In Home Based Travel Agent Part Six we analyze the ingredients that make for a successful Home Based Travel Agent..
Everyone is different and each of us travels his or her own
road to success, but over the years (and in a thoroughly
unscientific way) I have noticed a number of qualities that
make for success in the home based travel agency business.
Here then are some observations about just a few qualities
that successful agents bring to the table when they start
out...
If you are not already a home based agent, the very fact that
you are reading this mini-course suggests that you like to
arm yourself with all the information available before making
a decision.
I regularly hear from agents who signed up with the first
agency that caught their eye.
Now they regret it and wonder
if I can point them in the right direction.
I explain to them
(hopefully with a certain amount of patience) that I cannot
make decisions for them.
The host agency that´s right for me
might be wrong for them.
And vice versa.
You see, part of
doing your homework is doing it yourself, not having someone
else do it for you.
The thing many beginners (especially those with no real
experience of being in business for themselves) fail to
understand is that the sellers of business opportunities are
just that – sellers.
Just as the car dealer won´t volunteer
that the car you have your eye on sits at the bottom of the
"Consumer Reports" safety rankings, the ads for a host agency
offer won´t volunteer the downsides of their offer or reveal
that a better deal is being offered by someone else.
Please understand, I am not saying these people are being
dishonest.
They are simply putting the best face on what they
have to offer.
That´s simply what sellers do.
When you start
selling travel, you´ll do it too. I´m sure that if you are
considering starting a home travel agency you have visited at
least several sites offering such business opportunities and
I´m also sure you understand what I´m talking about.
My approach is fundamentally different.
I do not sell a
business opportunity.
The value the Home Based Travel Agent
Resource Center and my home study course bring to the market
is to provide unfiltered and unbiased information about how
the business REALLY works and the MANY, MANY different
avenues open to you.
For example, very few host agencies go
out of their way to point out that in many cases you do not
have to share commissions with them.
I am free to tell you
that and explain when it´s appropriate to deal directly with
suppliers and how to go about doing it.
And whatever the
topic I try to be evenhanded in explaining the pros AND the
cons of pursuing any particular strategy.
If you do your homework properly, you will be in a far better
position to make informed decisions about how to set up and
grow your business.
Or you can always do what I did: learn by
trial and error.
Take it from me, losing a few thousand
dollars by making a "dumb beginner´s" mistake is a powerful
incentive to do it right next time!
This principle applies not just in the start-up phase of your
business, but throughout your business career.
If you want to
sell cruises, learn the cruise business inside out.
If you
want to sell the Caribbean, visit the islands and the
resorts, poke your nose into all the hotels, go to the
seminars offered by the tourist authorities and the
suppliers.
With this kind of in depth analysis, you can be
sure of offering the best product mix for both your market
and your bottom line.
DO YOUR HOMEWORK!
If you do your homework, you will start your home travel agency business with few illusions. Another problem beginners have is that they are dazzled by all the pretty pictures in the host agency ads. "Be a travel agent," they seem to say and you´ll spend your life strolling on a white sand beach with your significant other." Well, maybe. Sometimes. I go out of my way to let people in on the dirty little secret of being a home based travel agent. It´s a business. It´s a job. It means actually doing some (brace yourself) WORK!
If you haven´t read Lesson Five, "Five Good Reasons NOT To Be
A Home Based Travel Agent," do yourself a favor and read it
now.
Yes those great deals and those special moments exist.
I have
cruised free to exotic ports and I have stayed in luxury
hotels for motel prices.
I also show people how to do the
same sort of thing, whether it´s a $299 cruise as part of
their continuing education or a bona-fide fam trip (familiarization trip).
But to
paraphrase the old TV ad, "Home based travel agents get their
perks the old-fashioned way: They EARN them!"
You are what you eat, they say. Well you are also what you
sell. If you wind up selling a lot of cheap airfare, that´s
what you´ll get a reputation for doing whether you like it or
not.
I have noticed that successful home travel agents go into the
business with a clear idea of what they want their business
to look like.
This mostly has to do with specialization but
other factors are involved as well.
The home based agent who says, "I offer high-end diving
expeditions to the Caribbean" is more likely to make a go of
it than the agent who says "I sell travel; where do you want
to go?"
As I explain in the home study course, being a home-based travel agent is not like being a storefront agent in a different location. (It can be but it does not have to be and, in my view, it should not be.) Once the fundamental differences between the two sink in, a whole range of possibilities open up.
This part of the start-up process is actually a lot of fun
because it starts with big, no-limits dreaming followed by a
period of rational analysis.
If you are just starting out,
take the time to envision your dream business.
You can pull
some of the elements out of the clear blue sky, but be sure
to balance your dreaming with your own experience.
Ask
yourself questions like:
Why do I love travel?
What first got me excited about
traveling?
What´s my favorite destination?
Where have I
always dreamed of going?
What are my favorite activities
(walking, museums, tennis, golf, etc.)?
This is just a start;
I offer many more suggestions in the course.
The point is
that, if you have been drawn to this business out of a love
for travel, your ideal travel business probably already
exists inside you, just waiting to be discovered, developed,
and defined.
The young mother who has experienced the frustrations of
getting good advice for family vacations will have a better
chance of succeeding as a specialist in family travel than in
selling very expensive opera tours to Italy.
That´s just one
example. What´s YOUR example?
Obviously, there are other aspects to planning a business.
Just because I have only discussed one of them here doesn´t
mean you shouldn´t think through all aspects of your travel-
business-to-be.
The more and the better you think it through,
the better your odds of making a go of it.
helping you do
that is just part of what my home study course is all about.
Someone calls it "the paralysis of analysis," the danger that
you´ll spend so much time thinking and planning that you´ll
never actually DO anything.
At some point (and as screamingly obvious as it sounds), you
have to do something to enjoy success.
If you are already up
and running as an agent, that could mean making the leap of
faith to promote that pricey African safari without being
100% sure you can pull it off.
To be successful you can´t be afraid of failure.
You must do
your homework (see above) and do everything you can to insure
success, but ultimately every promotion carries some risk of
failure.
Chances are that even if you don´t fill up all the
slots, you´ll fill some.
And suppliers know that not every
promotion succeeds.
If they see you are actively doing the
right things, they will be supportive and willing to work
with you again.
If you are just starting out, that leap of faith could be
ordering the home study course and arming yourself with
information that could take you years to amass otherwise.
If
you´d like to do that, visit
Home Travel Agency
But, please, please, please reread Lesson Five ("Five Good
Reasons NOT To Be A Home Based Travel Agent") first.
I have
the best money-back guarantee in the business, far better
than anything offered by business opportunities that cost
many hundreds of dollars more than my course.
But nothing
saddens me more than people who return the materials saying,
"I did not realize how much work was involved."
These are people who clearly would like to work at home, make
some money, and derive some personal satisfaction, but with
that kind of attitude, the cards are stacked against them no
matter what they try.
There is only one entity in the
universe that can make something from nothing.
It ain´t me.
And it ain´t you.
I hope you have enjoyed this mini-course in becoming a home based travel agent and I look forward to having you as one of my thousands of satisfied students.
This mini-course on becoming a home based travel agent is
brought to you by the Home Based Travel Agent Resource Center
and The Intrepid Traveler , publisher of a comprehensive home
study course for home based travel agents.
Copyright ©Kelly Monaghan
For more information, visit:
Home Travel Agency
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