Swinging at curve balls | Travel Research Online

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Swinging at curve balls

When life hands you lemons; the adage says you make lemonade. You swing at a curve ball. But let’s be real here for a moment. When you get lemons, sometimes you just want to wallow in a pity party. But then, you need to pick yourself up again, reinvent yourself, and carry on. It’s called entrepreneurship and it is what we do. Let me explain.

While on one hand, I am the eternal optimist. There is always a bright side. On the other hand, I am always waiting for the other proverbial shoe to drop. Maybe that is simply cautiously optimistic. In any event, that is likely the reason I have always tried to have (at the risk of sounding too MLMish) multiple streams of income. When I had my retail agencies, I also wrote for MSNBC. When I sold them and concentrated on my retained niche agency, I began to write for TRO (love it). The smaller, re-invented agency came with a smaller income, so I did some marketing consulting for local businesses in my hometown. Eventually that morphed into a community website that sees some ad revenue. And from there, about 2 years ago, I added a radio aspect to the gig as a co-host of a local morning show. It was ideal. I could go in at 5am and be ready to start my “real work” around 10am. It did not impede on my travel business and actually enabled me to utilize the airwaves to market it to a small degree. And that came to a screeching halt on Friday when I was told they were changing the format of the morning show. Disappointment set in. I enjoyed it a lot. But…

Without sounding like a whiner, ever since I got into the travel business in 1996, disappointment has always been right around the corner. I came into the industry and commissions disappeared for airlines. But we re-invented ourselves and carried on. Terror and war happened, and we re-invented ourselves and carried on. SARS, Noro-Virus, Anthrax, Ebola, hurricanes, earthquakes, labor unrest—we see it all, and as consummate entrepreneurs and professionals, we re-invent and carry on.

My latest setback further cements my notion that we need to always be evolving and looking forward. Michael Batt, Founder and Chairman of Travel Leaders Group has always said, “if you’re not growing, you’re dying,” and that is as true today as it was 20 years ago. So tomorrow, I launch a travel podcast geared to single parents. Podcasting is a growing medium and I am going to jump on that bandwagon and give it a ride.

While I am not sure of the format, I suspect it will be a combination of solo discussion of tips and tricks, discussions with clients of some trips they have taken, and of course discussions of trips we are taking with different suppliers. I can paint a photo with images on my website and in my email broadcasts, and now I can offer an aural representation of who we are! Tomorrow is day-one and I will figure out the format and style, so stay tuned! Hopefully it will generate some more revenue—after all my kid’s college tuition is not going to pay itself!

Is anyone else podcasting? How have you looked to re-invent yourself after a setback? I am open for suggestions and all ears!

 

 

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