You can listen directly here. 

After a long expedition, the primary source of business education for passionate mobile travel agents has finally arrived! In this debut episode, Ros shares her personal journey (transitioning from corporate to building her own business) and how she envisions to help travel agents increase their business acumen. She also teases what the podcast has in store for knowledge-hungry travel professionals. Listen in to get the finer details.

Show Transcription:

Announcer: Welcome to Travel Agent Achievers! The place to learn how to grow your travel business and have fun with it. Join Roslyn and her guests as they walk you through proven steps to a fulfilling and profitable business. 

Roslyn Ranse: Hey, guys, it's Ros! Welcome to Travel Agent Achievers.

The podcast is finally here! It’s all come to life and something that I have certainly been wanting to put together for several years now. 

No time like the present and let's get down to it! 

I wanted to explain what this is all about. Travel Agent Achievers podcast is a podcast for travel agents, travel counselors, travel consultants, travel managers, those of you that are working from home or in an office. 

This is just for you. If you love to be able to create memorable travel experiences for your clients, but you're stuck or you need ideas for other areas of the business. That's why I'm here just for you. So over the last 10 years, I've been a mobile travel agent. I guess I came from a slightly different angle than those that normally would become a mobile agent. And the reason for this is that I come from a corporate sales and marketing background. 

From my experience, most work-from-home mobile agents here in Australia have worked in the industry for many years and they want or need a sea change. 

They want the flexibility to work, how they want to work with who they want and to have the opportunity to be at home with young kids, always families or really just have the flexibility to work whenever they want. 

Now in my experience, I've worked in international education. I've also worked in hotels. I've worked in recruitment and there's a little pride to actually getting into travel. I decided to become a travel agent because I was always asked about travel where to stay, what to do, what to see where to go. It was a really natural choice for me to jump in, to travel from international education, and I also just wanted to come home. I was on the road for 6 to 9 months of the year. 

I was promoting Australia as a destination to study, and I decided to take the leap and forever thankful to the host agency that allowed me the opportunity to dive in as I just didn't want to go and work in a store. I wanted the flexibility to be at home, and it allowed me to do that, which I absolutely loved. 

Now when I became an agent, I knew sales and marketing. That was my background. I knew finance. I knew geography, but I had to learn the systems and processes in travel. And this is very different for those that have already been in the travel industry for many years and decide to become a mobile agent. So I struggled not necessarily struggled, but I really was challenged by how complex Galileo, Sabre, Amadeus was, and that was my hurdle. Suppliers were the fun part of building relationships and negotiations. I was absolutely in my element, and I still am. 

Over the years, I've come to know several agents who know that stuff as well, and they love their clients. But sometimes they struggle with the business side of things. So you’re already a travel agent, you know how to book travel. But when it comes to running a business as a mobile travel agent, that's where the challenge I have seen is. 

So how to get clients?

What is marketing?

How do I talk to people on Facebook? 

What is Instagram all about? 

What're these new things, Snapchat and Twitter? And how does that all work? 

Finance and accounting? 

Managing your own Books, setting up a business? 

And why do you need to do so? 

A lot of consultants really struggle with these things. But then I've also taken it to the next step in setting up systems to make my job a lot easier and also outsourcing some tasks that aren't necessary that I need to do in the day to day basis. Because I know where my strengths lie. That is in talking with clients, building relationships with suppliers, getting some of the tasks actually done the things that can be outsourced. 

No, I love all of this stuff, and with my background, I've been able to build a business that I absolutely love, and I've created jobs for many other people. I've also spent probably over the last seven years with business coaches, and I still today love learning. I am often at a business conference. I'm often networking people such as Dale Beaumont here in Australia, Amy Porterfield in the U. S., Chris Docker, Jasmine Star, Pat Flynn. I absolutely love learning from these business gurus and I also love learning from my colleagues and suppliers. 

My clients are also the biggest form of learning, and especially with their feedback, I'm always continuously updating my own knowledge. Now today we are in a changing environment, and as travel agents, it's imperative that we stay head off, or at least amongst the current trends. 

Now, I'm sure you'd agree with this that there are challenges that we face day-to-day, and I'm not going to deny that. But I think that there are things that we can do to stay abreast of these and stay ahead of them in a lot of ways. Now, just so you know, I don't assume or attest to say that I know everything, I absolutely don't. But I do know where to get information. 

I have the determination and the courage to speak up and I learn and I want to help share with you everything that I know and that's one of the things that this podcast is for to help you grow your business. My goal is to help you become a savvy sales and marketing expert, building strength and your travel business. But to do it in a smart way, I want to help you feel confident that you are going to drop the ball on a missed ticket or payment, setting up some structures and systems that you know what and how to speak to your ideal client and also nurture and build relationships that are going to strengthen your business from many years to come. 

I am like you. 

I am very normal. 

I am a mom. 

I'm a housekeeper. 

I am a wife. 

I look after everything at home as well as all my clients. And most cases actually put everybody else first before myself. And this is something that I'm going to be working on for sure. But it's just who I am and at the core is that I just want to help. I want to be able to help you as a travel agent, as a travel consultant. 

Now, you know travel and I'm not here to teach you about suppliers and what they have to sell. I'm assuming you really know these guys. However, I'm here to help you with the business side 

of things. We as travel agents, We love travel, and if systems sales and marketing finance are all confusing to you then I'm here to help. 

I'm going to bring in experts who know this sort of stuff. Make sure they break it down into actionable chunks and you're going to be able to learn and use each episode in your business and life. 

Now, we aren't all about work and I do want to have some fun with this podcast too. So let's do this! I look forward to connecting with you, supporting you, empowering you to run a travel business that you absolutely love and working with you and being a part of your travel business journey. I'd love to hear from you, so make sure you check out travelagentachievers.com for tons of free information, downloads, checklists, pdf worksheets, things that are going to help you on your journey. 

And also don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. Be notified of new episodes. I'd love to hear from you. 

Please connect with me on Facebook, on Instagram at Travel Agent Achievers or reach out by email. You’ll find all the details on the website travelagentachievers.com and I look forward to speaking with you again. Very soon!

Announcer: Welcome to Travel Agent Achievers! The place to learn how to grow your travel business and have fun with it. Join Roslyn and her guests as they walk you through proven steps to a fulfilling and profitable business.