Starting a successful travel business: the things I wish I knew!

If I was starting a travel business all over again today what would I do differently?

In this new environment, post-pandemic, the travel business is changing drastically. With the advent of travel shutdowns and other issues, travel agents have been in greater need than ever before. After 25 years of being in the travel industry as a travel agent and running my award-winning travel agency, I feel like I have some unique insights to support you in 2022 and beyond in your travel agency.

Ditch the DIY

Trying to figure out everything on your own, when you don’t know what you’re doing in the first place is a recipe for disaster. Think about it this way, you wouldn’t bake Aunt Sally’s famous chocolate cake without her recipe in hand. You’d just end up feeling lost and frustrated with the cake not coming out as good as you hoped.

Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s in the midwest, paycheck to paycheck, I always found myself trying to find the least expensive or cheapest option. If I couldn’t find it, I’d resort to doing it myself and navigating the frustration of reverse engineering how someone else did it. The thing is “good enough” is actually not “good enough.”

When you’re trying to be a business owner or entrepreneur, DIY-ing everything ends up costing you way more time than if you had invested in resources and education at the start. You can’t beat your head against a wall and expect a different result.

Looking back, I realize, had I never hired the person, invested in the program, completed the course, or what have you – I never would have grown as an entrepreneur and person.

If you continue DIY-ing, your business will always be on a hobby level and will take forever to scale. So ditch the “DIY” and treat your business like an actual business, your future self will thank you for it.

Play it Bigger, Sooner

For a majority of my life, I’m always had a limiting belief that a travel business can only go so far. This kept my travel business at hobby level unintentionally due this negative mindset and the things I believed.

Instead of believing it wasn’t possible, I wish I would have stopped wasting time and money on what didn’t actually work and put it toward what would work, help me grow, help my business grow, and ultimately lead me to my goals quicker.

My limiting belief was causing me to play it small in my own life, and I’ve now discovered that in order to grow your business, you need to put in the work.

Stop Wasting my Most Valuable Commodity – Time

You can always make more money, but you can never make more time. The loss of time is so much more devastating than loss of money, as I look back and regret not investing in my business sooner and saving myself hours and years trying to reverse engineer things for myself.

Do it right sooner and do it faster.

That’s one of my biggest takeaways of going through the trials and journey from DIY-ing to investing and running a successful, growing business.

The cost of years of your life is more than a cost of a program that will save you time and effort. More than not, you can make back the money you invest within weeks, but the thing is, you’ll then have the tools you need to know to keep making money moving forward.

Cyndi Williams gives an insight into what she would do differently had she been starting a travel business all over again.

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