The good news (and I guess coincidentally also the bad news) is, you’re not doing anything wrong. Normal questing and quick progression through reputations usually slows down/stops at some stage during honored, after which you’ll need to complete repeatable content to progress further.
If you do your world quests daily, and complete the emissary when it’s up it should take a few weeks to grind the rep to exalted.
There’s a handful of things that you can do to speed up your progress with this, but they’re unfortunately time-bound, so aren’t always active: Darkmoon Faire Buffs: You have a buff you can get there for a 10% rep gain boost. The next time this is up is on Jan 3rd, so this coming Sunday. World Quest Bonus Event: A week-long buff that increses rep gained from world quests by 50%. The next one is up on Wednesday, Jan 13th.
Wowhead has a rep guide for Zandalari, which still is accurate for the most part, although it was written back when this content was still current and some references speak of lvl 120 etc.:
Zandalar also has some side-quest hubs that are sometimes missed, as they don’t naturally tie into the story progress. The guide above lists these out too, but here is a direct link to the section.
I hope this helps, but shoutout if anything else needs clarifying
Rep isn’t an issue anymore while trying to get the Zandalari Trolls. I just did as much a sstoryline as possible and after Tides of Vengeance I got to do a relativey short questline and got them.
Funny story is that I also got a Maghar Orc storyline and got them as well to play.
