5 Ways YOU Can Create Opportunity for Yourself

September 20, 2012

5 Ways YOU can Create Opportunity for Yourself.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done to generate a travel selling opportunity? Here are some of mine that are all legal, fun and relatively easy to bring off. 1. Placing a business card in as many in-flight magazines on my flight as I made my way to my seat. 2. Having my buddy Mike ask me to call a list of corporate account prospects – which I did, like this: “Hi, this is Steve Crowhurst, Mike T. asked me to call you this morning.” 3. Standing on a street corner and asking people about their travel experiences. Now let’s get to the 5 Ways YOU can create opportunity for yourself.

1. Read the local newspaper and pick out keywords that are related to travel, such as “a group of,” “new company opening,” “Miss X is the top sales person for.” I call this reading between the lines and it’s one my top New Business Generator (NBG) techniques. After reading the local press, you should have at least one to five new leads. They could be a company name and address, a website to explore, a person’s name, title and email, or contact information for a local association. Any and all such leads give you the opportunity to make a call to handle the corporate travel, the association’s next out-of-town meeting or an incentive program for the company promoting their top sales person.

2. Break through the email clutter with voice emails: This takes some setting up so best you check out the how-to guide here. Imagine this is how it would unfold. Your client, or prospect, is at their desk, sipping coffee, running through their emails, and as they highlight your email you are instantly talking to them out of their computer speakers. Others might be listening in if the office is open plan. Leave it there. Read the guide.

3. Start vlogging as soon as possible: Use your webcam, have a chat to the camera and pitch something interesting. For example, if you’ve just returned from a fam trip or vacation talk it up, mention three wonderful things you did there, then stop and invite your vlog watching audience to click, call or come in. Video blogging is the new blog. Most people today want the full multi-media experience versus reading through pages of text. Start your new YouTube channel. Use a business name and keep your video content focused on your travels and lead your audience to your website where they can find out more.

4. Mugshot marketing: You will be a star once your face is recognized as the community travel agent. Include your image in your emails and most certainly on your home page. If you are in an agency with a window, place a 4’ x 6’ poster of you riding a camel, hiking to the peak, looking dapper in Paris sipping a brew at a street café. You will be saying, look, I’m doing what I’m telling you to do!

5. Press releases: This is one of the most overlooked NBGs in the travel trade. So few travel agents write and send press releases to uncover and discover new opportunities. Learn how to write them and how to get them printed. If you write an interesting article, it will get printed, not necessarily on your timing, but as and when it suits the newspaper, magazine, blog or whoever you sent your press release to. I know it works, and in my workshops I’ve received validations from attendees who have received cruise groups from one press release they sent many times. Perseverance is the key.

Think creatively. Have some fun with your marketing. Step out. Step up. There are literally fifty leads a day buzzing around you, right there in front of you, sitting next to you, serving you. Just before the freezing kicks in at the dentist, you have enough time to mumble, “So doc… do you suffer from vacation plaque? I can help you with that!”

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