The Unyielding Pursuit of a Travel Entrepreneur--Lessons From Evie Robbie
We first brought you Evita Robinson's feature interview to introduce you to the Nomadness Travel Tribe, TV series, and movement. Today we bring you juicy, profound, and practical advice from Evie Robbie--a list of insights that she picked up through the challenges and bumps in the road--trust her that it wasn't all glamour and adventure. For a community to grow and thrive as Nomadness has, the leadership had to be inclusive, forward thinking, and continuously churning out new ideas to follow the needs and desires of its membership. Evie explains her greatest lessons learned, how she fostered a groundbreaking world movement, and how she keeps her head on straight. What I love most about her insights is that it's applicable to any industry of work. Read on!
You can't do it yourself. Build a Captain Planet-like team!
The high council is the business end of the Nomadness Travel Tribe. Right now it's five people. We're the business end of everything, whether it's a trip coordination, to a tech guru, to the person helping me with research, to the person who helps with community outreach, everybody plays a part and was picked because of what they were naturally doing in the Tribe. There was a skill set that I'm weak at that they are strong in, and that's important.
My team has been amazing at helping me build the brand, manage the Tribe, manage the trips, and keep my sanity at the same time. I need my crew that I can spaz out to and I know that it stays in a safe space. We just all let it out, and we always feel better after.
Listen to your community, and your community will reward you.
We really listen to the Tribe and see where they would like to go on trips, and we start researching. I'm kind of obsessed with Airbnb at this time, because we don't stay at hotels. There's a family vibe in the Tribe, which is really the catalyst for folks wanting to meet offline for Meetups. It really augments in size whenever it comes to the Nomadness trips. I am big on finding a dope place. We find places that are reasonably priced, but we really zone in on the lodging. we want to bring almost a VIP experience to the average traveler within the Tribe, because Nomadness is a lifestyle brand. Our trips are pretty cheap. We haven't had a trip go over $400 for the lodging costs for a week wherever we are. We stay in some of the most beautiful places that they've ever been to in their life. We really pick the members' brains, start looking for lodging, start contacting these places, and set up the backend to get everybody there. The trips are announced by surprise. I give teasers out and from there we open up, and it's on a first come, first pay basis. The trips have become almost contest-like to even get into them. They sell out extremely fast. Our last two trips that we announced were to Rio in February, and India in March. We announced them at our one year anniversary party, and the place went crazy. We opened up buying the next day, and we actually sold out of India in 15 minutes, and Rio in 30. It's crazy.
Just get off your ass and START.
I don't really have blocks. I just start. I find with more and more people that I know that that's the hardest thing for them. You've got to just start. You can perfect it along the way. I always say the biggest disease that people suffer from is analysis paralysis, where they will sit there and analyze something and they don't move. I think the majority of humans walking this earth probably deal with this. Luckily I'm a risk taker. I'm also an Aries, and a very type-A personality, and we kind of jump head first and think later so I think it's very good that I'm at the head of this, because there is not something at the head of this that is going to think it to death. I have people on my team who are more analytical than me, and they are like, "Let's see how realistic this is." It's always about finding that middle ground, but I am by far the biggest thinker and the quickest jumper out of my entire team, and I like it that way. If it messes up, it comes back on me, and it will be alright at the end of the day anyways.
How to truly listen to constructive criticism and use it to your advantage.
I approach all disappointments as lessons. It's important to get feedback. It's important to get constructive criticism. I think one of the hardest lessons that I've had to learn this year is how to navigate a ton of opinions. Each member may have a different idea of what they want to see the Tribe turn into, and that may not be entirely aligned 100% with everything that we want to do, but there's got to be a forum in which you can hear back from the people to receive criticism. The key is to still keeping it so you're still in the position where you execute it, and it's still yours. I think finding that middle ground, and listening to people but not necessarily internalizing everything is good. Once you start internalizing everything and letting it get underneath your skin, you're going to start tweaks based on every elses' vision of your idea except for your own. That can be a very dangerous and damaging place to be in. It's important to get thick skin, and learn to deal with constructive criticism.
Getting through adversity means moving through it.
I had a particular experience this year that was very rough to deal with. The approach that the person used to get their point across was mean. It wasn't constructive, it wasn't divied out from a place of love and appreciation. It was just somebody spewing negative anecdotes all at one time, and it was very hard to handle especially because I considered that person close to me. There has been some rearrangements. You have to move with the ebb and flow. You have to be real with yourself. If something doesn't feel right in your gut, you got to trust your instincts and move with that. You have to figure out why. It's not going to be pretty. Friendships might end. I've had friendships made and end this year and that's just real. But you have to keep to the integrity of your vision and yourself. That's a big thing, especially for women because we're the more emotional oriented species. I may be sitting there and have to be super stern on a business email and I may be crying reading it. It happened at least twice this year. You have to play that fine line, and just be open to fucking up. You have to be open to falling on your face a little bit, and picking it up and have a sense of humor about it, and allow yourself the cushion to be able to know that you're learning. That's the biggest thing because I'm a perfectionist. We're doing a bunch of firsts, not just within ourselves, but within the entire industry. We're innovative. With that sometimes you're just going to fuck up, and you're just going to have to roll with it and fix it.
Figure out your priorities, and be honest about what they are.
My business is always first, because that's my child. Messing with it is literally the equivalent of somebody fucking with my child. I was actually in a relationship earlier this year. That ended by the summertime. What I found so funny about us interacting with one another was that he's also an entrepreneur. We used to defer our arguments if it affected our work at that time, and argue about it later.
You have to have people around you who get that. It is unorthodox. One of the things I say, and personal relationship-wise, the person that I get married to must be an entrepreneur. It doesn't have to be their all, but I want that passion, and I want them to have ownership of something. Those are the unwritten and unspoken values that you both share innately because you're cut from the same cloth.
Business is very much like a religion actually. If you want to talk about something that you have to have faith in, you have to bet everything on yourself, especially when you don't have much to give except for your idea, and your work ethic--that's faith.
Balance your physical, emotional, spiritual life with your business.
I run back home and cuddle under my mother every few months. It's funny because where I grew up Poughkeepsie, I used to be like "this place is so wack." Now as an adult, I'm really grateful for the place that I grew up, because I can get on a Metro North train and an hour and a half later, I am in a place that's just quiet. It's a safe haven that is a big balance for me. When I need to freak out and scream and cry and get it all out, my mother is the person that I turn to, but my team is also there.
Find a sustainable stress reliever!
I have to make sure that I take care of myself and get enough sleep. I have to work out. When I get a big stress build up, I'm one of those people where I'm just functioning off of pure unadulterated energy, and I need that release in a positive way. I can always tell when I'm teetering. I'm actually in this space right now because of the insane deadlines I've had recently, but I need to get back into working out. It's the biggest thing that keeps my mind and body sharp and helps release me. My sleep is better when I work out. That's a big thing for me. Also I'm a huge journal writer. Gosh, I just started my 17th journal. I have the last decade of my life on paper. That's my therapy.
Keep believing, and have faith against all odds.
It’s interesting because we’re at that cusp. We’re at that point where everything is getting ready to blow. And I know it. And when you know it, it’s like ,“Damn, let me just be able to pay my rent this month.” I’m having these meetings with people who are professional investors, run things like hedge funds. Mind you, I’m not a business-person. I preface all of my meetings by saying, “I’m a creative that had an idea and moved on it. And it’s really cool, and it’s taken off.” I said, I am learning the business aspect of this along the way. Yesterday I just filed my first sales tax quarterly return. I said, “This is crazy.” But all of these things are just affirmations and confirmations that we’re going in the right place and the right way.
I haven’t heard one person, professional or not, say that this is a bad idea, or “you should really reroute.” If anything, I run into people who say, “Damn, I wish I could give you advice, but you are like ten steps of ahead of anything that I could tell you. Just keep going.”
Don't accept gifts from just anybody. Sometimes a gift is a burden.
Everybody says that my biggest issue with Nomadness as we look into funders and investors is not IF we’re going to get the money, it’s who we get it from. It’s almost worse to take money from the wrong investor than not getting the money at all. For Nomadness, I need someone who is going to be passive, give me the money and let me figure this out. We don’t need somebody who wants to to be part of every move and who we need to get clearance from to do anything. We need somebody who already entrusts in me and the vision of Nomadness.
Don't be an overzealous, undirected sales person.
These meetings that I’ve been having with people, I’m not pitching them. We talk about it, but I’m not pitching them. That’s the thing about me. I don’t want the second time that you’re meeting me in your life, to be me trying to sell you on something. Get to know me. I want that person 100% comfortable. You don’t go out on your first date with somebody and ask them for a million dollars. You have to have a sense of foreplay with the people that you want on your corner. And you have to let them know who they are.
Finessing relationships genuinely.
I actually got pretty pissed yesterday because I wrote something about the conversation that I had with this guy and somebody had commented on my Facebook page, and they had commented and said, “Success is only when they write the check." I was just like, you are missing out on a complete facet of building relationships. I really wanted to go in on this dude. If you do not feel or think that getting large amounts of money is not directly influenced by the relationships that you have with people, you’re insane. You are insane! That’s essentially what I really wanted to put in colorful language on my page to this dude. I’m like, “If I don’t know you, I’m not handing you two million dollars.” Flip the page, and if somebody is asking you for that money, what do you want to know about them? You want to know THEM. Not just their business or what they’re selling. That’s something that I think people disconnect on that they should really pay attention to. Sure it’s about who you know, but it’s also about getting to the guts of who you are, and being okay with that.
Keep living passionately, and the right folks will come to you!
I met with an investor last night, who was a really cool guy. The conversation went from professional to candid very quickly. He told me, “You have a way of making people do shit.” He’s like, “You got me to drive all the way from where I live to come meet you, and I only met you for 5 minutes a couple of days ago.” He just looked at me at the end of it and said, “You’re going to get everything that you want. Absolutely everything that you’ve put out here, you’re going to get."
Advice by Evita Robinson, compiled by Boyuan Gao
