You
probably already knew that besides being colleagues and business partners, we
are also husband and wife! What you may not know, however, is that we are also
IATA card carrying, home-based travel specialists. We've been booking travel
for over 12 years! How did this happen? Initially by accident, then by design. We were sending our associates out on projects all over the globe. One day, having just booked travel for over a dozen trips, we decided that we should get compensated for our hours of research and labor. A neighbor, whom we knew was a travel agent, explained to us the notion of home-based travel agents. In retrospect, we believe it was a precursor to the Uber or Lyft concept of today. We signed on with our neighbor's host agency and received their documentation and a list of training dates. Let us say that we were less than impressed with their documents, handbooks, training materials, tools and website. After attending our first training session, we were convinced the agency needed help.
What to do? Look elsewhere? We did some investigation, only to discover that the agency with which we had signed up was actually a lot better than most. The owner/director was a true SME with over 40 years of travel expertise. His core staff was made up of wonderful travel experts who knew their content areas. They were always available to assist agents. Unfortunately, they knew very little about how to help motivated individuals (many of them professionals like us) learn and perform. As we were excited about gaining more knowledge and capability about travel and they obviously needed help, why not offer to help improve their performance?
A marriage made in heaven. They were eager to clean up their act. We were enthusiastic about taking on this new project. We overhauled their documentation, improved recruitment procedures and radically transformed their training. In recompense, we received neat travel perks.
Fast forward to today and here we are highly engaged in the travel world. We receive live training four times a year, attend annual conferences, take on-line courses to obtain certifications of all kinds and, most importantly, we combine travel pleasure with our professional work. We have roamed the planet through a variety of travel adventures. We have met wonderful people, many of whom have become friends who come to visit and stay or travel with us and who, in turn have invited us to spend time with them in their parts of the world.
Our desire to improve our own business performance led us to improve another's. It has also been a great opportunity to break away from our normal work pressures. We always return from our trips refreshed and inspired. Travel, which had always been part of our work life, has now become a stimulating hobby and a continuous opportunity for renewal.