Home Based Travel Agent Basics: Mini-Course - Part 5
Home based travel agent mini-course: Part 5: Five Good Reasons NOT To Become A
Home-Based Travel Agent.
Who should get into the travel
agent game?
Becoming a Home-Based Travel
Agent, Part 5: Five Good Reasons NOT To Become A Home-Based Travel Agent
If this is all sounding too good to be true, I know exactly how you feel. I felt
the same way. In fact, I still feel that way. Part of me keeps wondering when
I'll find "the catch."
So far there doesn't seem to be
one. But if what you've read on this site has pumped you up too much so far,
perhaps it's time to bring you down to earth a bit.
If there is a catch to the new travel game, it's letting your goals outstrip
your gumption.
Another way of saying that is
you've got to determine, first, what you want out of your travel business
and, second, if you have what it takes in terms of skills, time, commitment, and
whatever to get it.
So the first step is top get
clear on your goals. As I mentioned in
Part Three, there are any number of ways to go: "There are home-based travel
agents who earn pin money, home-based travel agents who earn a tidy part-time
income, home-based travel agents who bring down a substantial middle-class
income, and home-based travel agents who earn six-figure incomes."
My advice is to restrain yourself
from being over-ambitious or over-optimistic.
If you set realistic, reachable
goals , you can always "up the ante" later and be joyful in doing so. On the
other hand, if you have unrealistic goals,
it can be very disheartening to have to scale them back.
The next step is to determine whether you have what it takes to reach your
goals, whatever they may be. To help guide your thinking as you ponder
whether you want o proceed and perhaps purchase my
home-study
course, let me share some thoughts that may help you put all this in
perspective:
**This is no get-rich-quick scheme.
Those who make large sums of money selling travel work very hard and earn every
penny.
How much money a person makes and
how hard they have to work to make it, varies from person to person. Some people
have more time to devote to their travel business than others. Some have more
drive and determination than others. Some folks are natural salespeople; others
will
have to work harder to hone their skills. It may sound like a cliché, but how
much money you make is up to you.
I certainly can't predict how much
you'll make, but I can guarantee you that if you think you can make a small
fortune working just a half hour a day while watching television, you'll be
disappointed.
**It's a business.
The statistics tell us that the majority of new businesses fail in a year or
two. There's no reason to expect that your travel business won’t meet the same
fate. The saving grace is that, if you follow my strategies, you will not lose
more money than you can afford in a failed venture. Also, if you decide being
independent is not for you, you should have enough of a track record to make you
an attractive employee for a local agency. It's quite possible to use my
strategies knowing you'll earn just a few hundred dollars a year. If that's fine
for you, then everything's okay.
Of course, you can also seek to
make selling travel a moneymaker. And that's fine, too.
**It's a service business.
Whatever else you are selling, you are selling customer satisfaction. If you
have never worked in a setting in which you had to "please the public," you may
be surprised at how much people will expect from you and how readily they'll
blame you for things over which you have no control.
Believe me, if the toilet in the
luxury hotel in Nairobi backs up and overflows, it's your fault!
**Things go wrong.
Most people who go into business have at least some bad experiences. I certainly
can't guarantee that you won't have some of your own. You may just accept
problems as a natural part of life. I think that's a healthy attitude.
On the other hand, you may decide
that the kinds of problems that tend to come up in this business aren't worth
whatever you're getting
out of it. So be it. For those who are truly serious, my home study course
discusses in depth some of the things that can go amiss and some ways you can
protect yourself.
**It involves selling.
No matter how glamorous travel may be, to make real money at it you have to
sell. That means looking for new customers, finding out what their travel needs
are, presenting them with attractive options, answering their questions, dealing
with their objections, and, above all, asking them to part with their
hard-earned money.
I happen to have a background in sales and marketing. In fact, over the years I
have trained hundreds of salespeople in a variety of industries. I know from
experience that selling is a skill and that like any skill it can be learned.
I also know from experience that
not everyone is cut out for selling. It's not so much that they can't, it's just
that, for whatever reason, they find out they don't enjoy it that much. You may
be one of those people.
Above all, here are no guarantees. I can show you every trick in the book (and I
do!), but ultimately the only one who can guarantee your success is you.
Now that we’ve eliminated the faint of heart,
we’re ready for the last part of this mini-course in which we’ll discuss the
secrets of
successful home-based travel agents
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