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Building Connections
To deliver an experience
worth repeating guides need to build a connection with the participants
they are leading, the partners they work with and
connect the participants to the place they are
operating in.
Participants, partners, place
Participants: If
you are the guide it is almost impossible to exceed someone’s
expectations if they do not like you. Being likable is a
crucial key to success. To be likeable and to be able to
build any relationship you need to build credibility,
meet their needs and provide value.
Credibility: Credibility
leads to trust. When people feel you are credible they trust
you. When you are the guide building credibility entails
that you are professional, you deliver on being an expert,
are true to your word and you can meet people’s
expectations of you.
Meet their needs: If
you want people to like you, meet their needs. We all
have some basic needs that have to be met; to be
comfortable, to be warm and dry, fed and watered, to feel
safe, the feeling of being appreciated; we want to be heard
and to feel good about ourselves.
Provide them with value: To
really build relationships give the other person what they
want. When you meet people’s needs you become likable,
however to build relationship that people want to continue,
you need to provide them with value. Everyone wants
something, you have to ask yourself what’s in it for them?
What do they want?
Partners: Anyone
the guide or their participants come into contact with, is a
partner. The front desk agent at the hotel you are staying
at, the other guides you work with, the other guides that
are your competitors and the other people on the hiking
trail. These are all potentially a guide’s partners. The
more partners a guide has working with them, the greater the
chance of delivering a great experience.
By nature many professional
guides have a strong sense of independence. However great
guides know that reaching out and establishing good
relationships with their partners helps to enhance a guide’s
credibility and can help to create a sense of belonging and
connection to a place in the eyes of participants. When
people feel they belong socially, they are more likely to
want to return in the future.
Place:
It is important for people to feel a connection to the place
where the adventure is happening. The place can be a
specific location like a park or a resort or it can be a
specific environment like being on a bike or climbing on
rock.
To build a connection to the
place guides can use interpretation and storytelling to
create an appreciation for the place’s local culture and
history. To give people a sense of belonging guides can show
them the local’s experience. People often want to see and
do what the local’s do. When people feel like they fit in
and are welcome they are much more likely to want to return.
Sometimes the place is more
related to movement skills like paddling, skiing or
climbing. In this case guides will need to use skill
development, confidence building and the right pacing to
build a connection. When people succeed at something, it
makes them feel good about themselves. When people do
something they enjoy they usually want to do it again.
Adventure: This means the
overall experience including the level of risk, the place and
the overall experience that the guide is trying to achieve. It
is impossible to achieve adventure if people are unable to build
a connection with the adventure experience that the guide is
trying to deliver.
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