Peter Freeman Talks About Tourism, Tools, and Task Delegation

Introducing Peter Freeman… Again

Peter Freeman is no stranger to the WP Elevation podcast. He first made an appearance back in episode 36. He joined Troy in this latest episode – the first one ever filmed live in the Silence Is Golden studio – to talk about his experience as the Director of Digital at an Australia-based tourism marketing agency. (How is that for a niche?)

Why Tourism Marketing?

Woof Media didn’t initially begin life as a tourism marketing agency. The fact of the matter is, being located in a big tourist area like Port Lincoln is what really set them on that path towards niching down as they attracted more and more tourism clients.

Peter (his business partner) and Naomi (the founder of Woof Media) had to make a decision when Peter decided to move to Canada. They met with a business advisor, took a look at their client list at the time (which was about 70% tourism clients), and talked about who it was they really wanted to work for.

It ended up being resoundingly in favour of tourism.

In addition to knowing the industry very well – having done so much work for it over the years – they found it was actually quite easy to find clients in the space. Tourism conferences alone proved to be a great opportunity to network.

The highly specific niche they’ve carved out for themselves has made them the clear choice over other marketing agencies that work as generalists or really haven’t taken the time to understand the unique needs of tourism marketing. As Peter explained:

“We know and live the same challenges as our clients. We make it our job to understand what the industry looks like from their perspective.”

Tools to Manage a Distributed Team and Clients

Peter now works from Canada while his business partner is in Adelaide and their support personnel are located in Port Lincoln. Needless to say, communication tools play a big part in their operational success. Here are some of the ones they can’t live without:

• Google Apps
• Adobe Creative Suite
• Zoom
• Slack
• WORK[etc]

Not only have these tools proven to be effective in bridging the physical gaps between team members, but they’ve proven useful in terms of client communication too. In fact, these tools have become yet another way in which Woof Media adds value to clients’ lives, introducing yet more solutions that work for the tourism industry.

Accept That You’re Not Excellent at Everything

The #1 piece of advice Peter would give himself five years ago?

“Don’t try to do it all yourself.”

When your business is brand new, of course, you’re reluctant to delegate work to others. This is your baby and you want to coddle it for as long as you can. But there comes a point where delegation is no longer optional.

For Peter, he knew it was time when things started to break, projects were taking longer, and he was having more “I’m sorry” conversations with clients.

Sure, delegating tasks to others costs money… and it can be frustrating and even a little nerve-wracking leaving parts of your business in others’ hands. But the time you spend trying to learn a new skill can be costly and frustrating, too. If your attention is best directed at higher value tasks (as Peter learned once he began to delegate), why wait to do it?

Wrap-Up

It’s always a pleasure talking to our Elevators about their unique experiences in business. Peter’s perspective from the Australian tourism marketing space is certainly an interesting one to learn about – especially in person.

P.S. We’ve created a 10% discount code for the listeners of the WPE podcast. Simply add the code GOELEVATE upon payment of the Blueprint course. The deal is valid until the 21st September 2018.