What helped us grow our travel business (without spending on ads)

I own a small company that offers trekking and cultural tours. We work closely together and mostly help travellers from other countries who come to Nepal for the mountains and culture. We had to learn the hard way because we didn't have the money to advertise when we first started.

Getting the basics right was the most important thing at first.

It wasn't flashy or hard. Clear trip plans, honest talks about what to expect, keeping in touch with customers before they got there, and checking in with them after they left. It sounds easy, but doing it all the time made people tell their friends about us. We started getting repeat customers and referrals without having to chase them down.

Trying to be everywhere at once didn't work. At first, we thought we had to be active on every social media site, be listed in every directory, and post all the time. We were tired, our messages were all over the place, and to be honest, we weren't getting results that made the work worth it.

At the moment, I'm working on getting better at two things:

• Making a real plan for getting feedback and getting people to refer others (instead of just hoping it happens)

• We need to figure out if it's worth it to spend time on content like travel guides and blog posts, or if we should focus more on making connections and building partnerships in our area.
  

I'd love to hear from you if you own a small service business.

• What early choices or habits helped you the most?

• When you're trying to grow, how do you decide where to spend your limited time?