reasons for this to occur, but sustainability will make at least the chances much, much less for these issues to occur. And the issue by you not taking sustainability seriously yet, that all relates to actually something my own business consultants taught me: opportunity cost. And opportunity cost is a real business cost where you make decisions all the time as you're stealing your business. You go for option A or you go for option B, or you go for this supplier, or you go for that supplier. You always make choices, and I mean we're very often wondering what if, but quite often you can make calculations for those. And opportunity cost is the cost of what it would cost you if you do not make that choice. So, what is it costing you to keep postponing sustainability and not take sustainability seriously? What are all the opportunities you at the moment are missing out on? The agents that would want to work with you, the clients that you would attract, the awards you could win, the storage you could tell, the impact you could create, and so on and so on. All the opportunities that you do not have yet, because you do not take it so seriously yet, is an opportunity cost because it is costing you all these options. And I do see this all the time that there are companies that are very actually also kind of big, that have been doing business for decades and are too stubborn to change their ways because it has worked always. Why won't it work today? And sure, they will still attract quite a healthy amount of clients, but still, slowly but slowly, they are losing specific agents that are caring big time about this thing or that are regulated, as explained in the earlier episode. And it is a big opportunity cost because if they took sustainability more seriously earlier, or even specific elements within sustainability for a specific product, then it might not have happened and they could have continued working with a specific partner. So really start looking into what is the opportunity cost that you are paying today. And to be honest, as Twino, doing something later also quite often becomes a never because it's so, so easy. And again, I recognize this with anything in life. It's so much easier to postpone something than starting something. Usually starting is the hardest. We create this big wall for ourselves with anything in life. So also with sending that first message to maybe even me to ask me for help or to apply for some certification or to read that first paper, or to just Google the term, or to ask one of your friendly businesses and your supply chain about it. Usually the first step is always the scariest, but as you also know, I mean, you are a business owner, so you've gone through all of that with your business as well. You took the leap to set up your business, to get your first clients. You already needed to make a lot of bold steps just to get where you are today, right? So it means you have the courage in you, you have the energy within you, you have done it before. So honestly, then it's kind of easy to apply that same energy to the concept of getting into sustainability, or if you believe you're already doing things right, to start getting your recognitions right so that you can make all the claims you want. So, here it's so important to not do not look for shortcuts, take this seriously, because it is will really take a break on your growth and all your opportunities. You want to keep moving and sustainability becoming the new standard of doing business. You are going to be on the hold in business if you do not join that movement. Whether you care about sustainability or you don't. And there's so many simple, easy ways to start. I mean, that's also the benefit of starting sooner than later, that you have to wait to experiment. I keep repeating that in several episodes as well. I hope that lands. For example, if you start with just running your business efficiently, I have this episode earlier in the podcast about your hidden profit number, where if you look at how to reduce your resource use from water to energy to fuel to anything, it's gonna reduce your operational bill, which means extra profit of money that should be yours. Or remember the episode about where I was jokingly telling you do a bin audit, see what's in your bin, it's a secret financial report there too, because you're paying to buy the good and you're paying to throw it away and you didn't even use it. So zero value, double the cost. There's so many ways that you can tip your toes into that world even without help, or just start reading about it, follow a creator that is writing about all of these topics. But just even today, after this episode, taking such a step, doing just one thing already moves you more forward than yesterday, and it helps you to get over that big step of starting. And again, you've done the same with your business. You easily can do this with sustainability too. When the high season is over, look at all the chaos that occurred, and you you usually do a review, but usually when you review, you only look at the amount of sales, even though sales often are made before such a high season. But look at everything that was used, how everyone, not just how everyone performed, and include it on the agenda how you can improve resource-wise as well, and any other sustainability topic that your staff or your clients have raised. You're really building some kind of operational muscle here in this new business system that is so desired, requested, and becoming default. And here to sustain something, sustainability, it's a very professional word for efficiency. The sooner you start, the sooner you will stop this leak in your inefficient way of managing your business and resources, and the sooner you can stay on your partner's preferred list, the sooner you can get your story right. All of these opportunities you're missing out of this opportunity cost. I mean, when you've already grown as a business, you have realized you already had to write documents or already you had to create systems to be sure your employees can all produce the work in the same way. You might already know more about scaling than even me in my experience, but that knowledge you could really apply to sustainability as well, because sustainability is going to help you with all of that. I just see it as an extra flavor, extra character, extra backbone, extra structure to all of the systems that already exist, and you make them stronger and better than ever before, including the new defaults that is so very much expected. So, really, my my call to you here is stop waiting, stop postponing, stop thinking a better time will come, because the best time was yesterday. Oh the best time was years ago. For the best time, you could already be too late. But the second best time is right now. And again, anytime better than later for all those opportunities that can bring you and to remain in business as well. So don't wait for your next reputation disaster, the next complaint, or till one of your agents drops you. Start slowly with it already today. And here if you are so overwhelmed, but what is my first step? I don't know, or if you believe for me it doesn't work, but I have this issue. I mean it's very normal that your brain to protect you will now come up with a lot of excuses or objections to protect yourself and to stay safe. Please throw those at me. Let me know what those are. I would love to know what is going through your mind and why you believe, but really, Savannah, for me this really does not work. Come and prove me wrong. You'll find in the show notes a booking link to my calendar, you'll find my LinkedIn, my website. Do contact me and let me know why you believe. For you it really is not gonna work. Prove me wrong, and I'm happy to be challenged and to talk with you about that. And for people with a little bit more of a positive attitude, also super happy to get you ready with your first steps and to stop losing hidden profit in resources, but also the opportunity cost, and if you're done waiting and ready to start with that same healthy energy, how you've started your business. Come on, let's go! We can do this together. Even if you just started reading content, even for that, you could follow me on LinkedIn also in the show notes. I could talk about this forever. You can clearly notice this is my passion. So thus also would love to talk about it with you. Alright, that's it for today. Until next time. Thank you for listening, and congratulations on investing your time today to think strategically about your future, to make sure you never miss a step to understand sustainability better, how to grow your competitive edge. Follow the podcast right now, and if this was helpful, please leave a five star rating. It will help other people like you to find these tools. I'm Samantha Smith, and I'll see you in the next episode.