Well, things went pretty much as predicted last month and by the time I got on a plane for my Mexico City FAM, I was exhausted. But I had a good chunk of the rest of my year all lined up. So, that made me feel better.
Mexico was awesome… but exhausting. The highlight of the trip was a sunrise balloon flight over Teotihuacan, a pyramid complex so old no one really knows who built it. It had been abandoned for centuries when the Aztecs first discovered it.
Mexico City itself was awesome: The history. The traffic. The culture. The traffic. The food. The traffic. Despite spending too much time in buses in traffic, it was a great 4 days. I am happy to report the streak continues – I have still never had a bad meal in Mexico. This was a gastronomy oriented FAM trip, and every place we ate was better than the last. If you have any foodie clients, I’d seriously consider sending them there.
And since then, let’s see… sales are definitely slowing down, although I am keeping busy with all the bookings we made in the 1st quarter. Some of my new IC’s are showing signs of becoming great agents. I’m alternating between putting together a great presentation for CruiseWorld, and putting together a great exhibit. Not sure how I thought I should (or could) do both.
On another note, the kids are back in school, so I do have that few hours a day back to work on everything.
The presentation topic for CruiseWorld is going to be Relationship Marketing thru Social Media. While this is something I have always grasped intuitively (the idea that keeping customers is cheaper and easier than making new ones all the time), I’ve never spent a lot of time breaking it down. This is one of the reasons I love to teach and train—and why I suggest everyone try it. The best way to learn something (or get better at it) is to try to teach it to someone else. It forces you to analyze EXACTLY what you do, and why. It also forces you to see things you’ve missed all these years, because you were “good enough” at it. By laying it out in digestible chunks for an audience, you get a grip on each step in the process, so you become not only better, but more efficient. I can’t say if anyone else will benefit from my presentation (though I certainly hope so), it has already made me a better travel agent.
And with that, I shall sign off for this month. I am on my way to deepen some client relationships.
Dave Holman is a Partner at Bridges & Holman Worldwide Travel, based out of Southern California, with 9 years experience in the travel industry. He will draw on his past experience as a serial entrepreneur, as well as his time as a hosted agent at Coral Sands Travel and Expedia Cruise Ship Centers/OVC, as he builds and manages his (relatively) new Host Agency. You can contact Dave via his website at www.holmantravel.com, or better yet, through his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/DaveHolmanTravel.
