In this blog, Luke Western our Head of Sales & Marketing will be speaking to our Director Charles Duncombe. In the video below Charles will be discussing why we offer business planning meetings and the benefits of having this meeting before you decide to start your own online travel agency with The Holiday Franchise Company.
What is a Business Planning Meeting?
The business planning meeting is either a sit-down meeting in our head office or a virtual meeting lasting a couple of hours hosted by Charles and a member of the team at The Holiday Franchise Company.
In this meeting, you will start off by discussing what your business could look like by discussing your own personal travel experience, areas of the world you might want to sell and the types of holidays. With this information, Charles will be able to give you a commercial overview of what you have discussed including what the market is like and the predicted margin that is available for that destination or type of holiday.
Once you have decided what destinations and type of holidays you would like to focus on, we will then discuss what type of customers would purchase those holidays as well as how to market and where to market those holidays. Once we have all that information, we will be able to create a 12-month profit and loss account based on the type of destinations, types of holidays, types of customers and what marketing route you have decided on.
These 12-month profit and loss accounts will break down month by month to show your projections, this enables you to see if this is an opportunity that excites you and to see if the would-be financial rewarding for you or on the other hand isn’t and was not as much as you originally was thinking, with this projection you will be able to see if this franchise would be successful for you.
Why do we think the business planning meeting is so important?
At The Holiday Franchise Company, we find the business planning meeting so important because in any new business you should have a plan of what you’re going to do, how you’re going to do it, and hopefully how successful you’re going to be. With this plan, you get the benefit of 20 years of experience. Charles has been there, He’s done it. He’s set up his own travel business from scratch, on 6,000 pounds.
“I’m not telling you something that I haven’t been through myself, and I know how important it was for me to plan in the early days”
– Charles Duncombe
In addition to this, you will also find out what it’s like, in reality, to actually run a travel business on a day-to-day basis. What are the glamorous parts? What are the not-so-glamorous parts? How much time is it going to take when’s that time going to be taken out of your schedule? Can you do it with a second job? So it’s much more than just looking at the figures. It’s looking at the lifestyle that goes with that and for you then to work out whether that is something that fits in with what you want to do, or again, whether it’s something that, that maybe wasn’t quite what you were thinking.
What do we look for in a potential franchisee?
“We’re not asking you to be the next Richard Branson, but certainly, a real desire to want to be successful, want to continue to grow”
– Charles Duncombe
At The Holiday Franchise Company, there are a number of traits we look for in a potential franchisee first and foremost, a passion for travel. This is probably going to be your full-time employment if you like it, if you take this up. And so you’ve got to enjoy talking to people about travel, you’ve got to enjoy selling to travel. You’ve got to be inspired by those destinations around the world and really take an interest in people’s holiday plans. The second thing is a really strong sort of ethical core. If you like really wanting to do the best, really wanting to provide the best customer service because your reputation affects our reputation and vice versa. with any business, we look for a desire to be successful, a real hunger, and a real passion.
How do we ensure information is up to date & accurate?
Charles is still running a very successful travel business, he and his staff are selling holidays day in and day out, and so are they living and breathing selling travel. So they know what’s happening to the minute sometimes up to the second. They have teams of people making sure that we know what’s the latest travel news travel advice, and what are the best commercial deals in the market? Where are the best places to go? What are the latest schedule changes with airlines? I mean, there are 1,001 things, but luckily we’re, we’re a company of over 150 people.
In the Holiday Franchise Company, we also have a dedicated training portal where they can go on and back-office systems where they can see the latest information and we also have head office support as well with dedicated people, just to our franchisees to make sure that they are up to date up to speed with everything, and that they’re providing the best possible advice to their customers.
If you found this blog useful and would like to find out more information about how you can start an online travel business with us, then please use the link below to schedule a call with Luke Western.
