I am coming up to my one-year anniversary at the Holiday Franchise Company – in that time I’ve been lucky enough to train and help lots of wonderful people launch their travel businesses. Everyone of which has been different, I’ve trained individuals, partnerships, couples – even entire teams! This has ranged from adventure travel specialists all the way up to concierge travel focusing on super high-net-worth clients.
In the last year I have given plenty of tips and advice, some of which I thought would be worth sharing. So low and behold – please find below some Do’s and Don’ts for the training process at the Holiday Franchise Company.
DO Take Your Time
Starting your new travel business is incredibly exciting and often franchisees are very keen to launch as quickly as possible. I totally understand this, but this set-up time is so important – and it’s time that you simply don’t get again. When you launch you want to focus on sales, you will get enquiries and you want to be focusing as much as possible on turning these enquiries into bookings. Therefore, it’s imperative that you use your set-up time to ensure your website is perfect, that your marketing channels are all set up and ensure you’ve understood the systems and processes.
DON’T Try and Sell Everywhere
As tempting as it is to offer everything from a bespoke private tour around Patagonia to a beach break in Zanzibar, the best approach is often to focus on what you know and specialise in that – especially if you are new to the industry. Every time you deal with an enquiry you will be learning but if one day you have an enquiry to Australia, then the next day you are looking at Brazil, and then Japan – you are jumping around the world and it’s harder to learn. It’s better to sell what you know to start with, learn the systems/ suppliers etc and build your confidence. Usually, we recommend franchisees start with a few key areas depending on their knowledge, what they are passionate about, and the market.
DO Have a Balance
Our training is completely flexible and tailored to you. Many of franchisees start their business whilst they are still employed in other roles. Whilst it’s challenging and requires brilliant time management skills – it is possible to do both. You do need a work/ life balance though and it is essential you have time for yourself- whether that’s a hobby, fitness or time with the family. You can’t expect to be able work constantly, things like writing copy for your website require you be in the certain frame of mind – writers block is perfectly normal!
We have partnered with the mental wellbeing organisation Everymind, who offer tailored wellbeing support through content such as training, webinars and guides- to ensure you look after your mental wellbeing throughout the process – we even have live yoga!
DON’T Do It Alone
We are here to support you throughout the process, as well as the one-to-one sessions I am on hand for regular catch ups to help you in any way I can. We have an amazing support team who are there with you before and after you launch.
We already have a fantastic community of franchisees; we’d encourage our network to talk to each to other and we have built a dedicated social forum for this.
If you can also get friends and family to help you proof your website or like and share your social posts then that also really helps!
DO Follow Up
There is no point in training if it’s not followed up. After every session I will give you some post-course work. It’s really important to put the training into practice as soon as possible and not just sit on it.
For example, in our Google Ads Training I will teach you how to create a campaign from scratch – after this I’d recommended creating more as soon as possible. If you wait a month or so then you may well forget, its good to do it whilst the knowledge is fresh!
If you do forget then we have an amazing training platform – called the Journey to Success portal. On here we have thousands of bitesize lessons which include all of our core training modules. So, if you have forgotten how to do something on your website, or your Google Ads then there is always a bitesize video available to help you.
If videos aren’t your thing, we also have full training manuals which are available at the touch of a button.
So, there we are – those are my top do’s and don’ts. If you are thinking of starting a travel business, then hopefully you found this useful. I’d be more than happy to discuss this further so please do get in touch with me if you do have any questions regarding the training at the Holiday Franchise Company!
